Solvent printable card stock / poster board

[SightLine]

Anyone know of a dirt cheap card stock or posterboard I can get to print on my JV33? We manage the entire bus ad program for our city and the exterior stuff is no problem. The interior ads kick my butt. They at most only want to spend $10 to $15 each for the smaller ones and maybe $15 to $20 for the larger size. The 2 sizes are 11x17 and 11x38. The buses have a outward curved track with a small lip at the top and bottom to insert the ads into - the material must be fairly rigid. In the past I've bought 15 mil styrene on 54" rolls but that crap is an absolute nightmare to print on. Even with the heater set to its minimum the stuff has some ripples in it. When I print them on the styrene - 2 out of 5 prints are garbage with shadows and halos due to the material rippling some.

I've experimented with off the shelf posterboard (you know the .50 per sheet stuff from Wal Mart) with limited success. The thickness and rigitidy is just right but the stuff does NOT accept solvent ink. It just pools on the surface. I did try applying some PSA solvent paper to a sheet of it though - that printed beautifully but it was getting a bit too thick to go into the track grooves in the buses plus its too expensive to go that route. The other problem is size - standard poster paper is 22x28" sheets which will not work for the 38" ads.

I know screen inks are similar to inkjet solvent inks and I know screen printers do print on card stocks. I just do not know where to source the stuff cheap. Since I'll be feeding individual sheets into the printer I can always put infeed and outfeed tables in front and behind the machine when we print them but a more manageable size like 40x40 (could get 3 11x38's on one sheet) would be ideal. Too large of sheets and I forsee them getting bent up trying to handle them.

 

[HaroldDesign]

Pressure sensitive vinyl? Print X#-up, cut & mount to appropriate stock. Trim to finish size.

 

[signswi]

I was just coming on the forums to ask this very question. Need a source for a glossy, solvent printable thin cardstock for P.O.P. stuff. Must be bendable without creasing (to a point). If not cardstock, thick mil/(g/sm) solvent photo paper.

 

[HaroldDesign]

I was just coming on the forums to ask this very question. Need a source for a glossy, solvent printable thin cardstock for P.O.P. stuff. Must be bendable without creasing (to a point).

Maybe it exists, but it doesn't seem so. No vendors have been able to offer anything, and they absolutely WANT to offer something. Specifically for solvent printing just isn't there. I've tried A LOT of stocks (I have access to everything printable on an offset press) and nothing works. Print & mount.

Rigid pvc may work for you...

 

[BigfishDM]

I have heavy and light weight card stock but it only works in the latex models.

 

[signswi]

Maybe it exists, but it doesn't seem so. No vendors have been able to offer anything, and they absolutely WANT to offer something. Specifically for solvent printing just isn't there. I've tried A LOT of stocks (I have access to everything printable on an offset press) and nothing works. Print & mount.

Rigid pvc may work for you...

Nothing that thick. Ordering a sample of Optisolve latex-infused 10mil photo paper to see what that's like. Plenty of papers exist for aqueous, just not solvent :/. Client's run is big but not big enough to make outsourcing to offset or aqueous shop make sense.

Maybe I can talk my boss into buying me a Canon ipf8300 ;P.

 

[SightLine]

I have an older Epson 9500 here as well. Its godawful slow but it does print beautifully. Problem is the printable cardstocks for it are stupidly expensive. I'm hoping to avoid the print/mount scenario as the labor and material costs are getting too high to go that route. These are inside the buses somewhat over passengers heads so I do not laminate them. I did also at one point print some on some dirt cheap calendered vinyl and then applied that to the styrene. Did work okay but additional steps and double materials.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

This comes in 0.3mm or 0.6mm sheets. About 1m x 1m from memory. Not the cheapest but also not too expensive. It might be what you're after. It can also be contour cut/perf cut to make boxes and the such.

http://rolanddg.com.au/literature/brochure_vpop.pdf

 

[Sticky Signs]

Maybe try some backlit films. I know it's not for a backlit application but some of the films might be thick enough for your purposes. Print, trim, done. Just a thought.

 

[signswi]

Might just use Popup since we stock tons of it, speaking of films. Thanks for the link Custom_Grafx, going to look into that stuff as well.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

No worries. I've never used the stuff but I had a sample of it a while back and kept it in the back of my mind exactly for this type of application.

A supplier also told me there are other makers of the same thing out there so maybe ask around you might get a better price on it. It's usually sold in sheets as it's rigid.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

For aqueous they have 60-80 lb heavy card stock that I use to do posters with, with lam it comes out to being very economical and extremely rigid. might want to look for something a little more in the ... indoor outdoor banner material style that rexam uses for solvent. I know they make it. might be softer image printing do to the fact it's more of a paper than a cardstock .. but worth it.

 

[Graphics2u]

Check ou this https://www.kapco.com/cms/site/bb292505cb0eeb74/index.html

The 180 gram water proof is fairly rigid. I hyave a sample book from them and it's not quite as heavy as poster board.

 

[GB2]

Sihl makes a 12 mil PVC #3608 DuraSol POS 310 Satin, 17 mil PVC #3508 DuraSol Pop-Up Display 450 Satin, or you can get very economical semi-rigid PVC in 10 mil from most suppliers also.

 

[SightLine]

The problem is most of the display films are far too expensive and while somewhat rigid still tend to curl in the roll direction. I think I may have found a solution - Poly Tuff Out posterboard - perfect size that I need - 28x44 and coated to accept most any screen printing inks. Alumapanel seems to be pretty confident it will also take the solvent inks from my Mimaki and the price is right so I have a few test sheets on the way to try out next week.

 

[jiarby]

buy a used aqueous printer... HP5000 or so and a bulk ink system.

I'd buy the cheapest calendared white vinyl and just mount the prints to posterboard with a big squeegee.

You can get .030 or .020 styrene pretty cheap.

 

[SightLine]

Small update.... we do have an aqueous printer too - older Epson 9500. Does print very nice - just incredibly slow. Problem with that machine is most water based media is stupidly expensive. Looking for dirt cheap on this product.

Finally came to a solution though. I did try some specific posterboard available from a couple of my suppliers that is intended for screen printing. Product is called - poly tuff out and it comes in 28" x 44" sheets for $1.30 each and is .024 thick - perfect for what I need and the price is reasonable. I tried direct printing on it with the solvent Mimaki so far - no go on that at all. Ink does not bite in. Pretty much just stays on the surface. Can run it through the machine just fine - it's just not receptive to the solvent ink at all.

Have not yet tried it through the water based Epson but am going to do so in the next week. If that also fails then the plan is to print on dirt cheap solvent vinyl on the Mimaki and then mount that to the tuff out boards.