Cheap'n'quick direct toner transfer decals

[Fancy Lime]

Hi everyone,

when doing etches I always wondered, why not just transfer the tone to the box and leave it there with a few clear coats over it. Today I finally fried this and it turned out not half bad. Here are the two examples. Both enclosure backs were wet polished and de-greased (acetone). The small one was printed with a normal office printer on normal office paper (nothing glossy or anything). The large one was printed in a copy shop on glossy paper with a professional printer. I did a cold transfer for both using a 8:3 mixture of ethanol and acetone, applying the pressure of my body weight for about 5 minutes. After that the normal paper peeled right off, taking some of the toner with it. The glossy paper had to be soaked in water and peeled of carefully. The small one was ready to coat right away, using a matte clear spray paint. The glossy paper left a whitish hue on the black toner, which I removed carefully with a sponge soaked in vinegar (10%). Washed with water, dried with a paper towel, cleaned with ethanol, let dry and spray painted the same way as the other.

The results are not breathtaking as you can probably see (please excuse my terrible cell phone cam quality) but they are not terrible either and it could be done in color, if one is so inclined. Especially the normal office paper method is super quick, cheap and easy. The contrast is not as high as with the glossy paper, it looks a bit like a cheap print (which is what it is and could be used to a nice effect with the proper design). I'm guessing fiddling with the printer settings may help, I didn't bother, just used the defaults. Using a glossy instead of a clear coat might help increase the contrast too. The glossy paper one seems to work nicely on things with relatively thin color lines or dots but large areas tend to detach easily. I tried a different design first with large black areas, they had a lot of holes in them. So detailed two-tone (aka news print) designs seem to work better with this particular method than bold ones.

Has anyone else tried this and can say something about the longevity? It does not look like the decals might detach at some point in time but who knows. The normal paper transfer is quite a thin layer with a lot of tiny pores, I'm guessing the clear coat can keep that stuck to the box easily. But the glossy paper one is more dense, which may be a disadvantage in this case. Should not be a problem as long as the lines are relatively thin, though.





So in summary: I can highly recommend the normal office transfer at least for trying. So much less hassle than etching.

Keep on rocking,
Andy

[PRR]

> decals might detach at some point

Ya know... this is Powder Coating. Plastic dust baked onto hot metal. Probably the same plastic (polystyrene). VERY rugged when done by car-guys and tool makers. I think the question is: did you get it HOT enough? They use ovens, not irons.

[roseblood11]

I built this some years ago:
http://musikding.rocks/index.php/Image/348-DbA-Supersonic-Fuzz-Gun/

[deadastronaut]

yep, ive done this too for a quickie label/decal.

toner ironed on, then clear coated. nice and easy,

however, if there are paper fibres still in the toner, when you clearcoat

it goes grey rather than black...so scrub the toner first..


the toner is quite tough, but well worth clearcoating.

[Fancy Lime]

> decals might detach at some point

Ya know... this is Powder Coating. Plastic dust baked onto hot metal. Probably the same plastic (polystyrene). VERY rugged when done by car-guys and tool makers. I think the question is: did you get it HOT enough? They use ovens, not irons.

How hot? Not! The transfer was cold, so the whole thing never saw more than room temperature. Hence my asking. But you're right, when heated this is effectively powder coating. I though about it but did not due it because I don't have a spare oven. I was wondering why I have never seen anyone use this technique on powder coated enclosures, between color base layer and clear finish. People seem to use (specialized) water slides for that. The direct transfer seem much simpler to me.

Andy

[swever]

I've tried it a couple of times but failed miserably. But I used the "heated" method. I guess the reason of my misfortune is that an iron would not heat up the enclousure well enough, although I tried leaving the iron on the enclosure for as long as 10 minutes on it's maximum temperature setting.

As a result the toner did not stick to the enclosure well enough, with large patches just stying on the paper.

Maybe I need to try the cold trasfer method. And probably baking it in oven AFTER the transfer to cure the toner. That may, in theory, even allow me leave out the clear coat (which is my dream because i can't spray paint for a number of reasons)

[Fancy Lime]

Hi Alexander,

I experimented with the hot iron method and the cold ethanol/acetone transfer and the results with the latter were much, much better. It is quicker, easier and the result preserves fine detail much better. Maybe I just did not get the ironing right, it seem to work well for others. Curing the toner after the transfer in a toaster oven or on a stove sounds like a good idea but I have not tried it yet.

If you cannot spray paint, have you considered anodizing? I always wondered if color anodizing instead of etching an painting would look good but did not want to invest in the equipment. The bare aluminium tends to dull quite fast, unfortunately. So I would give it a paint-on clear coat. Instead of anodizing, one could also metal plate the thing with the same equipment. A copper plated box, potentially tarnished afterwards... If that does not scream "classic rock", what does?

Cheers,
Andy

[samhay]

My default labelling method is to use toner transfer.

I do this with a (very) hot iron, and if I am feeling motivated, I put some form of clear or tinted coat over top. However, as it is moderately scratch resistant, I don't always bother.

(For me) to get it to work properly, the enclosure has to be sanded quite thoroughly so it is both clean and flat. If it isn't clean, the toner doesn't stick. If it isn't flat, the toner only sticks to the high points.
I use glossy paper sourced from junk mail pamphlets. This almost never seems to leave fibres, which as Rob (DA) said, don't look great after clear coating.

Why isn't it more popular? It only works AFAIK with laser printing. Until fairly recently, consumer laser printers were outside most people's budget. Even now, domestic colour laser printers are quite expensive/rare, so most of us cant do colour transfers at home - not a problem with decals printed with cheaper colour inject printers.

[Fancy Lime]

Why isn't it more popular? It only works AFAIK with laser printing. Until fairly recently, consumer laser printers were outside most people's budget. Even now, domestic colour laser printers are quite expensive/rare, so most of us cant do colour transfers at home - not a problem with decals printed with cheaper colour inject printers.

Really? I don't think I've seen an inkjet printer outside of a museum in at least 10 years. To be fair, I don't think I know anyone who owns a color printer, but b&w laser printers are about the same price as inkjets, no? I just assumed inkjets were as long gone as minidisc.

[samhay]

^Right.
So we now all have black and white laser printers. This means if we are only prepared to do toner transfers, our pedals all start to look a bit samey - black labels on aluminium, or possibly black labels on tinted aluminium.
My perusal of the pictures thread suggests most folk prefer a bit more colour, so have to use alternative methods.

[davent]

I've use a wet toner transfer method for labelling using acrylic paints and mediums but my enclosures are first painted with acrylic paints.

dave

[Fancy Lime]

^Right.
So we now all have black and white laser printers. This means if we are only prepared to do toner transfers, our pedals all start to look a bit samey - black labels on aluminium, or possibly black labels on tinted aluminium.
My perusal of the pictures thread suggests most folk prefer a bit more colour, so have to use alternative methods.

Oh, I didn't mean to advocate everybody using this method. The variety of methods with their respective quirks and possibilities is what makes this fun, isn't it? I was just curious why I have never seen a tutorial for this really simple beginner friendly method. It seems like there are people who are or have been using it and i do like the results. It looks very similar to shallow etching, which a lot of people do and has similar color limitations. But by all means people: make colorful designs if thats what you like!

@ davent
Are you using the same ethanol/acetone 8/3 mixture or something else? Would be interested if that attacks the acrylic (in a bad way).

Cheers,
Andy

[davent]

Are you using the same ethanol/acetone 8/3 mixture or something else? Would be interested if that attacks the acrylic (in a bad way).

Cheers,
Andy

This method uses only the acrylic paint or medium (essentially paint without the pigment).

In a nut shell. Print your art in reverse on regular printer paper, glue it to the painted enclosure with more paint or medium. Let it dry completely. Wet the paper and rub the paper off with your finger. Clearcoat with a compatible clear.

There's photobucket examples in here if you've got a browser fix installed.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=106302.msg961016#msg961016

dave
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=106302.msg961016#msg961016

[Fancy Lime]

Hi Dave,

that looks fantastic! As far as I can tell from the photos (always a bit difficult), the contrast seems noticeably better with your method than with mine. Have to try that. Combining stencils with toner transfer opens a lot of interesting possibilities as well. And the simplicity of acrylics is another plus.

Thanks for sharing,
Andy

[davent]

Your welcome Andy!

Old threads  i was having trouble finding go into a lot of detail of what i was experimenting with. Links to other pedal pictures as well. Picture heavy with photobucket but surprisingly i managed to write a lot down.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=100194.msg880877#msg880877

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=36392.msg876642#msg876642

Also there's youtube videos i was borrowing ideas from at the time.

dave