Restoring some Heathkit Front Panels

[Don Peterson]

I have been receiving some requests regarding front panel inserts for some of
the old Heathkit gear that is not just a painted front panel.

Yes, It's true....  Heathkit made other model numbers that didn't begin with
"SB" or "HW"!

I have found and successfully used a product from Papilio that is a vinyl sheet
that can be printed on (in color) using an old ALPs "Micro-Dry" printer.  This
color printer process was a type of "dye sublimation" that was not water based.
 That means the finished document (or front panel) will not bleed if it gets
wet like most color "Ink-jet" media will do.

These vinyl sheets were originally intended for custom or "one-off" bumper-stickers,
but work amazingly well for some of the plastic front panels or front panel
inserts that were used by Heathkit.  I had replaced an IG-1271 front panel with
one of these sheets and you don't even realize it by looking at it.  The sheets
are available in upto 8.5 x 14, which is long (wide) enough for most front panels.


Using your favorite graphics program, you could re-design almost any Heathkit
front panel and print yourself a new one.  If you don't like the way it turned
out... no problem... just make another one.

There are probably other manufactuers out there that make the same kind of stuff,
but this is the only one that I have tried.  The concept remains the same.

Give it a try, it works great!

Don Peterson
Data Professionals

http://www.d8apro.com/Heath1.htm

http://www.papilio.com/pvspaper.htm

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