Transferring text/pics to a bowl or pen

"Kevin" wrote: (clip) Now one would have to diddle with MS Word, Word Perfect or whatever

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I have used some iron-on material for applying photographs to tee-shirts, with moderate success. I think you will have difficulty applying even pressure between the *FLAT* iron and the curved surface of the turning. For tee-shirts, the process is done with a towel *and* the shirt under the iron to provide cushioning.

As to reversing the image--yes, if you're going onto a white or light colored surface. If you're going onto a dark surface, there is a different iron-on material which includes a black background, and which requires no reversal. If you can get the process to work, you will have to decide for each object, whether to treat it as white or black.

It's not as easy as ironing a transfer onto a t-shirt, but it's certainly not rocket science either. That's how I put "trademarks" onto the baseball bats I made for my kids. Just takes patience.

???? In all cases, the image needs to be printed mirror-reversed so that it will appear correctly on the object. This has _absolutely nothing_ to do with the color of either the image or the background.

print what you

turning. I wonder

Works just fine. I made baseball bats for my kids a few years ago, and that's how I applied the "trademarks". Rather than trying to do this with a word-processing program, you'll probably find that it's much easier using a graphics package such as Corel Draw.

Note that you can still do this, even if you don't have a laser printer available to you: print the design out on an inkjet printer, then photocopy it and use the copy.

"Doug Miller" wrote: (clip) ???? In all cases, the image needs to be printed mirror-reversed so that it

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If you print dark colored lettering onto a dark surface, it will not be visible. The transfer material for this includes a white background, and it is ironed on image side up--ergo, not reversed. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This has _absolutely nothing_ to do with the color of either the image or the background. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It does if you want to be able to see the image. Been there--done that.

Try getting some waterbased decal materal for the "inkjet" type printers, scan your picture/words, print and apply just like the old model airplanes.

No, it doesn't. Mirror-reversing the image has absolutely nothing to do with the contrast of the image against its background -- but it has everything to do with whether lettering will appear correctly, or mirror-reversed, once the transfer is applied.

"Doug Miller" wrote: No, it doesn't. Mirror-reversing the image has absolutely nothing to do with

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What you don't seem to get is that a different transfer material is made for use on dark backgrounds. It incorporates a white layer, and the printer puts the image on top of this white layer. When the image is ironed on, the white layer goes onto the tee shirt (or whatever) with the image on top of it. The image has to be forward reading for this to work. IOW, you don't flop the image over to iron it on.

What you don't seem to get is that the OP didn't ask about tee-shirt transfers. He asked about printing on paper, with a laser printer.

"Doug Miller" wrote: What you don't seem to get is that the OP didn't ask about tee-shirt

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Actually, he asked about a process using transfer paper to apply images to wooden turnings. My response was to clarify a statement he made about reversing the image. But, I'm tired of this--good bye.

Actually, no, he didn't. This is the first sentence of the original post:

"I THINK I saw something on this site quite sometime back about using a laserjet printer to transfer images/text from paper to a turning."

Looks like Doug found something to argue about, as usual.

Do I hear peddles being turned backwards?

Apparently you didn't read the original post any more carefully than Leo did.

Perhaps you should take the time to actually *read* the original post, and the responses.

Phil Roybal had a good article on this in the Silicon Valley Woodturners newsletter Jan 06.

Julian Pharis

Goodness, I had no idea my perhaps inadequately phrased question would cause such a ruckus. I have noticed that Julian Pharis responded in a separate post pretty much what I had remembered. Thanks to all who responded.

As the saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished!" ;-)

He might be referring to something like this:

Wood Imprinting Set

I believe it's a glorified soldering iron. I used to print on regular paper with my ink jet printer and use my wife's clothes iron to get the same results. Although, the transfer to wood was never 100% perfect. I think I need to experiment more with this technique. Roy