Transom Lettering with an Ink Jet Printer??

[mcdenny]

I've printed out black & white text to put on the bottom of tables I've made by printing backwards on tissue paper and then varnsihing on with the ink side next to the wood. The tissue disappears in the varnish.

With the very low cost of photo quality ink jet printers it seems like there would be a way to print fancy boat name letters for the transom using a weather proof stick-on "paper" or maybe just white paper trimmed neatly and varnished on with a few coats over the top.



:confused: Anybody ever try this?

[Andrew]

The only problem I can see is the UV (fading) resistance of the ink

[pcford]

ARRRRGH. (hitting head on computer desk...)

Just hire a real sign painter and get it done right.

(One of my favorite soap box issues.)

[George Roberts]

A lot of sign shops have printers that will print the letters as you suggest. They may use special inks/pigments.

[Bob Cleek]

PC is right! However, if you have the shakes and can't letter it freehand yourself with a brush, you can put a electrographic xerox printer or copier to good use. The process involves fine plastic dust that is electrostatically laid on the paper and then melted fast with heat. (This is how a xerox machine works.) It can be transferred to another surface just as easily with heat.

What you do is print what you want on the thinnest paper your machine will handle. Then copy that BACKWARDS with the paper upside down. This should get you a mirror image copy. You may need to turn up the contrast and darken the print adjustment on your printer to get a good mirror print.

Take the mirror print and tape it to what you want to transfer it to, with the image side against the surface where you want the print. Then apply heat to the back of the paper. You can use an iron turned low at first and experiment with the heat until you get it right. I use a nifty little electric burnishing tool, like a cheap soldering iron with a flat head on it about the size of a quarter and it works great. (It came with a kit for repairing torn vinyl auto upholstery.)

Once you have your outline transferred to your working surface, you can paint over it (remember from kindergarten... stay inside the lines) and have your perfectly laid out signage, or whatever else you want.

[pcford]

A lot of sign shops have printers that will print the letters as you suggest. They may use special inks/pigments.

No. I mean a real sign painter. Not some guy with a computer and a printer.

The world is going to hell.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I tend to side with PC on this one as real hand-painted letters have a certain amount of class that machines just don't seem to be able to duplicate. On the other hand, if you want to experiment with printers, do a search for Alps printers. Some of them aren't made any more and you see them frequently on eBay, but that's what most of the small custom water-slide decal makers are using. Unlike most small printers, the Alps will also print white lettering as white is not just the lack of ink, but is actually printed on the paper, plastic or whatever.

We used to silk screen lettering on small pieces of Japanese rice paper (similar to your tissue, but stronger - I have also printed on it with my ink-jet printer) and lay it under the fiberglass on strip canoes for logos. The paper turns clear, leaving just the ink showing. Another interesting thing you can play with is pulling the ink off of printed paper. If you build up several coats of varnish (we used artists acrylic varnish) on a printed image (even something like a page from a magazine and I suspect most ink-jet printed stuff would work) then let it dry well, you can later usually soak the paper off of the back side. This leaves a sheet of varnish with the ink (or at least most of it) captured and it can then be stuck down to a hard surface with more varnish.

The UV life of any of these methods should probably be deemed "highly questionable" until proven otherwise and they will never have the elegance of real hand painting, but they can be fun to mess with.

[BillyBudd]

Here's what I've done. Print out on standard paper the letter/number I want in the correct size and style (outline is best but not necessary), arrange them with extra paper/tape to the spacing and overall shape (straight line? curve?) desired. Then take a soft pencil and, on the back of the paper, go over the outside lines of the letters. Got that?

Next, tape this assembly to the boat just as you want it. Take a pencil or ball point pen and go over the edges of the letters/numbers. The soft pencil graphite will transer lightly to the boat's painted surface. Check out it by peeking before removing the taped assembly.

Next, Go over the lines with a straight edge if you must. Then. Taaa Daaaa. Get out your finest small brush, use whatever it takes to brace the hand for sure brush strokes, and carefully, joyfully lay on paint on the inside of the letter/number up to the pencilled transfer line. Fill in when outline completed.

I've used InterLux enamel and Kirby's semi-gloss with good results.

Can swab up bloopers with rag, can razor cut things later. Can repaint later to correct this or that.

Cost: Nada, so to speak. Pride it workmanship: possibly up a notch or two.

(Sent in to WBForum some photos on this a few years back....)

[pcford]

Look you guys....a good hand lettering job is cheap. My guy charges $35 for registration numbers. Naturally gold leaf is more. To my eye...most stick-on jobs look tacky, tacky. Why go to all the work to build or restore a boat and then put on something so questionable in such a highlighted place.

Plus....sign painters are really suffering...they need the work! People with real discernment...like you...will notice the difference.

[Don Z.]

Plus....sign painters are really suffering...they need the work! People with real discernment...like you...will notice the difference.

Then why don't they RETURN CALLS? When I was in Newport, I called a few. Stopped one guy I actually saw gold leafing a sign. All I wanted was name boards.

I guess if you're a big time commercial guy, who can be depended on for several jobs a month, the "really suffering" sign painters will call you. If you're not, well... either learn to gold leaf, or use your computer.

[mcdenny]

Thanks for the tips. Several years ago my neighbor paid $600 for a hand painted name and home port in nice gold leaf - way too rich for me.

I found 3" gold? leaf vinyl letters for $4.40 ea in the web.

Looking in the local yellow pages, it looks like the computer printers have put the sign painters out of business around here.