No film decal paper

[Bio77]

How did it turn out when the glue marks were cleaned up?

It cleaned up pretty well.  I worked it over pretty good with Q-tips and isopropanol.  The good news it that the graphic is really on there.  It didn't flake off at all.  I also didn't notice any color coming off, even with pretty vigorous rubbing.  This makes me think that the earlier enclosures you posted with the glue residue could be salvaged with some isopropanol and elbow grease.  Here's a pic I took this morning of the finished pedal:



It seems that the whole process is about the glue.  Making sure the glue is not diluted with water gives the best transfer.  Also, the glue cures with heat.  On this enclosure I left the film on and baked it for 30 minutes.  This would explain the residue. 

The enclosures I made this weekend, I just used the hair dryer for ~10 minutes and peeled off the film.  Cleaned the residue with isopropanol right away, then baked it.  Here's a pic of that enclosure (note:  it's a low resolution jpg I pulled off the web, the scratchy lines are from the graphic, not the transfer):

pretty amazing.
Is that inkjet or laser toner?

Sorry, I didn't notice your question before.  This only works with laser prints.

I really want to try this stuff and I've ordered it twice from Amazon, both times it showed up without the glue....
The listing I'm ordering from clearly states that it comes with the glue.....
Not sure if it's worth fighting with them over. Is there somewhere I can order just the glue? Or is there something else that would work just as well?

I agree with stevie1556, I don't think the paper is that special, It's the glue.  You definitely want to email them.

[stevie1556]

Bio77, that yellow one near enough looks screen printed! Looks amazing! I'll be trying the hair drier technique shortly!

I've finally got some spare time so managed to paint up a load of enclosures the other day. I'm was hoping to paint the rest of them up today but it's raining so hopefully I'll get them done Sunday morning (work and weather permitting). I'm not happy with my local printing place, they use one of the default settings on their printer for the prints, and wont let my give them a USB stick with the files on and instead want to photocopy the designs, but because I've only got plain printer paper, it loses some of the quality. I've found a 4 colour Samsung laser printer quite cheap so I'm tempted to get that and then be able to experiment at home more easily.

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[Bio77]

Bio77, that yellow one near enough looks screen printed! Looks amazing! I'll be trying the hair drier technique shortly!

I've finally got some spare time so managed to paint up a load of enclosures the other day. I'm was hoping to paint the rest of them up today but it's raining so hopefully I'll get them done Sunday morning (work and weather permitting). I'm not happy with my local printing place, they use one of the default settings on their printer for the prints, and wont let my give them a USB stick with the files on and instead want to photocopy the designs, but because I've only got plain printer paper, it loses some of the quality. I've found a 4 colour Samsung laser printer quite cheap so I'm tempted to get that and then be able to experiment at home more easily.

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Hi Stevie,
Good luck with the transfers.  I had some bad luck with my last transfer to an expensive Mammoth enclosure.  I'm convinced the powder coat material is very important to success with this process.  The good news is I have a ~95% success rate with the Tayda boxes, and they are the cheapest. 

I invested in a color laser printer a few years back.  I got a Dell, but I'm not sure they sell it anymore.  Mine was ~$250-$300 if I recall.  It's been a great investment.  With the whole family printing, I was buying an ink jet printer about once a year.  Whatever printer you get, you should check the availability/price of the toner cartages.  The model I got has knock off cartages available, which means I can replace them for ~$40. 

[stevie1556]

Now you've said about the type of powder maybe being an issue, I'm a bit worried. I've got no idea on the powder that I'm using as a few years ago, I phoned a powder coating place asking if they wouldn't mind selling me 1kg of powder (I figured it would be cheaper then ordering it online). The owner told me they has a massive pile of powders loaded up onto crates that they were throwing out and I was welcome to help myself. Managed to grab around about 400kg of powder for the cost of some beers as a thank you, the only issue is I've got no information on what type of powder that it is, only the colour! Hopefully the powder works fine with the labels!

For the printer, I'll be using my Epson inkjet for the normal every day printing stuff, and the laser for labels only I think, so hopefully the toner cost shouldn't be an issue. The printer is £130, genuine cartridges cost about £50 each so it would be cheaper to buy another printer! It's crazy! There are compatible ones that are much cheaper though, but if I use it just to print the labels on, hopefully it will be ok cost wise. I'm thinking this way I'll be able to adjust the settings easily to get the best label quality possible. Like I said in a previous post, my local printing place isn't that good and charge me £2 a sheet, so the costs soon mount up there!

The weather is looking good for tomorrow so I'm hoping to be able to finish painting up all the enclosures then, and then get on with labelling them during the week.

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