My toner transfer enclosure

[gbkd80]

Just thought I would share a pic of my first attempt at a laser toner transfer on an aluminum enclosure:



I didn't take any gut shots, but this is basically just a re-housed AM Sun Face that I cobbled together using parts from a unit with a cracked case, and I thought it would be fun to try out the transfer.

I did the layout in Photoshop; it's not lined up as close as I wanted it but I also made the mistake of drilling out the box before I did the layout, so I had to do it the hard way and take measurements etc.  As for getting the stuff to stick to the enclosure, I made sure I sanded it down really well because this box was pitted pretty bad and I was able to smooth it out for the most part.  I used the backing paper from Avery address labels, printed on a cheap HP Laserjet printer I've had for years, using 600dpi and Transparency for the paper setting so that basically the fuser doesn't heat up as hot making the toner easier to come off.

And just a side note, after trying gloss photo paper and Press N' Peel for my PCB etching, I found that the Avery backing paper also works better than both of those with almost no damage to the traces on lift-off.  You don't have to soak the board or anything.  I just iron it out for a couple minutes with a piece of paper towel over the label and when I'm done I just lift a corner of the paper with another piece of paper and slowly just lift it off and all my traces are intact.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The PNP paper does work well but I still had damaged traces after ironing using the same equipment and PCB materials.  Gloss photo paper, forget it.  Maybe just gloss paper would work ok, but now that I found the Avery label backing works so well, it's cheap enough to just waste the labels.  It also occurred to me as I was writing this that the paper is basically wax paper with a backing, so I also wonder how well some of that Reynolds freezer paper would work...*

Anyway just wanted to share that.  I did several coats of polyurethane over it just to protect the toner, but I need to research better what type of clearcoat to use because I don't think poly is the right thing to use on these.

EDIT: not sure why my whole post turned into a Flickr link.  Very strange.  Formatting is correct...

[karbomusic]

That looks great. Nice job.

How does one acquire "Avery backing" paper? I wonder if that is a similar thing to what Pulsar/Fab-in-a-Box uses.

[gbkd80]

That looks great. Nice job.

How does one acquire "Avery backing" paper? I wonder if that is a similar thing to what Pulsar/Fab-in-a-Box uses.

Thanks

You buy Avery mailing address labels (I happened to have the clear ones on hand) and then just peel them all off, toss them, and use the backing paper

The way I see it, is even if I'm wasting the labels, it's still way cheaper to buy that than Press n' Peel... at least for these home-brew jobs..

[deadastronaut]

nice 1st etch...

[gbkd80]

nice 1st etch...

Thanks!  Not technically an etch though... just a toner transfer stuck to a box 

[deadastronaut]

ahhh you cheat , ive done that too on quickie boxes...works great.

nice easy way to get lettering/pic done....a hint of clear and sorted..

[PRR]

> Formatting is correct...

Flickr gave you a URL with the IMG tag wrapped in a URL tag (so clicking the image brings the surfer to Flickr's site).

Somehow the end-URL tag has been dropped.

If you work fast, you can add-back the missing end-tag. Or remove the preliminary URL tag. (Fast, because you can only Edit your posts here for about a day.)

You also have an end-quote tag after your typing which is pointless, but apparently ignored.

[bluebunny]

EDIT: not sure why my whole post turned into a Flickr link.  Very strange.  Formatting is correct...

You have an opening [url] tag (and no closing [/url] tag).  The forum software sees this as a link and forgave you for omitting the closing tag.

Edit: note to self - read the whole thread before replying!  ^^ What Paul said...   

[gbkd80]

Thanks, I fixed it.  I'm clearly pretty blind...