Toner Transfer

Posted on December 17, 2016 Updated on December 17, 2016

I’m still not happy with the dash so time for the fourth iteration. This time I designed it in CAD using OnShape.com, including all of the labels. To fabricate it and apply labels I thought using a tuner transfer method might be nice.

First the wood was vanished and sanded smooth. I only had A4 size toner transfer paper so I had to print multiple pages to cover the whole dash. PosteRazor was very helpful in printing the pages, just don’t forget to mirror your CAD image before printing.

Starting with the center bottom page I taped it to the board and used the wife’s iron to transfer the toner. To align the next page I pushed T-pins into various reference points.

Those same reference points were poked through the paper.

Then using the holes the next page was aligned using multiple reference points.

Then the page was tapped in place and toner transferred with the iron. This process was repeated until the whole dash was completed. The nice thing is if you mess up just sand off the mistake and try again!

Since all the holes were marked with toner it was really easy to cut out all of the holes precisely where I wanted then.

I might want to add some more text or switches before I complete the airplane so for now I am leaving off the final coat of varnish. But once completed I plan to add a couple of coats to help protect the toner from abrasion.

I recently started working on the electrical wiring and quickly discovered that most 12v USB phone chargers emit RF interference like crazy. When tuned to around 132Mhz the interference makes reception impossible. Anyone know of a decent priced charger that does not emit tons of RF?