Printing Artwork on Wood

Or maybe I should have named the thread Transferring Artwork To Wood..

This topic came up in another thread and instead of completely hijacking that thread with this subject I've started a new thread. In the previous thread Matt answered one of my silly questions and we'll start the thread with his answer below.

Originally Posted by Matt Clara
"I think so, yes. I'd scan the artwork, or do a high quality photo reproduction, work it up in Photoshop, and then print it and transfer it. The only catch is the color of the wood comes through and mixes with the color of the print, which is why I've done mostly black and white silhouette images thus far. I printed one color image on some cherry, and it looks a little muddy. I will try more with color and the sitka spruce before long. I need to find a source for a transfer paper similar to the Avery in 11 x 17 size, so I'm a little bit stalled right now. The 8.5 x 11 work well for CBUs, though."

And now my new question... Say, if I had a light figured maple back and I wanted to put one of my works like this one on the lower bout with a oval vignette... think it would work? What I mean is, could it be done in halftones. I think it would look awesome with some tribal inlay around the uke.

Great question with the halftones, Vic. I'm psyched to hear what Matt (or others?) have to say. I also have a few more questions I've been wondering about...

- What can or should we put on the wood before the print? Filler, sealer, shellac, mandarine orange seed oil?

- What kind of finish can or should we put on top of the print?

- When I look up t-shirt transfer foil (you know where) I see there is a kind for white t-shirts and a kind for dark t-shirts, but nothing for wood-colored t-shirts What do you guys use?

- Along the same line: You say transfer paper, but what I'm seeing is transfer foil. Did I miss something?

- What if you don't like the way the print turns out? Is there any way to "remove" it? Has anyone tried? How deep does it go in?

Anyway, it would be great to have some "guidelines" to work with but we're also ready to experiment.

Thanks in advance.

Erich

Those are also some great questions Erich. I'm hoping the transfer could be done somewhere after the grain fill. I'm thinking the depth of the transfer would be even less than a decal you might put on a headstock so getting a level clear finish wouldn't be problematic.
Dropping the vignette in would serve two purposes, it looks really cool and it would allow feathering of the tops and backs without disturbing the art work.
One thing I like about the waterbase lacquer products is from my understanding they work well with liquid waterbased acrylic colors. If this transfer works along with the Stewmac waterbase colortone system then that's gonna be super groovy.

Wow.. that's a cool print Vic.

The transfer paper you need is the water slide paper. It's kind of like those temporary tattoos. It's actually those decal paper for model building. Use water to slide and stick the paper on to the wood. The paper becomes transparent when it dries. If you don't like it, apply water and it'll come right off. Since water is used, I would put a coat of finish on the wood before putting the decal to prevent damaging the wood. I put a couple of coats of clear finish on top of it to protect it.

Good luck.

Thanks Paul! It's not a print though, it's one of my mixed media artworks I did from a photograph in a magazine.
I'm thinking what I'd be shooting for might have to be silk screened.

It's been an interesting trip. I tried the heat transfers because I was familiar with them. Everyone I've spoken to has advised me to use some decal material, but I haven't heard good things about its durability. In my search for larger sized transfers I've actually been told, heat transfers won't work (this after I'd already run tests and created my CBU #0003). I asked the person in that case to recommend some of their 11 x 17 papers with the same specs as Avery's, which I described in detail, and she never wrote back. Finally I found a company called Coastal Business Supply. A guy there named Clay talked to me about it, made some suggestions, and then sent me samples of several of the papers we discussed. I haven't received them yet, but it's only been two days.

The ink jet transfer paper offers a thin substrate of absorbent plastic. It's not incredibly absorbent, so you can't really lay the ink on as you would photographic papers, as the details will run together. In practice, this will limit the upper end of the resolution of detail, so images should be chosen accordingly. Heat, whether from an iron or a heat press/dry mount press, fuses the plastic to the wood surface. It really is intended to fuse it with cloth, and I've found that not all heat transfer paper works. Common, buy at Office Max, Avery heat transfer papers work well, though, but only come in sizes up to 8.5 x 11. That's fine if you want to place an image that size or smaller, and you can always cut away the excess. Clear areas from the image (white areas in the image on the computer) let the wood show through, and can technically be removed before hand. The plastic coat is so thin as to leave no discernible raised edge. Clear areas that haven't been cut away appear finished. Finishing with polyurethane further enhances the finished look, and in the case of my CBU #0003, really made the blacks POP! Early tests indicate finish will blend areas covered with a heat transfer image to those of unfinished wood well, but I'm going to need to test that further before I commit to it in an actual build. My usual method of finishing ukes involves finishing the body first, and gluing on the bridge after carefully scraping away the finish in the appropriate spot. With the heat transfer, I had to be careful to score the edges of the area to be scraped with a razor, otherwise the heat transfer didn't want to stop wherever my chisel stopped, but would continue on a bit further if allowed to. Overall, though, it seems very secure, and scraping away the area revealed it to be just as tough as the finish by itself, just a tad more difficult to work with, is all.

I may try doing black and white prints in the darkroom again, but what a pain in the neck that was.

Disclaimer: I'm just feeling my way through this, and for all I know my heat transfers will not hold up. I suspect, though, that they will be fine.

I happen to have a decent amount of the water transfer paper...I may have to experiment and let you guys know. It is not the standard paper however...it has a very thin film that transfers to your skin that can be peeled off when you grow tired of it. As a skin transfer it could look better due to the sheen the film gives off but for a tranfer to an instrument it may work quite well though durability may be a problem.

Thanks Matt! That method would work for some of my artwork but to get the detail in the work I posted I think I'll have to get a half tone transparency shot and set up a homemade silk screen press. But the direction you're going with this is very cool.

Come to think of it...we just got a laser engraver at my day job at Martin Archery. From what I have seen it should be capable of producing the half-tones as pictured above. The draw back would be that it would be quite permanent...though that could also be a plus.

Joe Hell said:

Come to think of it...we just got a laser engraver at my day job at Martin Archery. From what I have seen it should be capable of producing the half-tones as pictured above. The draw back would be that it would be quite permanent...though that could also be a plus.

Click to expand...

Definitely interested if it can be done.

Vic D said:

Thanks Matt! That method would work for some of my artwork but to get the detail in the work I posted I think I'll have to get a half tone transparency shot and set up a homemade silk screen press. But the direction you're going with this is very cool.

Click to expand...

Is that image a photo of yours? Just curious. Also, I've not done silk screen prints before, but I have an artist friend who spent 20 years in that industry, and it seems to me you're limited to the number of colors you can print...is that right?

I tried and tried, but could not get acceptable results from regular waterslide decal paper for a headstock transfer. The clear parts (film) around the edges of the image would not disappear under the lacquer, even when I used the same lacquer to fix the image. I've already ordered my logo in vinyl from here.

Matt Clara said:

Is that image a photo of yours? Just curious. Also, I've not done silk screen prints before, but I have an artist friend who spent 20 years in that industry, and it seems to me you're limited to the number of colors you can print...is that right?

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Yeah it's a photo of one of my artworks, the actual drawing is about 18 X 27 and I did it in graphite, charcoal, china marker and conte.. I took the photo when I had just gotten this cheezy kodak 1.3 M camera and hadn't had time to mess with the settings.
Actually I would want to go with just a black one color half tone but you could go with 4 or more color process with screen printing. The half-tone transparencies used to burn the screen used to cost a good bit of money back when I was screen printing... dunno how much it would cost now but it should considerably less.

mzuch said:

I tried and tried, but could not get acceptable results from regular waterslide decal paper for a headstock transfer. The clear parts (film) around the edges of the image would not disappear under the lacquer, even when I used the same lacquer to fix the image. I've already ordered my logo in vinyl from here.

Click to expand...

That's what I was afraid of... I've seen it done but it looks like a pain in the butt and very time consuming bringing the finish level. Thanks for the link!

This company has some larger heat transfer sheets
http://www.coastalbusiness.com/heattransferpaper.aspx

The transfer sheets used on color laser copiers (CLC) works on wood

RonS said:

This company has some larger heat transfer sheets
http://www.coastalbusiness.com/heattransferpaper.aspx

The transfer sheets used on color laser copiers (CLC) works on wood

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Thanks Ron--those are the guys I finally found to help me. Spoke to them on the phone, and they're sending me, gratis, several samples to try out.
I saw the laser copier option, and I'm interested, but I don't have access to one that will give me as fine of a resolution as my old Epson 1270 inkjet.
Missed ya around here, lately--hope you've been well.

Business has just been hectic lately, just not enough hours in a day. I'm not complaining... Thanks for asking.

The difference is inkjet inks are transparent, laser toner is opaque.

You could always take the laser transfer sheets (CLC) to a copy shop that has a color copier. Some copiers have as high a resolution as inkjet printers.

RonS said:

You could always take the laser transfer sheets (CLC) to a copy shop that has a color copier. Some copiers have as high a resolution as inkjet printers.

Click to expand...

Ron, that's just what I was thinking. The good copy shops will take your PDF file and print it on their big color laser unit for you. It's not cheap, per page, but at least around here you can get very good, clean results for a price that only feels like a little pinch in the A.