How do I stop wasting waterslide decal paper?

[xorophone]

Hello! A while back I bought some waterslide decal paper on eBay. They work great if I use an entire A4 of it in the printer, but it gets really expensive if I want to build 1 pedal and I have to waste an entire A4 of the stuff. I once tried taping a piece of it on some normal printer paper, but it got stuck in the printer. That method works great with toner transfer paper, but that stuff is a lot thinner.

Do you have any better methods or know of any really cheap or really thin decal paper? The plastic isn't too thick. The problem is the cardboard-ish backing thing. I use a laser printer.

Thanks!

[powerslide]

Every printer has the minimal media size listed in the specs. Find what is the smallest media your printer can print. Then cut up the sheets with an xacto knife. Just measure with a ruler and cut it. You don't have to 100%, but try to be as precise as possible when cutting to final dimension.

Also, set your media type to something heavier than 80g paper. I make the designs in Adobe Illustrator and print directly from it. The print options there have everything I need for this kind of job.

A few tips though. I run a guitar repair business and have done a lot of custom headstocks and I do it similarly for my pedal projects.

Leave your printed designs to dry at least 30 mins. Then I like to go over the front of the sheet ONLY (the foil side) with a quality automotive clear coat in a spray can to stiffen it up and also provide excellent UV protection. My decal paper is so thin that if you push it ever so lightly, it will curl up and you will never flatten it out again if you don't clear coat it first. Leave that to dry over night.

After I install my decals I leave that to dry for at least 10 hrs. Then I go over the whole enclosure with a couple of layers of clear coat to seal it in and give it some shine. Then wetsand it (P800->P2000) and machine buff them to eliminate decal edges and bring back the shine and flatness.

You can use whatever type of primer, base coat and final clear coat you feel the most comfortable with. Newer water-based stuff is really great and can be sprayed with a gun by any amateur at home without any hazards. But make SURE the type of clear coat you'll use for spraying your printed sheets is oil based, and a quality one - any water-based stuff will separate your decal from the backing paper. And note if you'll be using water-based clear coats for the complete final finish, the portion where the decal is located will always appear slightly lighter and more crisp, because professional oil based clear coats are much superior at refracting light than any water-based.

A simple boost doesn't take more than a day to build from scratch if you have everything on hand. But doing a proper paint job + decals will take at least two weeks with all the drying and proper final curing times that are necessary.

I like to leave my fresh projects temporarily unfinished, then when the thrills settle down, I opt to do the final finishing.

[xorophone]

Every printer has the minimal media size listed in the specs. Find what is the smallest media your printer can print. Then cut up the sheets with an xacto knife. Just measure with a ruler and cut it. You don't have to 100%, but try to be as precise as possible when cutting to final dimension.

Ah, great idea! Didn't think about that. I usually just assume they'll only print on A4.

Leave your printed designs to dry at least 30 mins. Then I like to go over the front of the sheet ONLY (the foil side) with a quality automotive clear coat in a spray can to stiffen it up and also provide excellent UV protection. My decal paper is so thin that if you push it ever so lightly, it will curl up and you will never flatten it out again if you don't clear coat it first. Leave that to dry over night.

After I install my decals I leave that to dry for at least 10 hrs. Then I go over the whole enclosure with a couple of layers of clear coat to seal it in and give it some shine. Then wetsand it (P800->P2000) and machine buff them to eliminate decal edges and bring back the shine and flatness.

You can use whatever type of primer, base coat and final clear coat you feel the most comfortable with. Newer water-based stuff is really great and can be sprayed with a gun by any amateur at home without any hazards. But make SURE the type of clear coat you'll use for spraying your printed sheets is oil based, and a quality one - any water-based stuff will separate your decal from the backing paper. And note if you'll be using water-based clear coats for the complete final finish, the portion where the decal is located will always appear slightly lighter and more crisp, because professional oil based clear coats are much superior at refracting light than any water-based.

I always spray my decals with clear coat before applying them too. I've noticed that the toner easily comes off otherwise. I've used acrylic clear coat and I'm guessing that's water based. The decal has never separated from the backing paper though and I'm guessing that might be because I tape it down on some cardboard (with the plastic side up) before I spray it. Might not be the best idea, but since it's working for me I'll continue doing that for now.

Thanks for the help, powerslide!

[davent]

To save decal paper...

Put an 'x' in the corner  of a regular piece of paper, this is your registration mark. Put the marked paper in your printer, note where the 'x' is oriented.

Print your decal art on that piece of paper.

Cut out a piece of decal paper just big enough to cover your art. Attach the decal paper to the printout page covering up the art. Just attach along the leading edge using very low tack tape, i use pieces of Avery label stickers.

Put the printout page back in the printer making sure the 'x' corner is oriented the same way as when run through the first time.

Print your decal.

I do this all the time with transparency film as well. Just cut a piece big enough to cover the art, attach and print.

dave

[xorophone]

To save decal paper...

Put an 'x' in the corner  of a regular piece of paper, this is your registration mark. Put the marked paper in your printer, note where the 'x' is oriented.

Print your decal art on that piece of paper.

Cut out a piece of decal paper just big enough to cover your art. Attach the decal paper to the printout page covering up the art. Just attach along the leading edge using very low tack tape, i use pieces of Avery label stickers.

Put the printout page back in the printer making sure the 'x' corner is oriented the same way as when run through the first time.

Print your decal.

I do this all the time with transparency film as well. Just cut a piece big enough to cover the art, attach and print.

dave

I always do that with toner transfer paper, but my waterslide decal paper is too thick and gets stuck in the printer if I do this. Which decal paper are you using?

[Kipper4]

I don't use waterslide decal but I do use A4 sized Vinyl sticker.
To save sticker paper I just replicate the design I want to print or several designs on the same sheet for future projects.
Just cut them out put them with the schematic. Mine are "kinda" neat in a plastic page holder in an A4 folder.
I think I have about 6 folders full so far.
"

[davent]

For decal paper I've used small bear's and whatever the local hobby shop has sold, and in both inkjet and laser versions. Transparencies the same deal. For printers, the  lasers have been HP's the inkjet's a Canon.

dave

[karbomusic]

Print the design on regular paper, cut a piece of waterslide to fit and tape the corners of the decal placing the unprinted decal over what you just printed and run it back through the printer using the plain paper as a carrier for the small piece of decal.

I once tried taping a piece of it on some normal printer paper, but it got stuck in the printer.

I've never had that occur.

[bluebunny]

I wait until I have four pedals ready for decoration and put all four designs on a single sheet.  No waste.  And also explains why my pedals arrive in batches!

Putting tape through a laser without something unpleasant happening is gonna depend entirely on the tape.  Unfortunately I can't give any recommendations because I'm too scared to try it out.  Having said that, I've put plenty of Avery laser labels through my printer...

[powerslide]

Guys, this isn't really too hard. Think differently. If you are able to read schematics, why not fiddle around with your printer settings?

Read the manual and see what you have got. Your printer doesn't care for media dimension as long your piece of paper is within those dimensions. The predefined standards like A-paper and B-paper is just something people that designed and built this thing did for us so we don't have to.

Take a test piece of regular paper. Cut it into a 4'' x 4'' square. Open Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketchup/Layout, Acrobat (if your design is in PDF/vector) whatever you are working with. Just don't do it from MS Paint. Go to your printing options in that exact software and set the media size to custom, then enter 4 inches for width and 4 inches for height. Open up your secondary printer feeder drawer (you can use the primary, but you'll have to remove the stack of A4's first if the printer is loaded) and use that plastic fence to adjust for width and insert your piece of square paper so that is snug and push it in gently. Most printers will automatically recognize it and align that paper gently. You might hear the motor turn just a hair. The height of the paper doesn't matter and is not physically set on the secondary feeder. Then print.

You could also go to your manufacturer's printer setup utility and set the media type there to be the driver defined media type. It is the only workaround when your software doesn't have a vast printing options dialog. But most of the things people use today for designing is capable of much more than just print options.

Paper weight is usually driver defined, so for these setting, go into your printer utility or setup panel. Mine is a wifi printer so I can access that with a browser. The heavier the paper the thicker it is. The 80g we use today is thin as the kebab wrap. But I never had to change this setting with my decal paper. And the backing is pretty thick.

Sticking a small pieces of paper on a bigger sheet to then be printed is silly. When I was still in college and had a student job at a warehouse, one old-timer had a sheet of thick A4 with four diagonal cutouts so he could insert card stock into it to make labels for EACH item that was stocked there.  Of course he had to cut the card stock into an exact dimension first, then mount it on the paper, feed the paper in and print. ONE BY ONE! I was laughing when on every 10 card, at least 3 would get stuck.

The sheets were A4. I made a table in excel that was butted on all four sides to the print margins the printer could still handle, exported all the data each label needed from SAP to excel format, set paper weight to max and started printing. I did in half an hour what would have taken that old-timer a week to complete He had used that same excel table I made that day till the day he retired and still thanks me for it.

The last pedal project I did was in a 1590B enclosure, my media was roughly the same size as the front of the box itself and I managed to squeeze on two identical design (I only use pot scale and a logo/model under the pot - so one is roughly 50% of the box).

Tell us what model of printer are you using and what design software?

[EBK]

Guys, this isn't really too hard. Think differently. If you are able to read schematics, why not fiddle around with your printer settings?

Take it easy.  There may be other technical aspects at play other than failure to RTFM or lack of effort.  For example, from smallbear:

*IMPORTANT: Laser stock must be used as soon as the printer is turned on to prevent the decal film from melting onto the fuser.

[powerslide]

Most new laser printers have an auto standby time so temperature of the fuser shouldn't be an issue.

Sorry, but the OP said he has no problems printing whole A4 sheets of decal stock. The only problem is printing on smaller pieces of decal material. He tried to tape a small piece to another sheet of paper, which in industry of printing is known as BAD.

So if whole sheets prink okay, why not cut the sheets to whatever size he wants and that the printer can still handle it and go from there?

If there's a possibility for the decal to melt under fuser temperature, then these decals are totally unsuitable for laser printing in my opinion. That disclaimer on the smallbear site is actually just copied from decalpaper.com. And if they say so, I wouldn't buy their laser decal paper.

I get my paper from a gentleman in UK who is well known in the guitar repair community for carrying real good quality paper.

[EBK]

Most new laser printers have an auto standby time so temperature of the fuser shouldn't be an issue.

If there's a possibility for the decal to melt under fuser temperature, then these decals are totally unsuitable for laser printing in my opinion. That disclaimer on the smallbear site is actually just copied from decalpaper.com. And if they say so, I wouldn't buy their laser decal paper.

Excellent points. I defer to your wisdom.   

[xorophone]

I wait until I have four pedals ready for decoration and put all four designs on a single sheet.  No waste.  And also explains why my pedals arrive in batches!

Thank you! I'll do that if everything else fails.

Tell us what model of printer are you using and what design software?

Thank you for the great reply, powerslide! I don't know the model and I can't check right now, but it's an old Canon printer. I don't know how old the model is, but I doubt it has all these automatic settings, but I'll have to try it! I design my decals in Inkscape, export them in 600dpi, open them in MS Paint (which probably isn't a good idea) and then print them in 15% scale to compensate the size increase from changing the dpi. Might not be the best way to do it, but it works ok.

The reason I use MS Paint to print is because my main computer isn't connected to the printer, so I have to print from another computer and MS Paint was the only currently installed program that offered scaling when printing. Not really related to the thread, but how do you guys do it? What software/methods do you recommend for high quality printing?

[davent]

You could print your Inkscape image to PDF and use whatever  pdf reader you have to scale for printing.

dave