Ralph over at Stencils & Stripes took care of the situation and gave me a full refund. I was sad to see that the stencils were not up to the quality I was expecting. It was just as much as a surprise to Ralph as well, and I am sure he will look into it to make sure it doesn't happen to any future customers.
I will say that even if the stencils were not defective, the directions should have been more descriptive as you really need to be quite familiar with the stripe itself to get them right. Also, why they made the fender stencil two part instead of one continuous stencil is awkward to me. I noticed that joining up the two stencils dead smack in the middle of the fender allowed for paint bleed out and had to be corrected prior to clearing. Nothing too horrible, but a one piece stencil would have cured this. Also, the DX1 hood stripe stencil being used as a door stencil makes little sense, and in the very least, they should tell you that you have to cut this stencil down to size and repull the tape to get the proper width to match up to the fender. There is no mention of this anywhere, and if I simply installed the stencils as they were, the lines would have been off. I guess they use the DX1 stencil as there really is no GM door stencil to copy from since originally, the door stripe was tape and the fender stripe was a stencil. I little re-engineering of these would make these absolutely perfect.
If you think buying the stencil kit means you don't have to worry about being precise, and all you have to do is stick them on and paint away, you would be wrong. I know there are other stencil suppliers offering the same item and I wonder if they have improved on this or not. I would like to hear from others who have bought this kit from other places.
Again, Ralph did make it right in the end, but to be honest, having to discover this issue with my Camaro in base coat, all masked up sitting in the paint booth getting ready for stripes and clear, the last thing you want is issues with your stencils. Hopefully, future stencils are improved.
