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Looking For Info On Printable Decals For Pottery?


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I don't get a chance to participate in the forums very often.  But, my brother in law wants some coffee mugs with his company logo on them.  I remember at one time on the forum that someone gave the process of making decals and the procedure to put them on pottery.  Do anyone remember that and if they do point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks,

Bob

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I have some questions about this whole process.  I'm trying to put our logo/art on some mugs too.  But I have had nothing but trouble since I started two weeks ago!

I went on decalpaper.com and bought their laser water-slide decal paper.

I went on discountmugs.com, (same parent company as decalpaper.com) and bought some mug 'blanks' so that the glaze would be consistant.

I bought a Canon imageClass LBP6030w laser printer that only uses black ink (with 40-50% iron)

I called the mug company and asked what is the tempature that they fire their mugs at when they put decals on - 1076-1148F

I emailed the paper company and asked what is the temperature that they fire their decals at when they are putting them on their mugs - 1200F

I brought out our Paragon kiln and tried it.  It didn't change at all.  It was like I just put the decal on.

The decal paper directions said 'about 1800F' Wow!  Big difference.  I tried that and it was like dust.  I wiped it off and it left a faint shadow of the decal.

My kiln doesn't want to go any hotter than 1850.  I have a paragon sierra kiln model #1100F-SA-1200-P-OO.

Help!!!

What am I doing wrong?!

Dee Dee

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You have several issues that MIGHT be going on:

 

This is what I do and what I use to do it and I ALWAYS get excellent results. Compare what I do to what you are doing and see if there is any differences. I hope this helps you to troubleshoot what you have happening.

 

I use this paper:

http://www.decalpaper.com/product-p/l875c.htm

 

I print with an HP Laserjet P1102W printer (it only prints black and uses toner not ink cartridges)

 

I make all of my items using Little Loafers Clay, a cone 6 Stoneware.

 

I have used various cone 6 glazes to glaze my stuff with and the glaze does matter. I use Coyote White primarily for photo imagery. I use various pale shades for jewelry and decorated boxes. I have found some of the glazes will make the image turn almost orange and others will make it look almost black rather than dark brown.

I fire my pieces in this manner:

Bisque 04

Glaze 6

Transfers 04 (1945)

I try to print the images a day ahead but you can do it the same day if rushed for time just let the printouts sit for about an hour. Cut out your design and soak it in water until it slides around on the backing paper. Take your glazed piece and dampen the surface with a sponge and slide the design onto the piece. Using a sponge gently smooth the transfer onto the surface of the pot. Remove all the air bubbles and water bubbles. Anywhere there is a bubble will burn off completely in the kiln leaving a blank spot. Set the transferred piece aside to dry. Once dry load into your kiln and fire to come 04 which is 1945 degrees.

I often combine my transfer pieces with bisque and Fire using the bisque schedule. If I happen to have enough pieces to fill the entire kiln with transfer ware I then fire it using the fast fire glaze schedule to cone 04. I have not noticed a whole lot of difference in results between the two schedules.

 

What cone of glaze are you using? Have you put witness cones in to see just how hot your kiln is getting? To me it sounds like your pieces are either not adhering completely to your surface before firing and hence are flaking off after fired rather than melting into the glaze. Or your glaze might not be softening enough at the temperature you are using to allow the iron to melt into the surface. It doesn't sound like you are over firing which causes a faint image but no flaking since most of the iron burns out at higher temps. To me it really sounds like an under fired situation. Do you have a friend with a kiln that you could test a piece out in their kiln?

 

Transfers can take a bit of testing to find the right combination of things to make them work. I have a friend who has to fire to cone 05 to get them to work.

 

I hope this helps.

 

T

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Thank you everybody for responding to my post!

T, I don't use my own pottery, I'm buying blanks from the mug company affiliated with the decal paper company.  I use the same decal paper you do.

I read thru your process and except for not using a witness cone and my temp being lower than yours, (highest the kiln would go was 1843 even though it can be programed for 2027), it was all pretty much the same.

But what I had done before I sent off my post was try my process in a different kiln.  It still didn't work completely but it definitly is darker. So I applied a decal on a mug last night and popped it in the new kiln this morning at 1945.  It's a smaller kiln, I can only fit 3 mugs in at a time.  If this works I may save up for a bigger kiln.

I do have another question though, the new kiln requires that I program a temp rate, the other one did not.  I programed 700 per hour since that seemed to be the rate the other kiln was raising at.  Do you program a rate?  And when I did the 1850 firing last night, I had it hold for an hour.  Do you hold the temp on your pieces?  I did not set a hold time on my most recent test this morning so I'm not sure if that will make a difference or not.

Thank you again for your help!

Dee Dee

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Well after much trial and error, and having to borrowing a friends small kiln, I was able to get the decal to stick to a mug!  I ended up having to set the kiln to 1975 degrees, temperature rate of 700 per hr, with a 1 hr hold.

I'm going to start looking for a used kiln to fire my decals.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Dee Dee

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I have some questions about this whole process.  I'm trying to put our logo/art on some mugs too.  But I have had nothing but trouble since I started two weeks ago!

I went on decalpaper.com and bought their laser water-slide decal paper.

I went on discountmugs.com, (same parent company as decalpaper.com) and bought some mug 'blanks' so that the glaze would be consistant.

I bought a Canon imageClass LBP6030w laser printer that only uses black ink (with 40-50% iron)

I called the mug company and asked what is the tempature that they fire their mugs at when they put decals on - 1076-1148F

I emailed the paper company and asked what is the temperature that they fire their decals at when they are putting them on their mugs - 1200F

I brought out our Paragon kiln and tried it.  It didn't change at all.  It was like I just put the decal on.

The decal paper directions said 'about 1800F' Wow!  Big difference.  I tried that and it was like dust.  I wiped it off and it left a faint shadow of the decal.

My kiln doesn't want to go any hotter than 1850.  I have a paragon sierra kiln model #1100F-SA-1200-P-OO.

Help!!!

What am I doing wrong?!

Dee Dee

 

The decal has to be fire on a lower temperature, like gold, mother of pearl cone size 017 in the kiln sitter.

MrsPorter

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  • 5 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

there is a lot of information if you put in making decals in the search area on the Ceramic Arts Daily site.

here is some info just on decal paper. The link is in the upper left corner of the page's header

 

http://ceramicartsdaily.org/pottery-making-techniques/ceramic-decorating-techniques/the-details-on-decal-paper-for-ceramics/

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