[This Designed That] does a lot of hot foil stamping. That’s the shiny embellishment you’ll see on wedding invitations and your fancier letterheads. They wanted a way to quickly see if the process is right for a given design, and how it might come together if so. Many of the designs involve letter forms, which they have tried milling out of brass in the past, but the process is fiddly and takes a while. Seeking a faster way to test designs, [This Designed That] turned to 3D printing.
They achieved good results with an Elegoo Mars Pro, but the the most important thing here is the resin needs to withstand at least 130 C, which is the max that [This Deigned That] usually runs it at. The answer was in Phrozen TR300 resin, which can handle temps up to 160 C.
In trials, the stamp heat measured roughly 30 C lower on average than the press, so [This Designed That] kept turning up the heat, but it just wasn’t conductive enough. So they started experimenting with ways to increase heat transfer. First they tried molding metal powder, but it didn’t work. After briefly flirting with electroplating them, [This Designed That] finally tried some aluminum tape, wrapped tight and burnished to the design.
Now the hot foil machine stamps perfectly at only 120 C — the lower end of the standard temperature that [This Designed That] typically runs the thing. They are chuffed at the results, and frankly, so are we. Be sure to check out the process video after the break.
Curious about hot foil stamping machines? Check out this retrofit job.
This foil can also be applied differently:
Print it like like when doing toner transfer on a laser printer.
Then bond the foil with a heat press to the toner. Peel off transfer tape and clean residue with a soft brush.
The print quality might not suffice for professional design, but is great for tinkering, doing greeting cards and such things.
You can also use these rub-on transfer foils for nails if you are into fancier stuff than the usual gold and silver foils.
There also exist transfer foils for thermo transfer printers.
Yes toner transfer foil is an alternative but is more difficult to print fine details like small text, and not to sound too much of a print snob, but hot foil just looks so much better with the small impression left from the process, it give a very nice tactile experience.
There’s resin that goes to 464F available if you need it:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09M6RWRGX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thankyou for this link! Wow, 464F! I looked everywhere for high temp resin and the Phrozen range was the best I could find. I wonder if this resin will have the same issue that the Phrozen did, in that it can withstand the high temperature because it has low thermal conductivity?
You could also try to print a negative version of your design or text with a little clearance. Then you could apply the metal tape to the stamp (adhesive down) and use the negative design to press the tape into place. Essentially you are stamping sheet metal just like the car manufacturers but on a very small, thin scale. This might save all the time burnishing the foil to your stamp and possibly improve the detail and uniformity of the print.
I really like this idea, although it will require extra time in the CAD software to make the the positive and negative stamps with a slight clearance. I had enough trouble make the positive ith a draft in fusion, it really doesnt like calculating all those angles when you have a lot of text. You can make the negative version from the positive using epoxy (i use this process to make embossing dies) which also might work
I also wonder if applying copper leaf or rub n buff might produce the same kind of heat conduction. But it may not be as durable as the tape.
I would think the copper leaf would be too fragile but it could be worth a shot!