3rd Fire Decals

They are called 3rd fire because they are applied to the already fired glass and the piece goes to a 3rd fire, which will fuse the decal with the glass.

I always end up calling them waterslide decals , as they are printed on a type of paper made up of two layers that separate and slide against each other when they receive water.

Let's go in parts then. In this process (also known as chromolithography or decalcomania) the motifs are applied to a layer of already fired glass, as if they were stickers. For it to transfer to the piece, the decal must be placed inside a container with water to moisten it. After a few seconds, the backing paper begins to release the film containing the ink; We slide this film onto the glazed surface and press the decal with a sponge so that it adheres well to the piece, eliminating excess moisture and possible air bubbles.
Since the piece has already been shaken and glazed before receiving the decal, this fuses with the glaze in the 3rd firing, only at 700ºC / 800ºC in the case of some decals, so as not to damage the more delicate paints; or 1000ºC in the case of other decals.

We can find some online stores that have long catalogs with the most varied 3rd fire decal motifs. Some stores even print the images we send to them. These prints are made digitally, making it more viable to acquire a few sheets, compared to screen printing, which only pays off when printing large quantities. I leave the link to this online store www.calcodecal.com it has a lot of things and some non-traditional patterns, it is in Spain. In fact, if anyone knows who sells decals like these in Portugal (digital printing) and could tell me I would be very grateful.

Faced with the difficulty in obtaining personalized waterslide decals, I ended up discovering a fantastic thing: we can print our own waterslide decals on a simple laser printer. That's right. Some monochrome laser printers have a large proportion of ferrite in the toner composition (some Canon or HP deskjet models; see the specifics of the toners, it is good to have at least 35% ferrite). From this impression, the ink is transferred to the ceramic. Therefore, the iron oxide present in the paint survives the firing and transforms into brownish tones .

We can print with one of these printers on waterslide decal sheets to apply over the already baked enamel. We can also print on kitchen parchment paper (which easily repels ink, which in this case makes it a great decal paper) for printing on leather. As always, you have to do tests to fine-tune the process. Firing temperatures, types of glazes, etc.; All of this will influence the result.

Search suggestions : overglaze decals; laser printing iron on decal