0315 PM

Yes! Everything is falling into place. The toner and printer works. The homemade “transfer solution” works (25% Dammar Varnish, 75% Lighter Fluid).

The trick is to print on transparency film and stopping the film from reaching the heating element of the printer, by jerking open the front cover of the printer. My 2nd hand printer is robust enough for to be manhandled like this… So far. The only thing is I need to get the timing right. To solve this issue, I have marked up a few measurements on the transparency film, letting me know when to open up the printer when x amount of film has entered.

According to the tutorial, the final step is to heat up the toner which has been transferred on the copper plate to secure it down firmly. At the moment, it’s still in its powder state held down by the dammar varnish and lighter fluid mixture. I’ve ordered a cheap heat gun online and is now waiting for it to be delivered to me later this evening.

0439 PM

Heat gun arrived. I heated up the toner powder on my practice plate. Not bad. The transfer has been completed; marking is now permanent.

Now I’m waiting for the copper plate to cool down before I start engraving. Hahaha!

0749 PM

Spent a good couple of hours engraving. It’s great to be able to see the transferred design so clearly on my copper plate, although I messed up a little during application and the right side of the symmetrical design has a “double print”. My own fault, cannot blame it or anything; a good first try on application.

Midway engraving, my 10 inch turn table arrived. Nice. It works a LOT better than the small 5 inch turn table I was using. It was extremely therapeutic engraving away well into the evening. Not only that, it was comfortable too, since now that I have the microscope, I don’t have to slouch over my work anymore. It would seems that I have finally acquired everything I need for engraving.