Alan,
I watched the video, an I am convinced that the Oracal works well
with heated transfer, where the heat melts the toner and
(hopefully) gets it to stick to the copper. I get it. By the same
token, the process that works so well with heat will not respond
well to the cold process.
In the cold process, we get the toner to melt using a solvent.
The solvent needs to be absorbed into the backing medium to
release the toner. The process requirement is the same, we need
to melt the toner and get it to stick to the board. With a paper
backing, the toner gets surrounded by the solvent, and melts. The
pressure gets it to stick. The backing medium needs to be able to
absorb the solvent, and hold it in contact with the toner. The
Oracal is non absorbent, and therefore much less suited to the
cold process. The success you've had with it probably is because
solvent gets trapped between the Oracal and the board. With enough
pressure you might get transfer, but it is hard to believe that
you could get uniform distribution of the solvent.
When you heat process the Oracal, you peel the vinyl off the
board, and leave the toner behind. In the cold process, we soak
the paper until it almost disintegrates, and then we gently rub
the excess paper off. The toner does not really separate from the
paper in the same manner as the Oracal with heat. There have been
many discussions about which kinds of paper are best for the
process. There is a theory that the shinier paper is better than
regular printing paper. That seems to be true in my case. I use
the thinnest, glossiest paper that my printer will handle. The
gloss must not come from a clay coating. Others have had great
success with very hard papers like baking parchment. I had no
success with that paper. The common thread here is that the
greatest successes are with using paper as the print medium.
Just my $.02
Harvey
MIke N., see this video showing the use of this medium:
Toner transfer video using Oracal 651 vinyl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtmJdCBjwXY
I got the drayer and will have another go at TT with this medium. The Oracal 651 comes stuck to a paper backing. The paper backing peels off. The vinyl then has a sticky side which you can attach to piece of paper and feed through the laser printer. I figured out how to do this using EAGLECAD and made a template so I now know exactly where to attach the sticky vinyl to the paper just before printing it. If the vinyl gives me any trouble, I'll try printing the artwork onto the glossy paper backing before I consider another medium.
73,
Alan