WP34S overlay - anyone still making ?

[brouhaha]

(06-10-2023 11:04 PM)spiff72 Wrote:  (My preferred version is the one shown on the left, with the matte laminating sheet to reduce gloss.

The matte one does look very good.

I've been experimenting with making Voyager (HP 1xC and SwissMicros DM1xL) overlays using a Silhouette Cameo 4. So far I'm using Silhouette brand printable vinyl sheets, which normally sell for $7.00 per pack of eight, but I was able to buy a bunch during one of their half price sales. I wasn't sure that the adhesive was going to be strong enough, but on one old (1990s) 12C, two weeks after applying the overlay it was harder than I expected to peel it back off. I have not yet tried putting vinyl stickers on the keys, and that's where I'm more concerned since those will be more prone to lateral pressure when the buttons are pressed.

I'm printing on an HP OfficeJet Pro 7740, but considering buying an Epson EcoTank. Note that all of the home & small office EcoTank use dye inos for the colors (and dye or pigment for black), but the Business EcoTank models use pigment for both color and black The pigment colors are said to be less vivid than the dye colors, but the pigment is supposed to last longer with less fading.

I was thinking about using some sort of spray acrylic, but I haven't identified any laminating material that was not glossy. I'd be very interested to know what you used for the matte finish, if you don't mind sharing that information.

If I was smart, I'd probably use Corel Draw or Affinity Designer for the artwork, but because I'm a masochist I've been writing a C++ program to generate PDF files, one for the printer and one for the cutter. I'm considering switching to generating SVG.

Eric Rechlin has given me a lot of advice on overlay topics, including materials, cutters, printers, and ink types, for which I am very grateful.