UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > General Vintage Technology > Hints, Tips and Solutions (Do NOT post requests for help here)

Notices

Hints, Tips and Solutions (Do NOT post requests for help here) If you have any useful general hints and tips for vintage technology repair and restoration, please share them here. PLEASE DO NOT POST REQUESTS FOR HELP HERE!

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 15th Dec 2009, 1:09 pm   #21
JimMac53
Hexode
 
JimMac53's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Naples, Florida, USA
Posts: 255
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Here is some useful information about using the Alps printers to make water slide transfers (or decals as the US calls them).

http://www.jcrocket.com/alpsdecals.shtml
__________________
Jim Mac
JimMac53 is offline  
Old 15th Dec 2009, 1:41 pm   #22
Retired
Heptode
 
Retired's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield. UK.
Posts: 673
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi,

Many thanks Alan for the information and web link; it makes interesting reading. I note your Alps printer works by printing one colour at a time pulling the paper back whilst the print head swaps to the next cartridge.

An unusual feature is the "new finish cartridge" which applies a glossy lacquer on top of graphics and photographic output; how neat is this for what I'm trying to achieve as it would possibly save having to spray with lacquer to seal the ink before immersing into water.

Thanks also Jim for another brilliant website showing how decals are produced using the Alps printer; I've saved both websites to CD.

I've spent the morning looking at various printers on the web but the Alps printer is ideal so I'll try to obtain one. What a fantastic forum for information and help. Thanks again, Col.
Retired is offline  
Old 15th Dec 2009, 1:51 pm   #23
AlanBeckett
Rest in Peace
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Burton upon Trent, East Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 1,686
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Col,
Yes, it is fairly alarming to watch it printing. In fact it's difficult to believe at first that it will manage to keep everything properly aligned, but it does. I do have a 'Finish' cartridge. I don't know what they cost now, but this one was a pretty fierce price a few years ago, but we wanted it for a special job. The attraction was the 'dry' printing - you really can get the prints wet and they don't smudge. I'll have a play with the Ubuntu drivers and see what sense there is to them.
Alan
AlanBeckett is offline  
Old 15th Dec 2009, 3:05 pm   #24
JimMac53
Hexode
 
JimMac53's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Naples, Florida, USA
Posts: 255
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

In addition to checking for an Alps printer, look for an OKI DP 5000. Looks like Alps may have sold the rights to the Alps printer to Oki. But my searches for an Oki were no more successful than for an Alps.
__________________
Jim Mac
JimMac53 is offline  
Old 15th Dec 2009, 5:21 pm   #25
Mike Phelan
Dekatron
 
Mike Phelan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Near Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Posts: 4,609
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

A fellow member and myself tried to print waterslide transfers with his Oki DP5000, but it ended up as a smudgy mess.
I was using inkjet film, so possibly laser film might have been OK. A point to watch?
__________________
Mike.
Mike Phelan is offline  
Old 15th Dec 2009, 6:40 pm   #26
Retired
Heptode
 
Retired's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield. UK.
Posts: 673
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi,

Firstly I would like to offer my most sincere thanks to Radio Dave; David has just kept his promise and sent me beautiful graphics of Marconi transfers which I'm adding to CD as I certainly don't want to lose them.

It will be very interesting Alan to see how you get on with the printer. Following your's and Jim's advice I've spent most of the day searching for an Alps printer and read quite a few reviews all of which praise this Alps printer very highly.

You are right Jim both the Alps MD5000 and the Oki DP5000 are virtually identical printers. I did find a review on the Oki DP5000 under "Mac user" and the printer was quoted at £439. I haven't managed to find an example of either for sale second hand so presume the owners must be highly delighted and hang onto them.

Before retirement I worked in a despatch department and we used OKI printers to produce pallet labels; these printers never broke down and produced many thousands of labels; the labels were supplied in large boxes in the form of continuous stationery; they printed in black only but lasted ages before requiring a new cartridge.

Thanks Mike for the tip off it could save me wasting transfer paper and is a warning to print a single page off first.

I'm surprised how many websites now describe how to make transfers (decals) as it's only a few years ago I couldn't even find a site selling the water slide transfer paper whilst surfing the web.

The transfer paper I bought has now been despatched to me so hopefully it will arrive shortly.

Thanks everyone, Col.
Retired is offline  
Old 17th Dec 2009, 5:17 pm   #27
Retired
Heptode
 
Retired's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield. UK.
Posts: 673
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi,

The “White” waterslide transfer paper arrived a couple of days ago enabling me to experiment a bit.

The Marconi logos kindly e-mailed to me by David (Radio Dave) worked beautifully. I downloaded Corel Draw Graphics Suite X4 and easily added 28 of these logos onto a single A4 page. I put a complete new set of ink cartridges into my Epsom DX 8400 printer and ran a test page off using cheap copy paper. This worked so I then ran a page of white water slide transfer paper through the printer and was very pleased with the result. The gold colour came out as a muddy yellow but it looks quite good and only a Marconi expert could tell the difference. Due to the way this printer works there is a slight variation due to bands as the page is printed but unless viewed close up I don’t see this as problem.

David also kindly sent me four more Marconi logos; two of these are totally lacking the gold colour and these gave me the idea of printing them out on clear water slide transfer paper; seal the ink with acrylic spray then cut out the transfer when dry. I’ve not tried it but wondered if the transfer could then be attached to a sheet of Gold Leaf then the completed transfer could be attached to the radio with a suitable adhesive?

I’ve now got two sheets of Marconi transfers and if I can’t improve on them will happily use them on my radios; I need to spray them first to seal the ink but given the bit of time I’ve been working on transfers I’m delighted with progress so far.

Whilst surfing the web I came across two more very interesting sites; the first is; http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/a...stomDecals.htm
This site covers making decals in detail using an Alps printer but contains other very useful information such as using “Microsoft Paint” for the graphics together with the very basic old fashioned way of drawing and colouring by hand then scanning. The site is well written and worth a read.

The second site is; http://www.lazertran.com/products/la...cts_inkjet.htm
This site sells a waterslide paper that doesn’t require the ink to be sealed once printed; a further bonus is that the transfer paper is also supplied in A3 size which would be of real benefit to people like Robert G for use to print his A22 dials onto as the dials could be printed in one go without recourse to joining two pages together.

Making transfers/decals is proving interesting and I’ve e-mailed Crafty Computer Paper to ask if they can suggest any way of printing metallic colours onto transfers. I also found a site suggesting using an empty black printer cartridge filling it with gold coloured ink?

I also considered sending the graphics to a firm in China to enquire if they could print in bulk then I could sell some to cover my costs; this way I wouldn’t be worried about buying transfer paper; ink; printer or the printer upkeep. This is fun.

Regards, Col.
Retired is offline  
Old 3rd Mar 2010, 5:51 pm   #28
Retired
Heptode
 
Retired's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield. UK.
Posts: 673
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi,
It's a while since I added anything to this thread so here's an update.

I've received a great deal of help from members who have very kindly supplied me graphics for use in producing water slide transfers and very much appreciate this.

I've been spending time searching for thinner gauge water slide transfer material and have found a site in America offering two gauges.

I hope the mods will allow this but I’ve been experimenting with a new approach to applying logos to cabinets. I was intrigued to learn Alps printers only print one colour per pass and as the paper is pulled back a new colour cartridge is selected. This got me thinking and I wondered if I could duplicate this action manually.

I lay awake in bed one night thinking about this and came up with the idea of rubber stamping. I had seen Bron many times use rubber stamps to add decoration to the cards she likes to make. I thought if I could find a way of applying colours individually; directly to the cabinet it would eliminate the need for both expensive printer and transfer paper; also the thickness of the transfer would no longer be a problem.

Radio Dave has been absolutely brilliant and supplied me three individual drawings of a Bush logo; these drawings are of the same logo but as the Bush logo has three colours each drawing was for a single colour and at my request David added a very accurate rectangle around each drawing for indexing purposes.

Unsure where to start I purchased two sheets of lino together with roller and lino cutting tools. I printed the easiest shape off first this being the tree and attached the paper drawing to a piece of lino using double sided tape then cut the shape out; rather crudely but at this point I only wished to try my theory out to see if it would actually work. The lino block was then attached to a lump of ¾” plywood using epoxy and once the epoxy had hardened I used my large bandsaw to bring the block to size then sanded the rough edges smooth.

I now had my first stamp and was keen to try it out. Bron kindly loaned me her ink pads and acrylic colours but although the basic idea worked the lino wouldn’t load with printing medium as I intended; the ink was taken up by the lino as little dots and the acrylic wasn’t much better. This was a disappointment but certainly not defeat; as a first attempt it was partially successful and I now needed to experiment a bit more.

A friend informed me that his brother made very precise rubber stamps using latex applied over a wax pattern. I’ve bought some latex but so far not used it.

Due to the dire weather I said enough is enough as I got fed up with being frozen all the time; I was going to and fro between the workshop and garage and each time would have to don my outdoor gear and shoes then get a soaking with snow and risk breaking my neck on sheet ice. I hope and pray global warming will eventually come our way.
My intention was to apply one colour at a time directly to the cabinet but do this with the aid of a jig; each stamp being made accurately could then be indexed as other colours were added building up the logo and letting each colour dry before applying another. The obvious benefit if this method worked would be the ability of adding any colour whatsoever without being tied to printer cartridges. The logo thus applied would add very little thickness thereby avoiding the thick edge associated with using a transfer.

This is my story to date and hope it is of interest; I enjoy trying out new ideas and have never heard of anyone trying this before. Over the top? Yes but it keeps me busy.

I wish to pursue both methods of water slide transfer and rubber stamping but no longer during arctic conditions.

Kind regards, Col.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Lino items.jpg
Views:	169
Size:	60.3 KB
ID:	33129   Click image for larger version

Name:	Template attached.jpg
Views:	176
Size:	39.1 KB
ID:	33130   Click image for larger version

Name:	Stamp result..jpg
Views:	172
Size:	42.7 KB
ID:	33131  
Retired is offline  
Old 3rd Mar 2010, 8:49 pm   #29
FRANK.C
Heptode
 
FRANK.C's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Roscommon, Ireland
Posts: 732
Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi Col
Excellent idea. Please keep us posted on how you get on

Frank
FRANK.C is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:51 pm.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.