I was wondering how you guys print a logo or a company name into Carbon Fiber. So far all I’ve been doing is sticking vinyl stickers onto the surface and going over with a thin layer of resin, but this is starting to fail on me. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
I have heard of people printing a logo on rice paper and having that under the top layer or resin.
I’m interesting too. I would consider to use water transfer decals
You can try printing it on a plastic film, and then infusing that into the part (or wet layup, then you will have a resin layer, the logo film, and then the part.
I’ve done it with just silver sharpy and PES film in epoxy…doesn’t always laminate the film onto the part, but it was also prepreg, so there wasnt much resin flow.
Yeah I might try a couple of your guys ideas. In the mean time I asked my guy to find some super thin vinyl other then what I usually use and maybe that will help. My gf suggested engraving too. I thought that would be a pretty good idea as well. If not I could get the vinyl I have now and carefully press it with my 20 ton press into the carbon fiber while its curing. I just don’t want the placement to be off.
The other thing I’ve seen that works well are water slide decals. Though I haven’t found a the printer that makes them, so I’d have to order them from some company that specializes in them and that means ordering a large batch.
They do look quite nice and bright against the carbon. Haven’t had much luck with the rice paper on the black. That works great on light colored parts.
Are they really thin? I actually found a do it yourself pack of water slide decals that you can just run off your computer ink jet printer simply. Just curious is to how thin they are though. Otherwise I will still be in the same situation with the decals I use now. They stick good and everything, but I do not want to have to apply a thicker coat of resin to keep them permanently bonded. I would use layers of clear coat, but the product I’m making get cleaned with solvents so It would destroy the clear coat pretty quick.
Actually I just looked it up… my decals I’ve been using are less thick as the water slide decals. .0015" vs .0003" I think my best option is to just go with a cnc engraver. I will probably make another post on Laser etching onto carbon fiber and see if I get any responses. Thank you all for input!
EDIT! Correction…I read the decimal points incorrect. The water slide decals are about half the thickness of my vinyl decals. Sorry for that. I will give them a try and update this for everyone.
yah the water slides are fairly thin but they look good with light colors like yellow and white. Hard to do with an inkjet.
I’ve done laser etching and it’s ok, but has issues as well as it’s mostly for flat parts and smaller parts. The other option is to CNC a flat single ply of something with high contrast, like texalium, and then just laminate/bond that to your part.
silkscreen or rubber stamp has worked well in the past
I commented on your laser post already, but this topic interests me too. I actually found this forum from my google search alert about laser engraving.
You might look into UV Inkjet printing directly onto your parts. Except, if they’re curved it would be difficult to do a large image. (For reference, I can print an image the size of a nickle onto a golf ball before it becomes too curved). The prints would still need a clear coat on top, and I am not sure how durable it would be, but it’s another option to look into.
Your CNC engraving idea is also good if laser doesn’t work - then you could fill with paint or epoxy and clear coat.
Sara
How would you recommend doing the paint fill? I guess just a mask film could probably do it?
Kind of like this? http://www.engraving.cc/Webpage/webart/routed_silver.jpg
Fill the engraved logo out with bright color, and squeegie/wipe off the surface, and the engraved part stays filled.
I’m working on a flat surface thankfully, and the cnc idea with some kind of paint filling has whats been running through my head the most. All I use is a lettering logo for the mean time in Impact font type. Since what I’m making is very small, I need small fine detail. My plans are just to order up a small cnc machine, but I’d of course need to test first before spending the money. Clear coat is NOT an option in my case because of the solvents I use. On my vinyl stickers I’ve been using, it works, but has to rub onto other surfaces alot and ends up rubbing that very thin resin right off of it and the vinyl falls apart. So far I think my only clean looking option is to try cnc engraving. As for the laser, I hear it burns. I wish I could find an example or picture online. I think on my other Post someone offered me the service to try and test it out. Probably what I’m going to have to do.
Just an update… I used the water decal transfer paper on my cheap printer and everything ended up coming out great. Super thin and no real problems. I’d still like to figure out and engraving process, but as of right now I can not complain about the Water Decal Transfer Paper…bought off ebay. Thanks!
Do you have any pictures of the final item?
Agreed, pics please.
If you can print some test pieces it would be great. Also which exact paper did you use and what printer?
How well does it do white, yellow, and other light colors?
i use regular avery labels with a layer of veil over top. during infusion the center can gave a little trouble infusing but a light massaging over the bag wets it out fine
the white label provides a good background against the back of CF
ps were talking about logos to “tag” your parts right? or is this on the front side for visuals?
Front side visuals… but I did not need my logo to “pop” so going black was fine, but it is still somewhat not perfect, but it does work alot better than the vinyl graphics I was using. I decided to use neither, but on something bigger I’d stick with the vinyl and just clear coat. I dont have the option to clear coat on the product I’m testing with and it is also a very small part so that is why I tried the water decal and it went on nice, but I never applied a clear or resin over it.
I’ve been working on getting a brand & P/N graphic on the non finished peel ply surface of a component, so far, I’ve tested a few different thicknesses of heat transfer sticker printed at a local print shop into my part, but it has floated up and pulled out the majority of itself when removing the peel ply. I think it may have been due to the gloss surface floating up and sticking. My next test is to reverse print the sticker and stick the adhesive surface to some fiberglass veil then stick down to my stack with some Super 77 before laying the peel ply so that the resin can make a surface on the veil material, opinions?