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FRONT PANEL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN SYNTHESIZER PROJECTS

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FRONT PANEL CONSTRUCTION IN SYNTHESIZER PROJECTS

There exist numerous techniques for DIY production of front panel legend for either individual panels in a
modular setup or with some ingenuity, larger panels. I have tried a couple of methods over the past eighteen
months since I have been constructing font panels. There is lots of information to be found on the web, and
with new materials being produced all the time for inkjet printers and laser printers the future could lead
to more professional looking panels within the reach of DIYer. A FAQ discussing numerous methods people have
used for panel legend construction can be found here front panel legend
Here I discuss the methods I have used and found to give good results
with care. Before that is worth mentioning that the best solution to front panels..is to have them made and
engraved by professional companies like schaeffer-apparatebau of Berlin. Many synth DIYers use this route.
The panels are high quality and come in a variety of finishes. The neat thing about this method is that you
can use the free software FRONT PANEL DESIGNER which is available from their website, to design your panel
and then simply upload the file to the Schaeffer website. This is an excellent program for designing front
panels. I have used it in all my designs.
The only negative side of this method is obviously the cost. For a basic panel with not too
many engravings its pretty reasonable, but start adding dials for all your pots and the price does shoot up.
This is ultimately why I chose to make my own panels and the legend. The other main reason was that in my
modular project I wanted to go for painted front panels rather than usual black or aluminium finish since I
wanted to add a bit of colour to my synth!
So onto the two methods I have used most:-

METHOD 1: TONER TRANSFER METHOD (DYNART PAPER)


Dynart paper has a special heat-proof coating that when used in either laser printers or photocopiers
produces a copy of original artwork by fusing the toner to the top coating. The paper is pretty expensive. In
the UK you can obtain it from Milford Instruments (its about 10 pounds for 5 sheets) and in America checkout
the DynaArt website.
The idea then is to create a sort of large decal by lifting or transfering this image onto a
carrier layer, which is created by spraying the surface of the paper with clear lacquer. After several layers
of lacquer have been build up, the whole artwork is placed in water for 2-minutes. Since the toner/lacquer is
waterproof, the backing paper loosens and then one can slide the whole artwork off and onto the front panel.
The advantage of this over other methods (see below) is that the carrier layer can be made extrenely thin
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FRONT PANEL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN SYNTHESIZER PROJECTS

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(perhaps 10 microns or so). The advantage of this is that when the decal is placed onto the fron panel and
air bubbles have been removed by VERY CAREFUL BURNISHING OF THE TRANSFER (see below) the result can be really
excellent..quite close to silk-screening. Because the carrier layer is so thin, it is more or less invisible
and does not produce the distracting sheen that e.g. legends produced from transparency acetate often
suffer from. Also whilst it might seem that legend produced in this way might peel off in time, my experience
has been that it is very syable. In fact when I was trying the paper early on I inevitably made mistakes and
on one panel I had to remove the legend and start again. This was pretty difficult! I had to work quite hard
with wirewool.

Advantages
Can be used to make black or full colour front panel artwork
Capable of excellent results on painted surfaces, giving silk-screen effect
Good viewing angle of panel legend without troublesome sheen
Once the decal is applied, and over-lacquered, the finish is very durable.

Well what are the disadvantages? Here are a few which I have found
Dis-Advantages
Decal produced are VERY fragile to handle and may break.
Care must be taken when applying the lacquer layer to the paper, as bleeding of the toner can occur on fine
legend.
Ambient humidity/temperature can cause problems in that the decal can easily shrink if water is too hot.
Equally I have found that too cold water can cause cracking of the decal

I have discovered (the hard way!) some tricks to lessen these problems.First the instructions that come with
the paper say to apply a few light coats of lacquer to produce the decal. I tried this and each time my decal
broke into a million pieces even before I could get it from the water! I am not sure what lacquer they use in
the US but the stuff one can by here from car accessory shops just didnt work. I would recommend at least 9
coats of this kind of lacquer (make sure its matt finish as this produces a much better finish) be used.
This obviously produces a thicker decal, but I didnt find this affected the final finish too much. Certainly
the decal is far easier to handle..and is much stronger. This is very important since the key to good results
is to burnish the decal onto the panel in order to remove air bubbles and aid adhesion.
Another thing to avoid is applying lacquer and leaving the lacquer to harden. This will almost guarantee
that your decal cracks all over the place when you put in water. Far better to wait until the lacquer is just
dry (and still flexable)
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And then put into water. This way you avoid cracking all together.
BTW if the decal cracks only in a few places..its still usable. Just carefully align the pieces and after
drying the joins are essantially invisible.
To strengthen the panel legend on the panel, its crucial to add a few layers of lacquer ontop of the decal.
Dont make too large a decal that overhangs the panel edges. If anything make the decal slightly snaller
than the panel area. Then when over-lacquering..the decals edges are completely sealed. The results is a very
durable finish.Here are some pics of panels from my modular synthesizer that were made using this method.

METHOD 2: INKJET(LASER) ADHESIVE FILM


In the past I had tried making front panel artwork from inkjet transparency film. Whilst the artwork was fine
and stood out nicely against the painted background of my panels, I found a problem with gluing the decal
to the front plate. Even using clear epoxy there was a tendancy for the edges to lift from the panel..even
after overcoating with clear lacquer. I put this down to the thickness of the film. Also even though the
artwork is clear, the clarity is worstened when you look at the panel from an angle as you get the usual
problems with sheen.
Recently I discovered an inkjet film called Safmat Inkjet Film made by Letraset(the company who make dry
transfer decals). This is very thin (30 micron) very clear matt finish self-adhesive film. It can take quite
high resolution artwork easily and its very easy to apply to the front panel (and can be repositioned). After
the final position is achieved, you have to burnish the decal quite vigorously to the panel. This removes any
airbubbles and aids adhesion. Even though the film is thin its quite strong so you can burnish quite hard
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without fear of tearing. I made a panel using this method recently..see pics below of the results. I was
pleasently surprised by the resulting finish. Because the film is quite thin, it becomes practically
invisible after burnishing,so that the resulting finish is quite close to silk-screening in appearance. It is
important to overspray first with inkjet fixative (available from camera shops, art stores etc) and then a
couple of coates of matt clear lacquer. Again its better to cut your decal slightly smaller than the front
panel. Then the lacquer coat produces a hard sealed finish. The clarity of the final artwork is very
good ..even when viewed at angles.
A plus point compared to the toner transfer method discussed above is that you can get higher resolution
legend. This is because the toner inevitably spreads slightly in that process and degrades the resolution
slightly.
Here are a couple of pics of a module I made with Safmat film. The panel consists of two
Modules . The top is a Noise&Filter module by Tony Allgood and the second (yet to be build) is a Sample&Hold
module designed by Juergen Haible.

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METHOD 3: WATERSLIDE DECAL (LAZERTRAN PAPER)


A while back I discovered a really excellent product that does essentially the same job as Dynart
paper ..only the results are really superior and it's far easier to work with.
Its a water-slide decal (ie graphic transfer on a transparent plastic substrate) paper called Laztertran
and can be bought in small quantities (A4 or A3) from ( http://www.lazertran.com/ ).
There are several advantages this paper offers. First the coating for the water-slide decal is already on the
paper. Secondly it is a very thin decal (about 15 microns). The result of this is that the clear part of the
decal is almost invisible when its dried on your panel. Also it's pretty strong and doesn't easily break when
you are placing it onto your panel. Thirdly, these decals were made so that on heat proof surfaces like
metal, you can heat the panel+decal in an oven so that the decal melts onto the surface..making a very hard
waterproof finish.
Once you have produced the panel artwork file you print master copies onto photoquality inkjet paper or
colour laserprints or what have you. Then the idea behind lazertran paper is to colour photocopy (or colour
laserprint) your artwork, in mirror format,
onto the lazertran paper. Since I used A4 sheets of lazertran (A3 is also available) in my projects..I had to
split my panel graphic over several A4 sheets. Then being very careful..its possible to cut each piece
exactly so as to allow perfect registration of them onto the front panel. Each sheet is soaked in cold
water..then you can slide off the decal after 1 minute.
This is then placed on the top panel in reverse (ie toner side down)..thus producing a correctly oriented
image of your artwork. Do this for all remaining sheets of the artwork and carefully register them to form a
seemless final image on the frontpanel.
Now the magic begins! The reason you have toner side down is that you can now bond the decal to your top
panel by heating in a conventional oven. The heating process literally melts the decal and it bonds to the
painted surface (or even bare metal if you wish). This process takes about 1 hour. Check out the lazertran
website for tips on this process.You have to do it slowly to get best results. One word of warning! If you
are using a painted surface..take care not to overheat the paint otherwise you get paint bubbles forming! I
had this problem to some extent in my
front panel..the temperature was a little too high. Best thing is to keep monitoring the panel . As soon as
the surface becomes very shiny..its done. You may still se tiny bubbles in the
final finish. No problem..these are removed by the process I discuss below.

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After leaving your panel cool down..you should find an amazing bonding of the decal..its very hard and the
toner is complelely protected from scratches etc. The finish is very close to silkscreen.
Since the finish is very glossyI prefered to remove this gloss. One easy way is to use ultra-fine wire wool
and some abrasive cream ..and very gently rub the gloss finish down to a satin finish. This may sound
crazy..but the toner image is protected (remember you reversed it!) by the clear plastic base of the
decal..so there is no danger of
damaging it with this process. This process also removes small bubbles in the decal that can sometimes remain
near the surface, leaving a smooth surface. You might also find some little pinholes hear and there in the
finish. If these are visible on the coloured parts..simply
spot them off with a permenant ink pen of matching colour. You can then add a final transparent matt lacquer
overcoating if you wish.
Eventually I got a perfectly satin finish this way..its really an amazing method, and the only
one I know of that can produce a near-silkscreen finish for artwork that you simply could not do eg using
Shaeffer made panels..because engraving has its limitations!
Here is what you can achieve with this method:-

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FRONT PANEL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN SYNTHESIZER PROJECTS

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