arg! there's gotta be a better way!

[O'malley's Alley]

Printing is getting kinda frustrating right now.  I tried the dark t-shirt transfer, and while it did make half decent stuff, I still want something more simple.  I just want something where I can have just little logo's on a sanded down enclosure, without any background but the unpainted box around it, much like how robert keeley's unpainted pedal's look.  I want to be able to do it as cheap as possible as well.  Any idea's on how I can do this and make it look good?

[yano]

if you're just talking enclosure decoration, i personally go with a brushed metal or some other "dremel" effect aluminum prepared as seen here: http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/jake/aluminumfinish.htm

Using decal stock, you can print up your own labels. I think the plain brushed metal/black text looks very professional and clean.

[O'malley's Alley]

See, I want my logo's to look basically like decal's, except without the clear background that you can see.

[bwanasonic]

One thing I have considered is having a custom rubber stamp made, and using silkscreen ink to stamp a logo onto stuff. Not sure how this would actually work out...



Kerry M

[O'malley's Alley]

hey, I was just messing around down in my labratory :wink: and I tried something that sort of worked.  I just printed out my little logo on a normal piece of paper, and then taped it down to a box with the printed side against the box.  I then spread some nail color laquer across it and rubbed it down pretty roughly with a spoon (my art teacher taught us to do this but with normal laquer to print stuff off the computer onto our art).  When I pulled up the paper, I could see that the ink did transfer to the enclosure, but not very well, but still, it was visible.  Do you think if I used stronger laquer that this would work better?

[Nasse]

Custom rubber stamp could be wonderful idea, Bwana. You can sometimes found cheap stamp set for kids in toy shop that have alphabets and numbers, but fonts are what you buy you get. But maybe some corny text would look grungey style...

There was a dirty trick once in Elektor Electronics: 1. Print your graphics with inkjet printer, use ordinary paper and black ink 2. Let dry 3. Take a piece of transparent (PVC?) adhesive foil (used to cover books etc.) peel the backing off and rub it gently over your inkjet print 4. Remove the adhesive foil from paper 5. The inkjet printed pic should have more or less transferred to the transparent foil, and you can apply it where wanted.

[gez]

Cutting mat, scapel and some card and you can make some stencils.  Make a few that are generic - vol, tone etc - and you could re-use them.  Laminate the card with 'Fablon' (Sticky back plastic) and you'll get more life out of the stencil.

I've just bought some white fablon to run through the printer (the back is gridded so you can cut it into A4 sheets) as an alternative to T-shirt transfer.  Will be at least a month till I try it (tied up with PCBs at the moment) but I'll report back when I do.  I intend to print off a label to cover the surface of the box, but you could print your design onto a sheet, stick it to some card and then cut round the print with a scapel to get your stencil.

Just a thought...

[gez]

PS  You can buy transparent Fablon.  You could print (I'm assuming you can print onto this stuff by the way!) your lettering onto it then cut it out and slap it on the box.

[spongebob]

What's working very well for me is the following:

Get yourself some self-adhesive deco foil like this:


Print the mirrored image of your logo on an ordinary sheet of paper.

Now cut out a piece of foil and attach it with some tape on the paper so it covers the logo, this way you can print the logo on the paper back of the foil.

Use some really sharp scalpel for cutting out the letters, this is the most tedious part of the whole procedure!

Looks really nice when applied on a blank sanded aluminium box (plus some layers of hi gloss transparent spray paint).

[smoguzbenjamin]

I haven't tried this method yet, but here's an idea. Take an A4-sized piece of stickyback (you know, adhesive see-through stuff) and print your pedal graphics out on that, then cover the entire front of the pedal with that. That way you won't see the whole decal outline thing. Not sure about the sides though... :?

[1wahfreak]

I haven't tried this method yet, but here's an idea. Take an A4-sized piece of stickyback (you know, adhesive see-through stuff) and print your pedal graphics out on that, then cover the entire front of the pedal with that. That way you won't see the whole decal outline thing. Not sure about the sides though...

I'm going to try that method in a few days. On  my last two boxes I used  black decal stock to cut out the letters and apply them to the box. This time I'll cut a piece the same size as the top of the box, then using a presision knife cutter at work, I'll cut out the letters. Only now I apply the entire piece to the box, this will allow the brushed/polished aluminum silver to show through the areas that were cut. So basically it will be a black box with brushed aluminum lettering. The sides will be a little trickier. But with a little thought and design work I can make a design where the sides will fold over the edges also. If this method works well, I could concievably start screen printing on the decal stock. But IMHO that is way too messy for home use.
I might be better off going to my local digital printer and have them print on decal stock for me. That way I have access to all colors and designs, including halftones and other more difficult printing procedures. Just a thought....

[smoguzbenjamin]

You could also cut out the letters you print out on the stickyback, and only stick on the letters. You'd have to be pretty careful though

[O'malley's Alley]

What's working very well for me is the following:

Get yourself some self-adhesive deco foil like this:


Print the mirrored image of your logo on an ordinary sheet of paper.

Now cut out a piece of foil and attach it with some tape on the paper so it covers the logo, this way you can print the logo on the paper back of the foil.

Use some really sharp scalpel for cutting out the letters, this is the most tedious part of the whole procedure!

Looks really nice when applied on a blank sanded aluminium box (plus some layers of hi gloss transparent spray paint).

this would work great for me, except the fact that my logo's arent just plain font, I played with them and made them really cool looking on photoshop, and I was hoping that was how I could have it on the enclousre.

[O'malley's Alley]

I tried doing that method I posted above today with this gibson clear laquer pen, and it actually worked alright.  I only spooned it down for about a minute, and it was kind of weak looking, but I bet if I did it longer it would look pretty good.

[Tim Escobedo]

I recall someone doing something similar using a laser printer and acetone. This was used to transfer graphics to a PVC pipe. It involved printing a mirror image with a laser printer on paper (I don't recall if it was a specific type), placing it on the surface and wiping the paper firmly with acetone, which would remove the toner from the paper onto the PVC surface.

[Tim Escobedo]

Ah Ha! Found it!

http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmiller3/flutes/methods.html about halfway down the page, "Xerographic Toner Transfers" Wonder how well it works on aluminum?

[puretube]

...it comes to my mind, that we used to try to transfer (make copies of) pics from music-magazines to plain paper about 35 years ago.

At that time there was a spray on the market, that you sprayed onto the backside of the magazine-page (which lay flat on the blank paper),
and wipe over that with a sponge.
You had a mirror-image of your fav. pop-star (no copy-machines available at that time!), with the little drawback, that the magazine-page
was a little bit transparent after the procedure...

IIRC, the stuff smelled like felt-tipped pens, but was not sticky like lacquers.