Need some help with stencil buffer.

I have been designing a object outlining method for my home-grown game engine.  I thought the stencil buffer would do it , but I have having problems with the results. I have been trying to make outlines that are always visible through all surfaces and do not join together.  The method I designed is like many I have seen on the web , where you render to the stencil buffer writing 1's in buffer , then scale the object up and only render a outline colour to where the stencil is 0. That approach does not work on anything but a edge …