willysmjeeps.com

In my quest in making my own stencils and torturing myself. I finally found a font that I like for my hood numbers that resembles what I think looks standard. Unfortunalty I was not able find the actual file for the font to be able to just type it. So I have had to make a .JPG of the letters by manually assembling the number in a paint program. Anyway I was hoping someone could get me the following measurements so that I can fudge my drawing to get the spacing aproximate to where it should be.
A. Letter height
B. Space between letter and period
C. Between lines
D. Letter spacing
E. Space to bottom of hood edge
F. Overall length


I was able to find a good .TTF font file for the unit markings and what ever else I might make stencils for so if anyone wants it, I can email it. My unit markings were a roll of the dice picking so they have no meaning behind them.

Not sure if this will help you but I took these pics before I started working on the hood.

I think that Wes has a document in his gallery showing star and hood number placement for WWII through Korean War (maybe beyond) jeeps. As I recall, it includes the letter size as well.

Thanks for the pics. I'm sure the letters are 3" tall.
I know I am going to eyeball all this but any measurements help.

A. Letter height
B. Space between letter and period
C. Between lines
D. Letter spacing
E. Space to bottom of hood edge
F. Overall length

The dimensions and letter types are listed in both of the common directives. AR 850-5 and TB 746-93-1.

AR 850-5 refers to block type letters and TB 746-93-1 refers to Gothic style letters. These are one in the same and are now usually referred to as sans-serif letters.

Generally AR 850-5 covers 1941 thru 1954 and the TB picks up at 1955.

The manuals always offer options based on the available surface. They are rarely specific on measurements form edges of panels and etc.

M38's were stenciled and depending on what day of the week, or which employee or which set of stencils were used the exact location vertically or horizontally will vary.

These Willys factory lot images are your best location guide for the M38:


In this one use your dividers to compare the height of the slave receptacle bracket with the edge distance of the markings from the edges of the hood.



Download your own copies of the two pubs so you can read the fine details in them:
TB 746-93-1 can be downloaded free here:
http://www.armyradio.com/arsc/customer/ ... lletin.htm
http://vietnam.net.pl/TB746_en.htm


AR 850-5 can be downloaded free here:
http://jeepdraw.com/images/AR-850-5.pdf



References to Block style and Gothic styles are easy to google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_letters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif


Sans-serif font (without-serifs font)

Serif font

Serif font with serif's shown in red

Sans-Serif is Gothic style letters. Block and Gothic really were used by the Army to describe the same letter type which is block or printed type instead of cursive or written script type and without serifs.

You will find the most definitive sizing info on the Gothic.Block/Sans-serif letters in the AR 850-5.

A final note: You will see that centered on the available, unobstructed space on each side of the hood is not centered between the front and rear edges of the hood. It means centered in that unobstructed space.

Well, here is how everything turned out with my homemade stencils.

Nice job. I especially like the white spokes and radial all weathers. I use to get teases a bit in the 80's with my white spokes and Goodyear Wranglers on my 52 M38A1 but I never got stuck and cruised at 60 effortlessly when I was stationed at Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City SD..

Im working on replacing those actually. Deadguy Dan sold me a nice set of 5 rims a long while back that is waiting for new rubber.

I have driven both tires in the winter in SD and WI and I'll use the white spokes and radial snows always in the winter.