Reggie
Established Member
Hi Gang, as I've now got the facility to allow me to do intricate inside cuts, I thought I'd turn my attention to patterns and fixing them to a work piece.
I see that there are many methods, the main one being printed out on any printer and then glued or taped to the work piece with lots of clear tape to help with lubricating the blade.
I saw one method that uses toner transfer to get the image onto the work, where the image is printed on a laser printer, stuck to the work piece and then some form of liquid chemical is used to transfer the toner from the paper to the work piece.
This has had me thinking for a while now, I like making stuff with electronics and have been known to etch my own PCBs in the past, we use 'toner transfer' as a method to get ink from a laser printer onto a copper clad board, except we don't use chemicals to do it, we use heat. I have just tried the PCB toner transfer method on a scrap piece of ply and it's worked quite well
Here's my method:
you will need
1x clothes iron (turn the steam setting off!!)
1x smooth piece of wood (the smoother the better)
1x laser printer (mono will do )
some sticky tape
image editing software
1. Open your pattern image in your favourite image editing software and mirror it, this is necessary as you will see in a moment
2. Print out your image with the highest quality and darkness available, make sure you set the paper type correctly too. This will get us loads of ink on the paper which will help when we come to transfer it.
3. Take your printed pattern and place it image side down onto your work piece, align it as necessary and tape it down on the back or sides of the piece, make sure none of it is at the top, otherwise it will melt and smell nasty.
4. Turn your iron on, I haven't tested different heats, I just set mine to maximum, once it's heated up, you can go ahead and start to iron the top of the work piece, I didn't time myself, so it's really going to be trial and error over how much time is enough time, 30-60 seconds should be enough but there's probably no harm in doing longer.
That's it, once you've let the work piece cool, you can take the paper off and you will see your pattern transferred directly to the work
I've only tested my theory once but the result is good enough for simple patterns, however, the piece of ply that I used wasn't particularly smooth, so the pattern is a bit grainy, the transfer is a bit thin in places too, which could probably be mitigated a lot by sanding the work before you start the transfer method and simply paying more attention to the pattern and using the tip of the iron to get more ink from the paper onto the work, of course you should be careful using the tip as you can mark your work if you push too hard!!
Despite the grain effect and the thinness of some parts of the transfer, the transfer is very accurate, it's also very simple to remove, a quick sand and the residue is gone, no need for any harsh chemicals to remove it.
The only issue I could see with this method is the heat from the iron affecting the shape of the wood, does anyone have any thoughts on that? I had a feeling that the heat might make the ply come unstuck or warp but it's absolutely fine.
I see that there are many methods, the main one being printed out on any printer and then glued or taped to the work piece with lots of clear tape to help with lubricating the blade.
I saw one method that uses toner transfer to get the image onto the work, where the image is printed on a laser printer, stuck to the work piece and then some form of liquid chemical is used to transfer the toner from the paper to the work piece.
This has had me thinking for a while now, I like making stuff with electronics and have been known to etch my own PCBs in the past, we use 'toner transfer' as a method to get ink from a laser printer onto a copper clad board, except we don't use chemicals to do it, we use heat. I have just tried the PCB toner transfer method on a scrap piece of ply and it's worked quite well
Here's my method:
you will need
1x clothes iron (turn the steam setting off!!)
1x smooth piece of wood (the smoother the better)
1x laser printer (mono will do )
some sticky tape
image editing software
1. Open your pattern image in your favourite image editing software and mirror it, this is necessary as you will see in a moment
2. Print out your image with the highest quality and darkness available, make sure you set the paper type correctly too. This will get us loads of ink on the paper which will help when we come to transfer it.
3. Take your printed pattern and place it image side down onto your work piece, align it as necessary and tape it down on the back or sides of the piece, make sure none of it is at the top, otherwise it will melt and smell nasty.
4. Turn your iron on, I haven't tested different heats, I just set mine to maximum, once it's heated up, you can go ahead and start to iron the top of the work piece, I didn't time myself, so it's really going to be trial and error over how much time is enough time, 30-60 seconds should be enough but there's probably no harm in doing longer.
That's it, once you've let the work piece cool, you can take the paper off and you will see your pattern transferred directly to the work
I've only tested my theory once but the result is good enough for simple patterns, however, the piece of ply that I used wasn't particularly smooth, so the pattern is a bit grainy, the transfer is a bit thin in places too, which could probably be mitigated a lot by sanding the work before you start the transfer method and simply paying more attention to the pattern and using the tip of the iron to get more ink from the paper onto the work, of course you should be careful using the tip as you can mark your work if you push too hard!!
Despite the grain effect and the thinness of some parts of the transfer, the transfer is very accurate, it's also very simple to remove, a quick sand and the residue is gone, no need for any harsh chemicals to remove it.
The only issue I could see with this method is the heat from the iron affecting the shape of the wood, does anyone have any thoughts on that? I had a feeling that the heat might make the ply come unstuck or warp but it's absolutely fine.
