looking for advice on making my own laser printer toner

[absol]

One of the many awesome things about laser printers is that some of them use black toner that is about half iron oxide or ferrite. When such a printer prints onto decal paper this decal can be applied to glass, enamel, or pottery and fired to very high temperatures, leaving a permanent sepia colored image.

I want to get some refill toner of the 95% plastic and 5% carbon type (both or these things burn out) and mix it half and half with high temperature pigments so I can print different colors for above mentioned art projects.

I know there are specific toners for each printer, can anybody tell me why? Does using a different toner than the one indicated totally not work, or does it just result in a crappy image???
I'm sure there are a ton of reasons why this won't work, and I was hoping you guys could throw some of them at me. Maybe, possibly, also some advice on how I could make this work.

thanks!

 

[PeterBJ]

I don't know much about laser printers, but this suggests that laser printer toner powder is made up from very small particles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toner . From my work at a paint manufacturing plant I know a little about pigments. The particles in normal grade pigments used in paints are much more coarse and takes a lot of grinding to get below 20 micrometres which is the particle size used in early toners. Newer toners are even finer. So I think that adding pigments to the toner powder could ruin the printer.

How about using silk screening instead: http://ceramicartsdaily.org/clay-to...-screen-printing-glaze-patterns-onto-pottery/ . Maybe the laser printer could print transparencies that could be used as negatives in preparing the silk screen, using a photosensitive resist? I have successfully used such transparencies for making printed circuit boards with a positive photo process.

 

[The Hat]

absol

If you use screen printing to produce your artwork and then sprinkle some of your homemade toner onto the surface.

Now leave the ink to dry and then blow off the excess toner that has not stuck to the ink image
maybe that would work for you just as well.

My two cent worth..

 

[absol]

Thanks for the input. The pigments I'm planning to use are so fine I'm supposed to wear a mask and use them in a vacuum both. I'm pretty sure they are fine enough.

They are also used as ingredients in the ink used in screen printing on pottery.

I guess more specifically I'm asking has anyone experimented with using toners different than the one indicated when refilling a cartridge, and has any brand/type of cartridge/particular printer reacted particularly good or particularly bad to such a switch.

I have done screen printing, etching, lithography, linocuts, stencils, you name it, but the laser decals are crazy easy to make and apply and have the most detail.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/9996185...=ZZ&ga_min=0&ga_max=0&ga_search_type=handmade