May 21, 2005

Today I decided to attempt to go down my original road of silkscreening the panel myself. So, I dug out all the PhotoEZ stuff, and the enamel. I used the same artwork that I’d made for the Letraset people to make a transparency film. Then I went outside and exposed it in the sun for 60 seconds. The screen came put perfectly. I was very happy. Looks like today is off to a good start then.

Next it was time to start squidging some paint onto the panel. I have some Nazdar 96000 series screen enamel which is fade resistant. First I tried to tape down the screen, squidged on some paint then peeled away the screen. Rubbish. I ended up cleaning that off. I cleaned off the screen in acetone and then tried again. Same rubbish. Damn this stuff. I noticed that when I cleaned the screen with acetone, that the emulsion side which goes toward the panel surface became a little sticky. I decide to use this to my advantage and stuck down the screen where I wanted it and waited for it to dry off. Now we’re talkin’! This actually turned out to be acceptable! I have high standards, and I hold myself to them.

Now we were cooking with gas, so let’s try the next ones… Here are some more stuck into position. The FADEC one was the one I tried earlier with little success. Maybe this sticking down method would help.

Here’s the passenger warning placard. This was done using the sticking down method, and while it’s not looking too bad, I really did struggle to get results any better than this. With a first glance, it looks pretty good, but when you look closely, you can see in some places where the ink has smudged under the screen. No matter what I did, I couldn’t improve on this.

Here’s some more that I tried… Not much success here either.

Right then, this isn’t working out is it?! I seem to have spent so long trying something and wiping it off with acetone and trying it again, using different techniques and it still wasn’t meeting my expectations. I’m now back to a cleaned off panel, hoping I can find some other way to do this properly. How the heck are labels and logos put on things out there in the production world? If someone can put something on a shampoo bottle, it must be easy enough to put something on a flat piece of painted metal! Aaaarrrgh! As you might be able to tell, I’m at my wits end now. I wonder how people put labels on avionics buttons and hifi’s and televisions and all the other stuff we take for granted everyday. Even the letters on a computer keyboard. I can see now why people just use a Brother P Touch!

I haven’t heard yet from the Pulsar people. I’m hoping that this will come through for me, as everything else has turned out to be a disaster.