Turned Box with color engraved lid

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

This is a box I made for a friend at work. He has a hunting buddy and wanted to make him something to remember their bear hunt. He brought me a picture that I sent to Keith Outten, so he could work his magic with it. Here are some photos of the color engraving Keith did, and the attempt at a box to put it on. The guy absolutely went nuts over it! I'm glad it was what he was looking for. A huge thanks to Keith for doing the engraving for us.

[Mark Cothren]

Very nice gesture for a friend, and a very nice box!

Thanks for the picture!

[Don Baer]

Ron

Thats outstanding.

[Lee DeRaud]

Very nice!

But I definitely think it's time for Keith to jump in and tell us how he did that color engraving!:confused:

[Keith Outten]

Lee,

Well...it's not really color engraving it is dye-sublimation. The process starts with a dye-sub printer and ink, the photo is printed and then placed on top of a piece of Corian and placed in a heat press. The heat allows the ink to transfer approximately two to three thousandths of an inch into the Corian and is supposed to be UV stable for 30 years.

The process is really cool and although I am still learning it is reasonably easy to obtain some good looking projects. According to Dolph you can use an oven to provide the heat as long as you use a weight to hold the paper flat against the Corian. You must have a special dye-sublimation type of ink though and not the dye-sub ink that is used in the photo printers. My Epson 1280 printer uses Artainiam Ink.

I printed Rons friends photo on a beige colored Corian. I found out that the color is much more vibrant on white Corian but the results were still OK. There are lots of materials that can be dye-sublimated like T-Shirts, coffee cups and even specially prepared metals.

In a few days I will be "Cooking" a whole bunch of elevator fire warning signs for CNU. I will post a couple of pictures when the first batch comes out of the oven...eh heat press :)

[Lee DeRaud]

Ok, that makes sense.:p

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

Ok, that makes sense.:p

I couldn't remember what the dye-sublimation was called ...

[Ben Lang]

Excelent Work!

[John Hart]

Nice work Ron..You too Keith! Looks to be something that will be treasured for a lifetime. That's walnut I assume....It looks like it turned cleanly for you. Very nice!