Inkjet printing on wood

I'm interested in printing a photo with an inkjet printer (Epson

1270) and transfering the image onto a piece of wood, analogous to an

emulsion transfer. I did a quick search of the archives and didn't

come up with anything. Does anyone have any experience with such a

process or know of any resources you can point me to?

I did this a few years back with my original Epson Stylus Photo 700.

 

I eventually grew more interested in other projects and never fully worked out the details of this potential process. I'll pass on what I remember in case it might help you. I tried transferring to paper, but perhaps you can find a way to modify the process for other materials.

 

I had the greatest success using overhead transparency material as the printing substrate. I believe the brand which worked best was Great White. I printed at the highest possible speed to cut down on the time available for the ink to dry. As soon as the transparency ejected I quickly squeegeed it against a sheet of hot, damp watercolor paper (usually Rives BFK). Sometime it worked well, sometimes not so well. Temperature of water, dampness of paper, subject matter of photo, etc., all affected quality. There usually was a color shift because some ink colors transferred better than others. I partially compensated for this by shifting the color balance in the opposite direction.

 

The transparency material has to have enough glue, or whatever the coating is, to hold the ink without smearing on the plastic untill you attempt the transfer. However, if it's not the right type (for instance, not water soluble), or not the right amount, you may not be able to get a clean transfer.

 

Oh, don't forget to reverse the print left to right before printing, so it'll be in the proper orientiation on the paper.

 

If you try this and have good results, please let me know what process you use. I might be interested in having another go at it.

I don't know of any way to tranfer the ink to a piece of wood, but you might try printing onto a sheet of veneer made for printing. I have seen these sheets for sale in some woodworking catalogs. I think they come with backing paper and adhesive.

Since I posted the original question, I have had several e-mail inquiries from others who are interested in this topic, so I thought I would add a brief post to this thread, describing my experiences for anyone else who may do a search on this topic.

 

I experimented with various techniques for printing on wood, none of which were really successful. After a number of failures, I moved on to other projects.

 

I tried printing with both dye-based inks and pigment-based inks from Epson. What I tried to acccomplish was to print a reversed image onto a substrate that would release the image onto the wood when it was subsequently placed in contact with the wood under pressure. As substrates, I experimented with various coated papers and with acetate. In particular I recall finding a coated paper in an art supply store that was specifically designed as a print transfer medium. I also coated papers myself with several different media used by artists and printmakers as release agents.

 

The basic problem I found was that the inkjet inks are too well formulated for their intended purpose. They are designed to bond with the substrate, to dry quickly and to resist any bleeding if they are exposed to water. In the few cases where I was able to find a combination of substrate and coating that would resist bonding so that the image could be transferred, the inks smeared and ran so that the image was not really usable.

 

If anyone has any success with this project, I would be interested to hear about it. I think if I were to pursue the project further, I would contact some of the third-party ink suppliers. Some of them are small enough companies that one might have a good chance of communicating with the people who are knowledgeable about formulating the inks and who may be able to suggest some workable combination of substrate, coating, and solvent.

 

I think it would be possible to use the transfer papers available from several paper suppliers which are designed for making T-shirts and the like. Also, I think some of the Epson printers could accommodate paper thicknesses that would allow printing directly on extremely thin wood veneers. Neither of those solutions fit what I was trying to accomplish.

Seems to me you might run into a grain problem.<br>

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I have had a great interest in this as well as I do some wood work, furniture, etc. I have an epson 2200 and 4000. A friend of mine who has a woodworking shop gave me a piece of veneer to try.....

It worked for a few inches but the piece he gave me had a slight bend (bow) in it which caused the piece to slide to the right thus smearing the ink.... with a bit of thought im sure I can achieve something usable. On the other hand, I have successfully used iron-on t-shirt tranfer paper directly on pine.... The table I was building was distressed so it looked ok.

 

I hope someone else has the time and interest to try this.

 

Best

 

Brent<div></div>

You could try Lazertran waterslide decal papers, www.lazertran.com. Use either the Regular sheet (print image using a photocopy machine), or Inkjet (apply oil-based varnish to render transparent). Apply with turpentine so the image sinks into the wood and it looks like it was printed directly on the wood.

HTH,

Angela Silva

<p>The Problem with Lasertran is it is very very fragile to say the least and it bubbles and then rips. We ordered two packs to demo it on to different materials. Another problem with Lasertran water slide paper is that any area that is not printed will have an artifact of paper which is not clear and destroys the image effect. If you try to use a turpentine or any other oil based solvent as the company suggests it will pull off and rip because it is melting the transfer paper. We have a company that deals with all sorts of transfer processes and really the best way for the home user is to use an Inkjet Iron on transfer paper. Print your image obviously in reverse position it how you like on to the wood. Then iron on to the wood. You can use a curling iron for tough areas and use other metal that you can heat to get into cracks or into areas that have different depths or curves. This for me is the best way unless you want to screen print your wood piece which is not cost effective. Another little tip is to pre finish your wood with a flat white paint because Injet will not print white and if it is in your design then it will come out clear. Normal flat white house paint is good. Once the image is printed let it sit for a bit then brush it over with a clear satin polyurethane finish or what ever varnish you wish to spray. Good Luck </p>

<p>I found this link. The studio is based in the Philippines. <br>

<a href="http://mywoodencanvas.com/">mywoodencanvas</a></p>

<p>This thread continues to attract a few searches from time to time, so here is a reference that I found in the past year that might be useful to any future searchers. People who are interested in inkjet printing on alternative media such as wood might want to look at the book Digital Art Studio: Techniques for Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials by Schminke et al, available at Amazon.</p>

I did a couple of test for photo transfer to wood. Also read & watched videos as well for this tutorial. What I noticed on the video tutorials and books I read is that they preferred to use a laser printer rather than inkjet. As laser printer produced more color or darker rather than inkjet and once print is finished, they immediately add mediums on it and squeeged it to the wood.

 

So I made a test myself on this project. My materials are wood, photo printed in inkjet since I dont have laserjet (i only use a regular paper), squeegee & lastly gel transfer (i used mod podge and compared it to omni gel). To check the difference.

 

The process I made is right after print, I quickly put a medium gel, sticked it into the wood, squeeged it & left it in 24hrs. After 24hrs. I removed the paper (for the grains left on the wood I had to scratch it with my fingers and or you can use a linen to remove all of it).

 

So as you can see the 1st photo has more color on it, i used the omni gel (but too bad I wasnt able to squeeged it properly.)

 

2nd photo was a mod podge medium gel, unfortunately, the print didnt stick onto the wood even if I left it dry for 24hrs.

 

3rd photo (A&S) it sticked well, but since I used an inkjet the color I chose went very very light and became unnoticeable.

 

If you can please give me suggestions to try please do let me know.

 

 

 

Google ultra thin wood veneer - run through your printer and print directly on wood? There is also an outfit called Rockland Colloids (Print on anything) which made a photo sensitive paint on emulsion, and inkjet printable media (even at Walmart) - you would have to reverse and create a negative. Lots of alternate possibilities.