Scan And Print To Tracing Film

[johnh52]

has anyone tried this?

[howie696]

Yes I use drafting tracing paper and a laser printer, works a treat

[Northmount]

I use transparency film on a laser printer. Works well.

Tom

[raysouth]

Can it be done with office jet printer? Never tried.

God Bless.

Ray

[Cyberthrasher]

It can probably be done with an OfficeJet if you get the right paper, but it might jam up your printer as well.

Now, here's where I get on my soap box:

One of the MOST important aspects of tooling is being familiar with your design. I see a lot of people who want to skip the "tracing" part and jump straight to tooling. While this is fine for the more experienced crafters, in the beginning you really need that extra pass to KNOW your pattern. Tooling leather isn't just tracing lines on leather with a knife. We have to make adjustments to the knife location, as well as depth and angle, on a regular basis. By tracing it onto the paper by hand (the old fashioned way), you're allowing your mind and fingers one more pass at knowing where these various aspects of the design are.

Try an exercise:

Find a simple basic design - something that you can do relatively quickly (like an hour or so). Now, tool it up.

Next - do it again the next day, or even after a little time has passed. compare the two and see how it looks. Did it improve anywhere? Most likely the answer will be yes because you're more familiar with the design at this point.

Now do it yet again and compare the results. A lot of this is a combination of muscle memory and studying our work to KNOW what went wrong and what needs to happen differently in various locations of the piece. That's something that can't be done by hitting "Print Now"

[olds cool]

I use transparency film in my inkjet. Make sure you print it in such a way that the ink is not facing the leather when you are tracing. I've had rub off doing it the other way, which I sure could be useful in some manner but not when laying out a carving pattern. I haven't done it in a while but I think I had to print a mirror image.

[raysouth]

Thank you Cyber and Olds Cool,

I agree with the practice thing Cyber. It would be easier for me to have the image tracing done by computer to provide me with a good image to start my transfer to the leather due to issues with hands. My tracings seem to go astray, at times, but will probably continue as I have in the past as computerese is a tad over my head and any dificulty with the process would give me fits. lol.

Thanks Olds, and was curious if it was a simple matter and I believe that I understand about the ink transfer against the leather. I truly appreciate the time you took to provide the information.

God Bless.

Ray

[camano ridge]

Staples, Office Depot and yes even Tandy sells transparency film for ink jets. I have used the Tandy film and it works fine. After printing the image give the ink some time to set before tracing.

[Cyberthrasher]

I agree with the practice thing Cyber. It would be easier for me to have the image tracing done by computer to provide me with a good image to start my transfer to the leather due to issues with hands. My tracings seem to go astray, at times, but will probably continue as I have in the past as computerese is a tad over my head and any dificulty with the process would give me fits. lol.

I understand your situation Ray, so I don't want to say a person can never do it any other way. I just really wanted to speak in general terms. My best suggestion for you is to just take your time on the tracing and maybe work on finding a pencil setup that will be easier to control. If you're not having as many problems using a knife without it going astray, I'm inclined to think that perhaps the pencil is so thin it's requiring you to grip harder in order to keep a handle on it. Use some tape or those squishy pencil grips or something to build up some bulk and make it easier to handle. I honestly think that using the printer might cause you more headaches down the road, but it would be worth a shot if you have your design laid out on the computer just right.