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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!

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Old 11th Dec 2009, 4:14 pm   #1
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Default Water slide transfers.

Hi,

I'm hoping to make water slide transfers of logos for a selection of my sets and have just found the following website which I hope will be of use.

http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk...-paper_151.htm

Charlotte from this site has been very helpful via e-mail and suggests I use Inkjet Water Slide Decal Paper (White). I've ordered ten sheets to experiment with.

Regards, Col.
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Old 11th Dec 2009, 5:17 pm   #2
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi Col, What are you intending to make? I'm unsure of the usefulness of white (opaque?) waterslide paper

David
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Old 11th Dec 2009, 5:40 pm   #3
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Actually the white paper could well be very useful for making something with a dark background and backlit like a DAC90A dial.

I tried it with clear paper and couldn't get it right. This sounds well worth a try.

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Old 11th Dec 2009, 6:04 pm   #4
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

But the DAC90 has 2 transparent windows...

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Old 11th Dec 2009, 6:41 pm   #5
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

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But the DAC90 has 2 transparent windows...

David
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Old 11th Dec 2009, 9:29 pm   #6
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi David,

I hope to make transfers for some of my "woodies" which I've restored and these cover Marconi; HMV; Bush and Pye.

I found the thread "Bush logo transfer" and both your posts #2 & #8 plus Mike's post #6 giving the graphics for the Bush transfer.

I also found the thread "Success with water slide transfers" this covering "His Masters Voice" transfer so I already have Bush and HMV to play around with. These will be of immense use to me allowing me to concentrate on the printing and I can't thank both members enough for adding these two most useful threads.

Like Dave; making dials using this transfer paper also crossed my mind and I thought the website well worth sharing. At around £15 for 10 sheets it will be very cheap entertainment for me and open up an all new experience.

When I enquired about this transfer paper I was advised to purchase the White due to the transfers going onto dark French polish; Charlotte didn't think the transparent would show up in this situation and as I know nothing of the subject bow to Charlotte's greater experience. I think I'm going to enjoy this project.

Regards, Col.
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Old 11th Dec 2009, 11:09 pm   #7
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

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When I enquired about this transfer paper I was advised to purchase the White due to the transfers going onto dark French polish; Charlotte didn't think the transparent would show up in this situation and as I know nothing of the subject bow to Charlotte's greater experience.
Hi Col, this is true, but it's also what I was worried about. Printing onto white transparency will be like printing onto ordinary white paper, so to have a logo without white edges your going to have to cut it out very accurately. In some instances, with bits and pieces of logo or writing floating around, it won't even be possible. A solution is shown in post #8 in this thread https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...t=marconi+logo Obviously white paint should be used in some instances. Another, ore professional, solution may be to contact this seller, on ebay (no connection whatsoever) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Waterslide-Dec...item2c521489bb Although this is a route I've never pursued (yet)

As for making dials, with a mix of opaque and transparent areas, I've only been satisfied with results when making them like this https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...armstrong+dial

Regards
David
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Old 11th Dec 2009, 11:37 pm   #8
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Quote:
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Hi Col, What are you intending to make? I'm unsure of the usefulness of white (opaque?) waterslide paper

David
Craftypapers do both clear and white paper.

Coincidentally, I have today received several sheets of clear paper to experiment with, and the essential acrylic spray which is needed for coating the paper once printed.

But my CAD skills are woeful, so I'll print onto ordinary paper until I'm satisfied it looks right. The paper isn't too expensive, but you must spray several coats of acrylic lacquer on the ink side of the paper before you go to the next stage - soaking the paper to slide off the transfer from the backing paper.

Of course, to apply the transfer to the rear of a glass dial, the artwork needs to be reversed, but if the transfer was going to be applied to a panel, it would not need to be reversed (EG on a Wartime civilian receiver).

The big shortcoming is of course that you can't print white and if you use a light (nearly white) colour, one waterslide transfer is too wishy washy. There s a way of printing what that was on another forum using a special powder sprinkled on the ink when still wet, then heated, but it looks a bit involved.

No doubt the original dials were screen printed.

I've been amazed at the efforts and expertise of several forum members who've done some outstanding work one reproducing dials. I do wonder whether - once the artwork has been done, which is a major part of the set-up work, how much it would cost to screen print onto glass, for example, for the more popular radios such as DAC90As, which has several variants of dials.

I'll watch developments with interest before I squander my four sheets of waterslide paper on futile efforts!

Every success to the pathfinders

David,
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Old 12th Dec 2009, 3:58 pm   #9
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi David,

Many thanks for the information and links; this will be most useful once I make a start when the paper arrives. I note that the link to Dec Art Decals reveals this company supplies thermally printed transfers?

I'm an entire novice to this work but wonder if our local stores could help me in any way; in particular our local Staples have a selection of printers and a local photo shop has a large industrial type colour laser printer; do these printers cover gold and white colours? I'm only guessing but as Dec Art transfers are thermally printed would these possibly be done on a laser printer?

Your Marconi looks superb and an absolute Bargain David and the Marconi transfer is spot on. Do you by any chance still have the graphics for this transfer?

I wasn't aware Crafty Computer Paper had already been recommended way back in 2006 but I'm happy to share them once again.

I'm with you all the way David G. Woeful is also a good description of my graphics experience and like you I intend to do quite a bit of practicing before committting myself to using the transfer paper otherwise it could prove very expensive. I bought a lot of A4 white photo paper a while ago so this will be ideal to practice with.

I'm always amazed at the quality of work members do; David's transfers; dials and graphics are absolutely first class and recently I've been in awe of the Ekco A22 dials produced by RobertGOUHF.

Reaching this standard with graphics must take considerably time and patience and I'm hindered by being colour blind so would very much appreciate any help with producing the logo's as I'm pretty sure I'll pick up the rest much easier regarding printing etc.

Out of interest David did you consider spraying the entire transfer paper with gold lacquer and let it dry before printing or is this too easy? My wife Bronwyn uses artists clear spray lacquer so I can pinch some of this and Bron also uses various colour gel pens that might be of use for touching in cut edges? Thanks once again, Col.
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Old 12th Dec 2009, 6:13 pm   #10
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Quote:
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Do you by any chance still have the graphics for this transfer?
Hi Col, Yes I still have it, but I cant get to it until Tuesday. Please PM me your email and I'll send it to you then

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Out of interest David did you consider spraying the entire transfer paper with gold lacquer and let it dry before printing or is this too easy?
No, because I used transparent waterslide and the logo had a transparent border. I could paint up to and into, but not over the black boarder. The second transfer, laid on top, re-emphasised the edges/boarders

David
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Old 12th Dec 2009, 8:36 pm   #11
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi David,

That's very kind of you and I've just sent you my details.

I'm gathering as much information as possible at the moment and feel that most of this will become clear once I receive the transfer paper.

Best regards, Col.
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Old 13th Dec 2009, 9:29 am   #12
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Col
I did a new Rola speaker label a few years ago which might give you some useful info. The original was completely unusable. I think you might have seen it last time you were around.

This was gold, with black and red text, and a white rectangle with, presumably, written data.
Radio Dave supplied me with a JPEG for the logo, with and without the gold (as yellow).

As we cannot print white or gold (!) some thinking was required. Initially, I tried using the nearest yellow to gold, but when I used a transfer, the result was disappointing – the yellow was too transparent to see against the dark brown paint. With the JPEG with the gold part removed , I sprayed a waterslide transfer with gold paint before printing it. This did not work – the black and red partly disappeared in the gold paint. For the final solution, I sprayed gold paint on the transfer paper, covering half. I then used two logos – one with text and graphics on a transparent background, and one with just the circles and rectangle printed on the gold part of the transfer. This was cut out carefully and applied to the magnet housing – the text and graphics were cut about 4mm around amd placed on top of this.
To get the white rectangle pieces of label from stamp paper were used – a final lacquer made an excellent job of this all.
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Old 13th Dec 2009, 11:59 am   #13
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for this information and I will print everything off when I'm ready for making a start; I think the last time I visited I was well and truly sidetracked into clock restoration which was great fun.

I believe adding transfers to a finished cabinet restoration is the icing on the cake and where better than this excellent forum could I obtain this valuable information.

Making transfers is not as easy as it would first appear to be. It would be interesting to find out how transfer manufacturers are able to mass produce using the full colour range including white and gold.

Thanks again, Col.
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Old 13th Dec 2009, 1:44 pm   #14
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi,

With the radio logos already shown on the forum and members kind help I'm starting to move forward.

I used "Paint" on Win XP for this experiment and would now like to try different programs with the intention of moving more into graphics.

I'm finding it both frustrating and interesting but it's fun.

Regards, Col.
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Old 14th Dec 2009, 1:28 pm   #15
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Check this link out which shows how to make white markings.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/dia...t_printer.html
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Old 14th Dec 2009, 4:08 pm   #16
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi Jim,

Many thanks for the link. The website is very interesting and informative; I'm very impressed how raised letters are made by covering the wet ink with embossing powder then heating with an hair dryer; the results look extremely professional and any colour can be used.

I spent a bit of time gathering more information and yesterday I telephoned Staples here in Huddersfield speaking to a guy called Steve; I asked Steve if the "in house" printers would print the colours white and gold; Steve kindly asked me to wait whilst he checked and came back with the reply that their printers could print white but not gold. This was a good start.

I then surfed the web looking for printers that would print gold colour and found this site;

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...and-shine.aspx

I'm not sure if I'm on the right track but if I can locate a local company with a printer that will print all the colours including white and gold then it would save a lot of messing around; perhaps this is too simple but as I'm totally new to transfers am looking at the basics.

Another website suggested filling an empty black printer cartridge with gold ink but stated this could possibly affect the correct operation of the print head?

Thanks & regards, Col

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Old 14th Dec 2009, 4:20 pm   #17
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

I have the ability to print in gold (or other metallic colours), using my Citizen Printiva, but I have never fathomed out how to do so alongside other colours - only monochrome. It's supposed to be possible, but I can't find a setting in the printer driver to enable it.
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Old 14th Dec 2009, 5:21 pm   #18
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for adding this information. Rather than just jumping in and playing around with transfers I'm finding it better to take things a bit more slowly as it's highly likely I could save myself a lot of frustration and work.

I remember 50 years ago when I used water slide transfers on my bike and the transfers were self contained so to speak requiring no additional work other than wetting and sliding into position.

I would like to produce transfers by doing the graphics; download to CD then find a company with a suitable printer just to print them off onto waterslide transfer paper. Hopefully this would be the most cost effective approach. A few years ago when I bought my first digi camera I also bought a small photo printer; this printer was dire; it printed a couple of pictures before destroying the print film in the cartridge and it was a very expensive way to obtain pictures. Shortly after this I found our Local Asda had a photo lab and if I downloaded to CD something like 140 pictures and left the CD with them for a week the total cost of the pictures was only around £7. I downloaded to CD to save time and this ensured I always had back up if required.

I enjoy learning new things and this to me is where a lot of the interest lies; graphics is new to me but has opened up a whole new world for me to explore.

Please let me know if you find out how to get your printer to print multi colour including gold.

Regards, Col.
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Old 14th Dec 2009, 5:56 pm   #19
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

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Please let me know if you find out how to get your printer to print multi colour including gold.
It's certainly a problem which I would like to crack, as it would be really useful for this sort of thing. If I do manage to pursue this, I will start a new thread about it - not wishing to steer this thread off-track.
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Old 14th Dec 2009, 7:43 pm   #20
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Default Re: Water slide transfers.

Col, Dave,
I have an Alps MD1000 printer which will print, apart from the usual colours, gold, silver and white plus other metallic colours - see http://www.alpsink.com/alps_md1000_printer.htm for example. There are no Windows drivers beyond W2000, but it still works OK on my Ubuntu system.
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