These look great. I was toying with the idea of printing and engraving on clear acrylic for some of the lighted one to see how they look.
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Thank you. I havenāt tried back lighting yet. I have a āDark Side of the Moonā that I have been trying to find translucent colors to complete. I may break down and just try dyeing some resin to see if it works.
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Thank you.
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This thread has detoured such that I want to bring up another printing on plastic topicā¦
One thing I am interested in doing is creating reproductions of the flat plastic parts in pinball machines. They often break and for old games, old stock is hard to get. Reproductions are made for some games, but itās common to need one part, not a whole setā¦ So I want to make them myself.
However, these plastics are not easy to make with home tech like inkjet or even sublimationā¦ I think.
Here is an exampleā¦ A clear plastic, with partial-coverage art, printed on the back. And you can see some of the artwork is white. In fact, all of it is backed with white. The white ink looks opaque to the eye, but it does let light pass, so the lights underneath light up the whole piece and show off the colors.
Pieces which have complete art coverage, as you can see here, have a full white backing.
For a piece that has total coverage, maybe you can sublimate the colors onto the plastic, and then use some kind of spray for the backing white layer. But I am not sure how to do something like the first piece.
Iād be curious if yāall have any ideas.
(AFAIK, the right way to do this is a stupid expensive printer that can print white.)
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For the full coverage ones, you would just need to use white acrylic and print on the one side, no need to add a white spray to the back.
For the first one, maybe try masking the bottom side of a clear acrylic and engraving the design, spray the engraved part with white, then sublimate the color design on the top. I am thinking, if you engrave the back, you may not have to spray the engrave since the engraving comes out white. It depends on white itself. The hard part would be placing the print on the piece exactly over the engraved part. I might have to do some test this week with this method.
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White acrylic is not translucent enough to pass enough light, it would look dim. Also, all of these are printed on clear plastics with the art underneath. Art on top plus dim would stick out like a sore thumb.
There is a very specific look to make this right.
Light engrave to accept the white, the sub on topā¦ Thatās a good idea, thanks!
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I wonder if you print on the back side of clear acrylic and then use white India ink over that? Or if you used diluted white acrylic paint?
Or if you did a layer of acrylic behind it - like white acrylic or maybe frosted clear acrylic?
Just random ideas that came to mind.
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Do you do any airbrushing? You can buy translucent white airbrush paint at Hobby Lobby. Createx makes a range of transparent, opaque and pearlized paints that would probably work quite well in your restoration. I have used their paints for a lot of projects and they go on quite smoothly.
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I actually do have an airbrush, though I can barely use the darn thing. Good idea, thank you!
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These are great! Iām only a few months in on sublimation, but I have a mountain of acrylic that will now need to be included. Thank you for sharing your work and information!
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I just tested out the engrave on the back. The engrave definitely helps. These pics were right after engraving, cutting and printing, so they are not super cleaned up pieces and no finish has been added.
Top picture of the non engraved (left) & engraved back (right)
Picture of the back of both.
Picture of each on a black background after printing.
Picture of each with part black and white background to better see the results.
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Wow, the engraved on the back definitely turned out much brighter colors didnāt it? Looks great. I just may have to break down and by a sublimation printer. Which means Iāll really have to clean my craft area so I have room for itā¦
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Very interesting, thank you!!
Do it! 
I wish I could find a sublimation forum that is as good as this one is for the 
though.
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Dang these look so good! Good job.
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If itās anything like mine, that will last all of 5 minutesš
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If itās like mine, just move into another area of the houseā¦ Bwahahaha
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Iāve kinda sorta run out of rooms. Discovery channel reached out to me. Want me on a new season of Hoardersā¦
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They might be contacting me if they see one particular room in its current condition. bwahahaha
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