Camoflauge Letters

[Mike Jackson]

I was looking at the Cabelas web site for a camo tarp and found over 2000 camo items, including these camo letters:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Camo-Let ... z_l=Header

But, if you want a real kick, look over all of these items:
http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/search/? ... llProducts

Besides the camo shirts, hats, jackets, boots and so forth, there are camo beds, couches, chairs, curtains, wallets, and the list goes on and on and on!

Mike Jackson

[Lee Littlewood]

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I'm not sure about the camoflauge wood letters in the catalog, but these skulls have been painted by 'hydro paint'. It is a lot like paper marbling - you float a paint on the surface of water, then dip the material in slowly and the paint will wrap around the surface. Some u-tube videos showed it being used for sneakers - making them gold or silver or patterned.

I think it is awesome, but the problem I found is that the painted image has to come from the supplier - it is on a carrier sheet which they say dissolves in water, leaving just pigment floating on the surface. But I haven't found anyone who will tell me how to make the paint print, or send them a file so they can fabricate it. Until then all that we civilians can do is to make marbled patterns with oil paint, and get some nice backgrounds (but not very dense, because the oil color spreads out on the water surface so you end up with a thin layer of paint).

[Rob Schramm]

The skulls are done by hydro dipping, I own a tank and do many different things. I have tested hydro dipping with great success on glass by first applying a single stage clear urathane and then curing it in a oven for 1-2 hours at about 125 degrees. Here are a couple of my results:

[Rob Schramm]

Here is another panel I did when I first got the hydrographics tank. It has since been framed but is in storage as we are in the process of building a new building in spring.

[pat mackle]

Hi Rob,
I first saw this process about a year ago and was amazed how it could be so accurate when applied to the most difficult looking
compound curves. Looks good on glass too.

[Rob Schramm]

Pat,

It all depends on how weirdly shaped the piece is! With animal skulls it is simple, but I have done ATV and motorcycle parts that are insane. I bought it for glass and while I have done it many times on glass
I have used it for so much more, including mirror frames. The glass is very tricky as my first 5 attempts failed but now I have a process.

Rob

[Lee Littlewood]

So Rob, what is the process of making the transfer print? From what I saw on the web, one makes a print (with special ink?) on a piece of special paper, then floats the paper on top of the water bath. The paper dissolves out, leaving the pigment floating - you dip an object in and the pigment wraps around it, and presumably sticks.
But how does one get that image-on-a-piece-of-paper? All I saw was pages and pages of prepared images (including pink camo patterns for the ladies) for sale, nothing about custom orders or DIY.

[Anthony Bennett]

Hi Rob,
Lovely work.
I have always wondered what type of printer is used to do this and if special inks are used but then having looked around the web, (Kolorfusion?) it looks like one buys pre printed film. Do you have to outsource to get your own designs specially printed?

With regards to mike's original post, I take it that the textiles are not hydrodipped.....are they?

[Rob Schramm]

I buy all my films from China and Hong Kong direct through AliBaba Express which are pre-printed. I do own a epson printer that has been converted to except dye inks that I also get from China along with special printer paper. With that set up I can do custom pics out of things like Dover Books. As far as the technique for glass, you have to know that anything that you are use can be submerged into hotter water for up to 30 sec. The way that hydrographics works is you have a carrier film that is basically a hardened gel that gets printed on but when cut and put into water and sprayed with an activator becomes a floating dye which will bond to paint. For glass I use clear single stage urathane and I cure it with an auto curing light and the real trick starts then as I tried 4 different ways to submerge the glass properly and failed 3 times until I realized aluminum tape works perfectly. The image has no background so you simply dry out the film (about 2 hours) or I just put it under a heat lamp again and then paint in the background color. This is a lot of fun, but if all your going to do is glass I would keep from the $7000 investment. I use the tank for a ton of different things outside of glass.

[Anthony Bennett]

Sounds very interesting Rob. I think I know of the firm that you buy the printable paper from, if it's the people where you have to spray the film with Part A to print on and Part B to release. Although I imagine the minimum order to be quite expensive.

It would be great to see other things you have printed using this method.
Thanks for giving an insight.