No film decal paper

[stevie1556]

I'm going to try using your technique on them tomorrow. As I said above, your box looks fantastic!

Yeah I powder coated the enclosures myself. I'm fortunate that I can use my mum's garage or my dad's barn to do it in (and more importantly, I found out my dad has a space heater in there!). If it wasn't for that I wouldn't be able to do them as I don't have anywhere I can do it at mine.

I had a quick look at them earlier, the white ones don't seem to have any marks on them, the green ones just seem to have a tiny line where the edge of the decal was, the red ones are how they are in the pictures above. I'm going to try wiping them with vinegar tomorrow and see if that makes any difference.

I'm also wondering if it's something to do with the amount of glue that I used. It was one of the enclosures where I didn't have a paint brush to put the label on with and instead put it on with a little squeegee so was guessing the amount to use. I'm also thinking the blue enclosure didn't work properly because I just tipped glue out of the pot onto the area.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Bio77]

Just wanted to finish up my thoughts about these no film decals.  I really like the two enclosures I've made so far.  I was able to precisely drill the holes without running the risk of ruining the label.  The last one I made, I didn't apply any clear coat, and it seems durable.  From printing the decal to finished/drilled enclosure was less than 2 hours. 

[cooder]

That looks absolutely great!
Thanks to you for sharing your experience and process so indepth, very helpful and much appreciated!

[stevie1556]

That pedal looks absolutely fantastic! Loving the eyes on it.

How did you find lining up the label? I had pre-drilled holes in the enclosure, and then drill markers on the decals that I used to line it up with.

I haven't had a chance to play around with them anymore yet, I'm hoping my next lot of days off work will give me the time to do it though. Just received my new powder coating gun so I plan on spraying up a load of enclosures plus a few spare ones to carry out more tests with.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Bio77]

I put the label on before I drill.  My graphic usually has a thin dotted outline to center it on the enclosure.  I like these better than the film ones because drilling through the film sometimes ruins the label.  i thought winning these up was easier, the film is a bit thicker.

[Bio77]

n=3, turned out horrible.  I didn't get good transfer, so, I tried to to re-do the bad parts with cut outs from the main graphic.  I ended up with the stain/glue marks stevie1556 described.  I'll try to clean with acetone.  It's a shame, this was an expensive box from SB (chrome powder coat).  The only thing I did differently was I skimped on the hairdryer step, maybe that's the key??   

[Bio77]

Tried to remove stains with acetone, it took off the paint.  The paint did not come off when I used acetone on the Tayda boxes.  So, maybe the type of powder coat is important too.

[stevie1556]

Ah that's not good reading about your chrome box! Such a shame as that box would have looked amazing if it worked.

I haven't had time to do anymore testing yet, but I've got a few theories. My red boxes don't look as bad as your one, I just tried to catch the marks in the light as best as I could. I've just looked at some blue boxes that I did, and you can barely see where the decal was. Also, there are none of the water type marks on them. A lot of my powder came from a local powder coating company that was throwing out a lot of their old, out of date powder (although it was stored correctly so it's still good to use), the issue with this is there could be different types of powder that I'm using, so unfortunately I can't test the different types of powder theory. I'm going to paint up a few more scrap enclosures in the red powder and use your suggestion of the hair drier to see if that works on them. Thing is, the blue enclosures I used the same method on and they turned out as close to perfect as they could be.

After putting the decal onto the enclosure, I then just put them straight into the oven for 10 minutes, but I've had massively varying results. With the hair drier, did you take the label off when it was dry then put it in the oven, or leave the decal on when it was in oven?

I'm in the process of making a few drilling templates so I can get a bunch of enclosures drilled and then coated on my days off. I've just got my new powder coating gun, I just need to get some fittings for it then that's good to go!

[Bio77]

Not sure if it's the hair dryer.  I think the paint is the most likely culprit.  Like you said, it seemed to melt a bit in the toaster oven and didn't play nice with the glue.  The Tayda powder coat is really on there, doesn't come off with acetone.  I'm not sure what kind of powder they use.

Yes, my process with the Tayda enclosures was to use the hair dryer.  Next leave the film on and put the whole thing in the oven for 35 minutes.  Then peel off the film.  I got perfect transfer.  However this is all speculation, that bat enclosure might have been a fluke.  I'll update the thread with any new ones I do.  My next two are going to be bare metal, though.  I stripped the paint off the Rustbucket enclosure and I'm going to sand it down before re-applying.

[stevie1556]

If the cause is how different powder coats react to the glue or decal, especially where the decal papers the melt the outline into the powder coat, I may have found a potential solution. Reading the instructions again, it says to dry it use the oven, hair dryer or microwave. That to me suggests that once it's fully dry from the hair dryer, the decal can then be removed. Then it says to harden the ink it can be placed in the oven. I'm going to be trying that as well as the hair dryer should get the powder hot enough to start melting. Having said that, the powder I use cures at 180'C, but for the decals the ovens are 100'C so I thought the powder should have been ok.

*EDIT* Just watched their YouTube video again, and they dry the decal using a hair dryer, remove the decal, then place it in the oven. I'm going to be trying that.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Bio77]

I tried to remove the film right after the hairdryer step, didn't transfer.  Nice thing is, if you are careful when you peel it up, if it doesn't transfer you can lay it back down and put it in the oven.

[Bio77]

Couple more tries this weekend.  Both were bare metal.  Mixed results. 

[stevie1556]

I really like those transfers, they look great. On the bottom one I think Where it's slightly patchy makes it look better because of how the artwork looks. What I mean by that is that the patchy bits work well with it.

I've had a thought, if the hair dryer isn't that great, what about a hot air gun (like the type used for stripping paint). It will chick out a lot more heat then a hair dryer. I'll be trying that soon.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Bio77]

My plan is to re-do the Rustbucket, maybe in a few weeks.  I want to try using an iron after the hair dryer step.  I'd really like this to be reliable, it looks so nice when it works.

[stevie1556]

I agree, it looks amazing when it works well. I've attached a picture of one of my Dreamtime enclosures below, interestingly, it doesn't have any of the issues of the red enclosure despite being done exactly the same way.

My thoughts with the iron, could work really well on bare enclosures, although I wouldn't put one near a powder coated, or any type of painted one for that matter. If you redo it on a bare enclosure with the iron, I'm really interested to see the results when it's done!

I still haven't had time to paint any more enclosures up. I'll get my drilling point tutorial done in the next few days and I'll use that template to mark and drill another 15 enclosures. I would have got it finished sooner but my company have decided it's a good idea to make me work 34 hours in 3 days, 1 day on call then another 10 hour day.  The joys of working at the airport! The first template I've made is working fantastically well for 15 enclosures that I'm halfway through marking up. I'm planning on painting up a fair few scrap enclosures as well to do more testing with the decals on them.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk