Handmade Pottery + Ceramic Jewelry

HP P1006 Black and White Laser Printer

I was running errands the other day – you know the kind where 1 store doesn’t fit all? I needed mailing labels from the paper store, clay from Mile Hi Ceramics, ribbon from the craft store, snacks for my clay class etc. etc. For some reason, I popped into the Office Max near a grocery store and decided to check out the laser printers again. I’ve been re-reading Image Transfer on Clay by Paul Wandless and also checked Ceramics and Print, by Paul Scott from the public library again (I should really just buy the book) because I’ve been thinking about making decals again.

I can’t seem to get my act together to screen decals, and the laser decals seem a bit easier to start. There is a high concentration of iron oxide in some types of laser toner ink cartridges, which when fired onto glazed work results in a soft sepia toned image. I could use my own art work, copy right free images, photographs, etc. to add another dimension onto my ceramic work.

Backing up to my visit to Office Max…when I ran into the store for some kind of misc. office supply, I slowed down near the printers and was impressed with how reasonably priced the simple black and white laser printers are right now. Of course, when I ask the sales rep for information about wanting to see the specs on the ink cartridge for this printer, he was probably thinking, Oy Vey, I’ve got a looney on my hands. I had to back up and explain what I was using the printer for and then, he was a little more agreeable to helping me find the information I needed.

I remembered reading a thread on the Clay Art discussion board about ink content and that any ink that contains at least 30% iron oxide works well for laser decals and HP models seem to have anywhere from 35-45% iron oxide. When I finally found the MSDS for the ink on the HP site, it lists “ferrite” as one of the ink’s ingredients – but that’s so vague and was listed as part of a “proprietary recipe”. I know that ferrite refers to iron, so I needed to investigate a little more.

So, the sales rep hooked me up with one of their fancy computers (Ever used a touch screen monitor before? That’s a topic for another day, but very weird – I missed the keyboard) to search for the info I needed on a clayart thread on ink. Instead of finding the thread for which I was looking, I landed on Justin Rothshank’s site, (a potter whose work I now own thanks to the Obamaware fundraiser) and he specifically lists the printer model I was scrutinizing on his “decal resources page”. At $99.99 + tax, it seems like a reasonable price for an item that typically has a fairly short life span in my experience. Bam – instant sale and since my mom has been asking me what I wanted for Christmas this year, I called her up to thank her for her generous present after leaving the store with printer in hand.

I already have decal paper, but just realized that I purchased traditional decal paper which requires a cover coat – I think I’ll buy some laser decal paper and am going to check my local fine art supplier, Meiningers – if they don’t have it, I’ll buy some online from DecalPaper.com.

Meanwhile, my anti virus software keeps telling me that my website and blog is being blocked for suspicious pdf download activity. I do my best to stay up to date on virus and software definitions and also keep WordPress up to date, so if you are receiving any messages like this, please let me know. I’m going to investigate later today to make sure that it’s just Norton Antivirus being uber protective.

Have a great day,

~Cynthia