Goldjockey
Elite Cafe Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2018
- Messages
- 276
A couple of years ago (nearly) I came back to my workshop with a GRS basic engraving course under my belt. Upon returning home, I was determined to put my new skills to work. There was hitch though... I found out that my Brother printer/copier/ fax pretty much refused to deliver transfers the way the Canon printer/copier in my GRS classroom had.
Bearing in mind that I'd bought my Brother 'swiss army knife', multi function, do everything, color/black and white machine for desktop publishing - back when, that for years it was fully capable of everything I'd previously asked it to do, when it refused to deliver a basic acetone transfer in 100% black and white mode, I was steamed!
I spent plenty on that machine, didn't want to gamble on a new purchase, and sometimes, when fate was smiling, and the stars were in alignment , every once in a while, I'd get a really good acetone transfer. Just often enough that I put off looking at something else.
After a fair amount of experimentation with solvent/paper combinations, I really thought I had it licked. I found that with a combination of brake/carb cleaner as the solvent, and a fairly expensive layout paper, about 1/2 of the time, I could get a workable transfer from the Brother output.... until I couldn't.
Don't know if its humidity, or changing weather, plain bad luck, or just trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, but when I set about to do a fairly small 1.5" x 2" transfer to a nickel money clip, no matter what I tried, I could not get it to take.
After looking at a pile of failed transfers, enough was enough. That Brother printer was great at what it was designed to do, but it was obvious consistent Acetone transfers were abosultely not in that printer's capabilities. I hate, absolutely despise admitting defeat, but there is just no way my Brother printer was going yield consistently transferable output.
No way around it, I can't cut what I can't get to transfer, so this week I threw in the towel. I called GRS to find out exactly what printers they were using so I could just buy whatever it was that worked for them.
Torrell Flickinger at GRS was extremely helpful and had a list of printer/copiers that would work. Almost all were Canon or HP printers, and as luck would have it, mostly older generation machines with limited connectivity, Not that that's bad, but I wanted a multi function (Printer/Copier/Scanner/Fax) machine with good Wifi functionality.
I did some research, found a Canon D1620 on sale at Staples for $300 and change. Not cheap, but considering the machine's capabilities, reasonably priced for my purposes.
On sale the D1620 was actually quite a bit less than the excellent Canon D1120 printer at GRS. No Wifi capability for the older D1120 (around $400 - $500 street price, if you can find one). The cartridges appear to be analogous. The D1120 uses a Canon 120 Cartridge, and the newer D1620 a Canon 121 Cartridge.
Pulled the trigger on on the newer Canon D1620 . it arrived today, and I was not disappointed. After setting the machine up, I printed the money clip layout, taped it on to the workpiece, swabbed it, and it transferred perfectly, First time,
Spent the evening cutting instead of monkeying around trying to get the transfer to print. Really pleased!
Bearing in mind that I'd bought my Brother 'swiss army knife', multi function, do everything, color/black and white machine for desktop publishing - back when, that for years it was fully capable of everything I'd previously asked it to do, when it refused to deliver a basic acetone transfer in 100% black and white mode, I was steamed!
I spent plenty on that machine, didn't want to gamble on a new purchase, and sometimes, when fate was smiling, and the stars were in alignment , every once in a while, I'd get a really good acetone transfer. Just often enough that I put off looking at something else.
After a fair amount of experimentation with solvent/paper combinations, I really thought I had it licked. I found that with a combination of brake/carb cleaner as the solvent, and a fairly expensive layout paper, about 1/2 of the time, I could get a workable transfer from the Brother output.... until I couldn't.
Don't know if its humidity, or changing weather, plain bad luck, or just trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, but when I set about to do a fairly small 1.5" x 2" transfer to a nickel money clip, no matter what I tried, I could not get it to take.
After looking at a pile of failed transfers, enough was enough. That Brother printer was great at what it was designed to do, but it was obvious consistent Acetone transfers were abosultely not in that printer's capabilities. I hate, absolutely despise admitting defeat, but there is just no way my Brother printer was going yield consistently transferable output.
No way around it, I can't cut what I can't get to transfer, so this week I threw in the towel. I called GRS to find out exactly what printers they were using so I could just buy whatever it was that worked for them.
Torrell Flickinger at GRS was extremely helpful and had a list of printer/copiers that would work. Almost all were Canon or HP printers, and as luck would have it, mostly older generation machines with limited connectivity, Not that that's bad, but I wanted a multi function (Printer/Copier/Scanner/Fax) machine with good Wifi functionality.
I did some research, found a Canon D1620 on sale at Staples for $300 and change. Not cheap, but considering the machine's capabilities, reasonably priced for my purposes.
On sale the D1620 was actually quite a bit less than the excellent Canon D1120 printer at GRS. No Wifi capability for the older D1120 (around $400 - $500 street price, if you can find one). The cartridges appear to be analogous. The D1120 uses a Canon 120 Cartridge, and the newer D1620 a Canon 121 Cartridge.
Pulled the trigger on on the newer Canon D1620 . it arrived today, and I was not disappointed. After setting the machine up, I printed the money clip layout, taped it on to the workpiece, swabbed it, and it transferred perfectly, First time,
Spent the evening cutting instead of monkeying around trying to get the transfer to print. Really pleased!
Last edited:
