black enclosures

[darrenw.sparky]

i was wondering how some people are able to get/print white writing on black or dark enclosures.

[mth5044]

Hola,

The search function will be your friend here as its been discussed quite a few times. Two ways are screen printing and UV printing. Pedal parts plus does UV and is able to get most colors printed on any color enclosure. You can also do white sticker paper or magazine paper with the color of the enclosure printed on the paper to hide the decal paper.

[GiovannyS10]

Hey guy! mth5044 are right. But i make the "same" with adhesive. But i do not print white, i print black. Let me explain: I print an entire adhesive on a laser print with all the area from the pedal. All the adhesive is dark, but the white parts is not printed...
This pedal i made this way:

You only can see its an adhesive because i forget to remove the black contour on the adhesive, so you see the difference on the color tone.

Is not much but its my way to make it. Hope help! 

[blackieNYC]

Giovanny, could you try explaining that differently? I don't understand.
I'm not so bright, maybe type slower too 

[nosamiam]

I think he's saying one big white decal with the black part printed and the white part left unprinted so that the white color of the decal itself shows.

Is this right?

[PRR]

To print "white on black" you can use white sticker paper and black ink, reversing (negative) the image if needed.

Giovanny's build is "slightly spoiled" because he left a black edge on the sticker. Black paint and black ink never *exactly* match, and you can see it when they are adjacent. (But I can barely see it in the close-up picture, and sure would not see it on stage from eye height.) He says he could avoid that by carefully trimming-off the black edge of the sticker. There would still be a mis-match from the box paint to the black design, but with the white in between your eye would not notice.

This trick is much harder with, say, a blue box. All blacks are a little different, but "blue" covers a wider range and is harder to match; probably near-impossible without a Calibrated Monitor And Printer. A wide white (or other color) border can avoid direct side-by-side comparison of box-blue to sticker-blue. It may be best to select "different" colors so there is no "matching" to mis-match. Dark blue box, light blue sticker, with white letters.

There is clear print-stock which minimizes the background-matching issue. There are printers with white ink available, though they are not common (yellow is very common). A fancy copy/print shop may be able to help. I have done "overhead projector" clear sheets with black ink and spray-glue to put instructions on a grey box. (I printed and installed this "backward" so the ink could not be rubbed off.)

I have a 30-buck Brother Label Printer. Takes 1/2" (12mm) tape and makes letters on it. File-folders, house-wires, it is great. They make clear tape and they *may* have white letters on clear tape(*). I know they do make too-many combinations; and for my needs black on yellow or white is good enough. The main "fault" is that the printer font is very boring (but easy to read, and several sizes). If you need fancy-font printing, the $30 label maker won't do that. I know there are higher-price ones which hook to a PC and can download fonts and graphics. I always avoid such things because I expect that as Windows 95 turns to XP Win7, Win10, Win13, and iPhone Wombat 2020 OS, the drivers will be obsolete and the hardware becomes useless.

EDIT (*) TZe145 is 18mm (0.7") White on Clear tape for P-Touch.... there are at least 47 combinations of width, tape, and ink which fit P-Touch label printers. (The very cheap models do not take the very wide 3/4" 18mm tape.) There is even a "12mm Navy Blue on White Fabric Iron-on Tape" so you can put "Bob" on all your uniform shirts. (If your kid goes to camp, you need this!)

[GiovannyS10]

Yes, i think Paul said all!! I really make it! And ever works right to me. On this pedal my problem was i really forget to remove the black edge. If you not remove the edge you will can see the difference between the black tones. My advice is, make all how i said, and when finish the enclosure and make all holes, pass a little layer of spray transparent varnish.  Works so well. But not make this if you printed your adhesive on a ink jet printer, you really need to print in a laser print. Or it will stay like a blur.

For print in a color really like the enclosure color, i paint the enclosure first, scan it with my printer, go to photoshop and use the dropper tool to copy the exactly color, and you need to see the printer darken the color a bit, so, you make your pedal art on your program (photoshop, corel, gimp, etc. I use Photoshop) and when finish you increase a bit the bight of image, so when you print all will stay darken like the pedal color. Seems to difficult, but after three or four tries you will can make it with all pedals with all colors. Never forgetting to apply the varnish after.

And if your paint is bright metallic, you can add some noise in your art on photoshop, works very well. Or, if you have a compressor, you only add a little bit of aluminum pound on your transparent varnish. The result is veeeeeery good!  Really. I love the result. Unfortunately i have no one pedals here for take a pic for you. I rarely make this because i don't have a compressor. So, normally i use spray paint.

I made this sample for you see the difference between the clean color paint and the metallic paint texture i use to make my arts. I hope you enjoy it!

Here you can see, the right side seems too much a metallic paint than the left. If you use it to make an art like the pedal i posted before, will be hard to see the different between the printed area and the real pedal color. 
I hope be cleared this time!  And hope help you too.

[darrenw.sparky]

thanks guys

[nosamiam]

I'm getting ready to experiment with white rub-on transfer lettering. It's marketed toward model train folks for making signs and stuff. It seems like it will be really challenging to get letters lined up but the results could look pretty pro. I'm going for a pretty minimalist look with just control labels in white on a black pedal.