As promised, here's the whole bag o beans
Ok, I started with a PaintShopped image I did:
Ok, set the printer's options to Poster printing, 2x2 (2 sheets high x 2 sheets wide). This will spread any image over 4 sheets of paper (enough to cover a standard Strat-style body). Also I set the orientation for Landscape, the print quality to Best, the paper type to Other transparency (since I wasn't using HP's overpriced trans paper ). You might also want to make sure your image will print in the proper direction. I had to mirror the original image in Paint Shop to make sure the inked side would be in the glue and the image would face the right way.
This time, instead of putting the glue on the paper, I put it on the body (in this case a Charvel Model 2) in the general area of where I wanted the first page to go, and spread it around with a brush while I waited for the first sheet to come out of the printer. I used a pretty good amount of glue, not a thin coat.
Once the first page came out (and the second started automatically) I placed the sheet ink-side-down onto the glue and pressed it down with the edge of my squeegee (the same trem cavity cover as before). You'll have to hold the page by a blank edge as you run the squeegee, but do NOT touch the back of the graphic itself or you'll smear the ink. The squeegee can run over the back of the graphic all day long because it's wider and flat, but your fingers are round and will leave faded dents in it - trust me
Also, if you do print your image using the Poster function, you'll have blank areas on the edges which you'll want to trim off before you place the first sheet down, unless you want Exacto marks on your guitar body
Trim off the edges where the next page's part of the graphic is going to meet the first page's part, then place it on the glue and squeegee it out.
Do the same for the next 3 pages.
I squeegeed the excess glue towards the areas where the following sheets were going to be placed, and spread it around with my brush. This conserves glue (which conserves money).
Ok, here's a shot of the first two pages on the body:
Ignore the pickup. I didn't take it completely off. I thought I could eyeball the necessary cut to get around the wire. I was only fooling myself for about 10 seconds, and then I had to race against the rapidly drying ink to clip the wires to get the pickup out. It's a Gibson Dirty Fingers pickup, which means it's got a metal braid, which means it was soldered to the pot, and my soldering iron wasn't plugged in, which means I had to get rough
Anyway, I ripped it right out and smeared the glue around (spilled it on the floor as well ) and slapped the page down (after I trimmed the blank edge off).
Squeegee out the excess as before, raking it towards the location of the next two sheets.
You'll notice the eye in the Paint Shopped image is almost off the body. I cut that eye out of the sheet and placed it a little farther into the body and closer into the top horn.
Trim the last two sheet's edges as before and line them up, give them a good squeegeeing out towards the back edge (not towards the other sheets) and let it sit for about an hour and a half.
When the hour and a half (or more) is up, peel off the transparencies. If you used enough glue (heaping globs) you should get a nice transfer. If you got it too thin (like I did) anywhere, you're going to have a gap.
Now, mine came out screwed up because I got the glue too thin in spots and because I squeegeed the pages towards each other, which means the other pages moved slightly and I didn't notice it. So remember, squeegee from the inside to the outside, and not towards an existing sheet. That spot on the lower horn in the last pic is actually coated quite well, the camera flash washed it out.
The beauty of going over a polycoated body is that you can take an old credit/auto club/phone card (or the trem cavity cover) and scrape it all off and start over, which I'll do later tonight, as I wanted the graphic lined up like it is in the Paint Shop image
Newc