Making Panel markings/ decals etc

[Paul Collins M0BSW]

 Hi , I'm trying to make my projects look more professional , so making the decals for the front is really annoying me, never done or tried silk screen technique if that is possible, I have tried lettraset rub on, but they also rub off, grrrrr, at the moment I'm trying a brother P Touch, which is a label printer hand held and the tapes are expensive, so my dear friends does anyone better ways of making  front panel designs.
Paul

[SeanB]

Self adhesive laser tranparency sheets run through a laser printer with a straight through paper path. If you do not have a straight through paper path then do not try as you will destroy the printer. For that use a transparency sheet meant for laser printing, and attach to the front panel using spray adhesive. If you can get access to a cold laminator and the self adhesive cold laminate use that to laminate the film.

If not just use plain paper and spray adhesive and attach that to the finished front panel, then use self adhesive sheets to protect the paper. I did that 30 years ago and the panel still looks reasonable.  This method also works using photo inkjet paper and an inkjet printer. You can use fill colour with this as well, and it will not look too bad, as good as a photo printed from the printer.

Otherwise get a laser cut panel which gives the option of coloured backgrounds. Trophy places have the required aluminium sheets in sizes up to A4/legal and the ability to engrave the required labels into it. You can then fill the engraving with paint and get a contrasting label.

[Paul Collins M0BSW]

Self adhesive laser tranparency sheets run through a laser printer with a straight through paper path. If you do not have a straight through paper path then do not try as you will destroy the printer. For that use a transparency sheet meant for laser printing, and attach to the front panel using spray adhesive. If you can get access to a cold laminator and the self adhesive cold laminate use that to laminate the film.

If not just use plain paper and spray adhesive and attach that to the finished front panel, then use self adhesive sheets to protect the paper. I did that 30 years ago and the panel still looks reasonable.  This method also works using photo inkjet paper and an inkjet printer. You can use fill colour with this as well, and it will not look too bad, as good as a photo printed from the printer.

Otherwise get a laser cut panel which gives the option of coloured backgrounds. Trophy places have the required aluminium sheets in sizes up to A4/legal and the ability to engrave the required labels into it. You can then fill the engraving with paint and get a contrasting label.

Thanks Sean that's a great help, this afternoon I built the crystal tester from W2AEW's site, now I know what all my ham radio crystals are and there boxed up correctly.