December 24th, 2009

Etching 101 – Graphic transfer & Touch-up

Here’s mine:


graphic

I work at 600dpi resolution for the greatest sharpness

Once it’s pretty much finalized, print it out…

graphic_slip

And test the fit with the hardware back in place.Make any adjustments needed before printing out the final image.


graphic_test

Here the graphic looks a little off-center

Now that the graphic is fitted to the enclosure, it needs to be:

  1. Inverted- the white of the graphic will let etchant through, and the black will become the resist masking.
  2. Mirrored- The image will be printed on the underside of the Press N Peel, so it needs to be mirrored to come out correctly.

This is what my page looks like when I’m ready to print:


I filled an 8.5 x 11" sheet to give me room for transfer errors

I filled an 8.5 x 11" sheet to give me room for transfer errors

Photocopy the graphic onto the sheet of Press N Peel. I go to Office Depot, where they really don’t care if you open up one of the paper trays to put in your PNP sheet. Make sure you know which side of the paper the copier prints onto. The best way to do this is to mark the top sheet with an X and see which side comes through after a copy. Then place your sheet of PNP in the paper tray, making sure that the dull side will be printed onto. Then you’ll have a nice sheet of transfers to work with.

Cut one out.


pnp

As seen through the shiny side of the PNP

« Part 1 | Part 3 ⨠

by Preston | Posted in TUTORIALS | 3 Comments » | Tags: ,


3 Comments »

Comment by Howard
  • Hey Preston,
    Thanks for answering my question on part one. Here is one for this part of the procedure. Instead of making a photocopy of the graphic, could the Press N Peel be run (and printed) through a laser printer instead (assuming you have one)? Isn’t the toner the same (or similar) to a photocopy? This would save a step, and be a bit more acurate.
    Thanks again for this.

    January 15, 2010 @ 6:54 AM
  • Comment by Chris
  • Hi!
    I realize you don’t update this place, but I still wanted to give it a shot….

    I took “the step” and ordered the stuff that is required for a PNP to etch-whatever. Great tutorial on that one by the way.

    I’ve got two issues at this point though:
    1: my PNP wont “do the job” on the whole surface, i was anal with the ironing but still it gave me semi-crap resuts – please explain this part of the tutorial in greater detail….
    2: My etching got pretty f’d up. My guess that the reasons of failiure is
    a) to exposed to the acid mix.
    b) Bad P’N'P-mask (see above)

    Please get back to me.
    Epic DIY Love,
    Chrstian from Sweden

    July 31, 2010 @ 5:40 PM
  • Comment by Preston
  • Hello Christian-

    Make sure you are removing any bubbles when first ironing the PnP onto the enclosure. The black parts where there is toner will start to stick to the enclosure pretty quickly, so it’s best to push the air bubbles to any blue parts of the transfer, or ideally out from under the transfer entirely.

    As to your second problem, it all depends on how long you exposed, what temperature, and the detail of the transfer. If you have fine detail, you’ll want to expose for short amounts of time, rinse, and repeat. Remember, if the acid bath is warm enough (for instance, if you’re doing outside on a summer day), it will become more active, and therefore less controllable. If you find you’re still losing too much detail, try using enamel paint (or even nail polish) to thicken up the mask in parts you find are being destroyed.

    Hope that helps you out in some way. Best of luck!

    -Preston

    August 23, 2010 @ 5:01 PM
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