How To Make Your Own Image Board?

Image transfer techniqes for color Inkjet printed to (painted) wood?

• Either using decals or special papers or heat/rub/ other tranfer techniques? What are some possible (easiest and cost effective) ways to transfer an image to wood? The task is to duplicate the rather complicated hand-painted design on an old section of molding/custom ceiling to a new recreation of that at another location. The painted design on the sideboards is shadowed and intricate knot-work that would be complicated to stencil and would require several different applications or hand-painting and is too large an area to make this practical. Ideally, we would like to scan the image off the old board and be able to print the design onto some paper or even specially designed material that could be used to transfer it and all its colors onto the new wood (painted, but can be coated with some other necessary material to facilitate this) with as little trouble as possible. What are some techniques that might be able to use an inkjet printer (with rollers to feed through-thus no cardboard or non-bendable print surface) to print the design and then transfer? The image is symmetrical, so can be reversed without issue, but the re are some fine details that will need it to be resistant to bleeding or diffusing in the process of transfer - will need to keep lines and colors as true to the original as possible (although saturation can be increased in the original to compensate for fading if necessary. Creating a wallpaper-like decal is acceptable, so long as it will stick to wood. The most important is that it is able to be printed en masse and easy to apply as well, and then also it should be long lasting once applied, even if a clearcoat or topcoat must go on top of the image to fix it. I know of one method using elmers glue and modge podge but will have problems feeding glued paper into the printer due to the rollers.Is there any special paper that can be purchased for similar technique that can be feed through the inkjet printer to create the transferable image? Thanks in advance for any ideas!

• Answer:

  Specialty papers such as water slide or rub-on decals can be used on many surfaces such as wood or ceramic. Choose a specialty paper based on your desired surface. Some water slide papers can be used on painted wood or ceramic. Rub-on decals may be desirable on unfinished wood and ceramic to produce a painted effect. Remember that transfer sheets usually contain a transparent coating so white areas don't print; when transferred, these areas appear clear. If your wood or ceramic project has a dark background, choose a specialty paper specifically coated with a white transfer background for clearer images.