TyrantDesigner
Art! Hot and fresh.
By the way, if you see a jazz themed painting at an art fair and it's signed H.N.G. it stands for "Hot Nuts Guff"
-
I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...
Best setup for abstract art?
- Thread starter brinked
- Start date
To be honest I am quite...abhorred is the word I'm looking for I think with the reaction you gave this guy. Especially cause everyone has always been so good and kind to me whenever I asked anything, not matter how dumb it might have been.
I just re-read the thread to make sure I didn't miss anything stupid he said that warranted the reaction. I really don't see what he did wrong other than stating the truth ?
I feel that if he simply said that he was interested in getting into the print business and wants to know what the best technology was to do his prints that he would have gotten much fairer treatment. Sure some would, fairly, I might add point out that he should just fine someone to outsource to instead of investing hundreds of thousands into a business he knows nothing about but that's good advice.
From what I can see he did his due diligence, he researched the different technologies that are available and then he thought that it would be best to ask people that already know what they're doing on how to proceed instead of making a catastrophic mistake by just buying something blindly and being out of his money and now having a useless machine.
But that's not the problem, is it ? No...it's that he mentioned that he outsources his work to China...now there's the rub.
I am not American so please forgive me but honestly if this is the issue I don't understand this militant patriotism. Don't even try to defend yourself, the fact that you're using a computer makes you a hypocrite, case closed. If you're using a smartphone you're a hypocrite or pretty much any other piece of technology in your everyday life. All of this stuff was produced by people that may be suffering under terrible conditions...at the end of the day, so what ? Humans are always suffering and dying, that's a reality of life...there another thousand dead before I finished typing this sentence.
What I'm trying to say is that this guy didn't do anything wrong in the OP, other than saying the truth and I find it pretty depressing that because of that he would be attacked like this. It's not productive nor fair as we have all been beginners at some point and got to where we are by following the paths of those who came before us.
Now onto the original question. I don't really have a lot of knowledge with direct to substrate printing, we're solvent based, so I won't be of much help there but here's some general business advice for anyone who wants it.
If you look deeply enough you will find that China is really less than idea when it comes to manufacturing for small businesses. There are several problems that have only increased during the last few years.
My first observation is one of logistics and cost. Back in the day when China first became the industrial powerhouse that it now is a container used to cost $800 if I remember correctly. These days it costs $4k. On top of that there is the issue of the 40-60 day it takes for the goods to arrive. Such a delay is fine if you are ordering shiploads of goods and keep such stocks but it's pretty clear to anyone who has ever run a small business that the edge you have over the big guy is that you can run on a shoestring budget and that you are about a hundred times faster and more flexible when it comes to making changes, fixes and execution in general.
The other issue is one of cost and quality. Manufacturing in China is becoming more expensive too, it's far from what it used to be back in the day. The main reason people do it in China is because for them it is simple to find suppliers in China, which can be more difficult to do locally. Another issue is quality control. Unless you have a few of your people over there in the factory, and let's be realistic as a small business you don't, you will find that the quality you get varies a lot. If a lot of the stuff in a particular shipment isn't good, what can you do ? Shipping it back to China doesn't make sense and they're usually unwilling to re-do it for free so that's another loss right there.
When you add all of this stuff up outsourcing manufacturing to China can become very frustrating and expensive very soon.
One thing I've found is that you can usually compete on price in the West quite easily. It of course depends on the industry but usually you can automate one part of the process and work on maximizing the efficiency of the rest. This usually requires more capital up-front but over the long term when you consider all the headaches, lost clients, missed opportunities and so forth that come with having to outsource your work it's the way to go.
We do pretty much everything in house. It's not really an issue of money either. A lot of the time it would be a lot cheaper to just outsource some work and be doing with it but the problem with that is that you are never really sure in what you can and can't do. We found ourselves not accepting jobs because we didn't want to found ourselves in a situation where we would outsource it and then there would be delays, quality wouldn't be good and so on.
Other than offset we do everything in house. It is just so much faster and more efficient when you can do so, you have ease of mind. The only thing that we don't do in-house right now is offset print. The capital costs are quite high so we would like to avoid doing so and we have a great relationship with one of the best printing houses in the country. If they go under we'll definitely get ourselves a small press and start doing offset ourselves as well.
Not sure how helpful this is to anyone but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I just re-read the thread to make sure I didn't miss anything stupid he said that warranted the reaction. I really don't see what he did wrong other than stating the truth ?
I feel that if he simply said that he was interested in getting into the print business and wants to know what the best technology was to do his prints that he would have gotten much fairer treatment. Sure some would, fairly, I might add point out that he should just fine someone to outsource to instead of investing hundreds of thousands into a business he knows nothing about but that's good advice.
From what I can see he did his due diligence, he researched the different technologies that are available and then he thought that it would be best to ask people that already know what they're doing on how to proceed instead of making a catastrophic mistake by just buying something blindly and being out of his money and now having a useless machine.
But that's not the problem, is it ? No...it's that he mentioned that he outsources his work to China...now there's the rub.
I am not American so please forgive me but honestly if this is the issue I don't understand this militant patriotism. Don't even try to defend yourself, the fact that you're using a computer makes you a hypocrite, case closed. If you're using a smartphone you're a hypocrite or pretty much any other piece of technology in your everyday life. All of this stuff was produced by people that may be suffering under terrible conditions...at the end of the day, so what ? Humans are always suffering and dying, that's a reality of life...there another thousand dead before I finished typing this sentence.
What I'm trying to say is that this guy didn't do anything wrong in the OP, other than saying the truth and I find it pretty depressing that because of that he would be attacked like this. It's not productive nor fair as we have all been beginners at some point and got to where we are by following the paths of those who came before us.
Now onto the original question. I don't really have a lot of knowledge with direct to substrate printing, we're solvent based, so I won't be of much help there but here's some general business advice for anyone who wants it.
If you look deeply enough you will find that China is really less than idea when it comes to manufacturing for small businesses. There are several problems that have only increased during the last few years.
My first observation is one of logistics and cost. Back in the day when China first became the industrial powerhouse that it now is a container used to cost $800 if I remember correctly. These days it costs $4k. On top of that there is the issue of the 40-60 day it takes for the goods to arrive. Such a delay is fine if you are ordering shiploads of goods and keep such stocks but it's pretty clear to anyone who has ever run a small business that the edge you have over the big guy is that you can run on a shoestring budget and that you are about a hundred times faster and more flexible when it comes to making changes, fixes and execution in general.
The other issue is one of cost and quality. Manufacturing in China is becoming more expensive too, it's far from what it used to be back in the day. The main reason people do it in China is because for them it is simple to find suppliers in China, which can be more difficult to do locally. Another issue is quality control. Unless you have a few of your people over there in the factory, and let's be realistic as a small business you don't, you will find that the quality you get varies a lot. If a lot of the stuff in a particular shipment isn't good, what can you do ? Shipping it back to China doesn't make sense and they're usually unwilling to re-do it for free so that's another loss right there.
When you add all of this stuff up outsourcing manufacturing to China can become very frustrating and expensive very soon.
One thing I've found is that you can usually compete on price in the West quite easily. It of course depends on the industry but usually you can automate one part of the process and work on maximizing the efficiency of the rest. This usually requires more capital up-front but over the long term when you consider all the headaches, lost clients, missed opportunities and so forth that come with having to outsource your work it's the way to go.
We do pretty much everything in house. It's not really an issue of money either. A lot of the time it would be a lot cheaper to just outsource some work and be doing with it but the problem with that is that you are never really sure in what you can and can't do. We found ourselves not accepting jobs because we didn't want to found ourselves in a situation where we would outsource it and then there would be delays, quality wouldn't be good and so on.
Other than offset we do everything in house. It is just so much faster and more efficient when you can do so, you have ease of mind. The only thing that we don't do in-house right now is offset print. The capital costs are quite high so we would like to avoid doing so and we have a great relationship with one of the best printing houses in the country. If they go under we'll definitely get ourselves a small press and start doing offset ourselves as well.
Not sure how helpful this is to anyone but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Fred Weiss
Merchant Member
xxtoni!
Tell John that I never did put him on my ignore list, and I hope we can move forward in a proactive, positive way.
visual800
Active Member
I go on ford super duty forums when I have questions with diesels, I was on the samba when I was trying to sell my doodlebug. We all try to find help when we need it and when we do we try and go to the professionals. And some guy comes on here asking about equipment some of you use and explaining in detail what he plans to do with it. WTF IS WRONG WITH SOME OF YOU? I see more verbal attacks than actual help. I see some going into detail about the stupidest s*** over someones post and you dont know anything about them.
And as far as s*** coming from china wth doesnt come from china these days? Believe me if I just started looking into buying stuff for a little venture we are trekking in and every damn thing we are buying comes from china, you wanna blast me for that
the next time someone comes in here asking for advice try to offer help or STFU AND DO NOT POST
And as far as s*** coming from china wth doesnt come from china these days? Believe me if I just started looking into buying stuff for a little venture we are trekking in and every damn thing we are buying comes from china, you wanna blast me for that
the next time someone comes in here asking for advice try to offer help or STFU AND DO NOT POST
To everyone who has stumbled upon this thread looking for information I will do my best to post what I have learned so far about printing artworks onto aluminum substrates. I have not yet began to actually try anything out, but after much research online, phone calls to substrate suppliers, this is the information that I have received and will pass it along here for anyone who it may help get started printing onto metal.
As for printing on aluminum based substrates, your main options are as such:
1. Sublimation. In order for your heat transfer to be applied to a metal substrate, it needs to be pre coated with a polyester based coating. Your best bet for going in this direction is to look at metal suppliers who offer pre coated enamel based blanks. Since sign blanks are a popular medium, its best hitting up these suppliers. Doing a google search for "metal sign blanks" or "aluminum substrate blanks" should yield you plenty of results to sort through. Your results most likely will vary with each supplier so its probably best to order samples from different suppliers to get an idea. There are also your usual aluminum blanks from unisub, dynasub, dynatrans and many others. Johnsonplastics also carries many aluminum blanks. Its best to give these companies a call to explain what you need done. If doing large pieces of art, a wide format printer should be a consideration such as an epson 9890.
2. UV Flatbed printer. Not recommended for your home based user. Very costly and you're looking at a lot of maintenance. Look to invest at least 6 figures in a uv flatbed solution and make sure you get training beforehand. If deciding this is the direction you want to go, make sure you narrow down the machines you're interested in and look at having samples made so you can test the quality. I have found if you call up online companies, they are willing to share with you the machine they use and more often than not they will brag about its capabilities. Placing an order with these companies is a good way to see first hand what type of quality you can expect. The benefit with using a UV based flatbed printer is that from my understanding, you dont need to have the substrate coated with anything although its usually recommended.
3. Solvent printers and DTG printers. I have read the least on these 2 methods for aluminum printing. Some claim to be able to print directly to metal or class without any sort of pre coating. I do not see anything to support these types of claims and there is not as much information on these 2 as there are for sublimation and uv printers. There are some interesting machines here with the neoflex being the one that got my interest. I dont think I will personally be perusing these options but it does seem like a viable option.
As far as my needs go, my art consists of mostly simple modern art on aluminum panels. A lot of the collections are actually a series of colored panels aligned in certain ways similar to this: http://i.imgur.com/svX4qtn.jpg
I have discovered that metal suppliers can actually coat the aluminum panels, but it remains to be seen how close these panels can come to the colors that we need to be applied, so that is ongoing as I wait on samples. However I have found many local aluminum suppliers so at least I have many options there and I am confident I can find one that will suit my needs. Having the epoxy coating on the panels probably means we can also hand paint the panels to match the designs which is the easy part so long as the paint adheres to the surface.
This is an ongoing venture so the information I posted is just information I have found doing my own research and does not yet come from any personal experience.
I will probably make a new post after I have some experience with this so that it can help others who are searching on the web like I did.
As for printing on aluminum based substrates, your main options are as such:
1. Sublimation. In order for your heat transfer to be applied to a metal substrate, it needs to be pre coated with a polyester based coating. Your best bet for going in this direction is to look at metal suppliers who offer pre coated enamel based blanks. Since sign blanks are a popular medium, its best hitting up these suppliers. Doing a google search for "metal sign blanks" or "aluminum substrate blanks" should yield you plenty of results to sort through. Your results most likely will vary with each supplier so its probably best to order samples from different suppliers to get an idea. There are also your usual aluminum blanks from unisub, dynasub, dynatrans and many others. Johnsonplastics also carries many aluminum blanks. Its best to give these companies a call to explain what you need done. If doing large pieces of art, a wide format printer should be a consideration such as an epson 9890.
2. UV Flatbed printer. Not recommended for your home based user. Very costly and you're looking at a lot of maintenance. Look to invest at least 6 figures in a uv flatbed solution and make sure you get training beforehand. If deciding this is the direction you want to go, make sure you narrow down the machines you're interested in and look at having samples made so you can test the quality. I have found if you call up online companies, they are willing to share with you the machine they use and more often than not they will brag about its capabilities. Placing an order with these companies is a good way to see first hand what type of quality you can expect. The benefit with using a UV based flatbed printer is that from my understanding, you dont need to have the substrate coated with anything although its usually recommended.
3. Solvent printers and DTG printers. I have read the least on these 2 methods for aluminum printing. Some claim to be able to print directly to metal or class without any sort of pre coating. I do not see anything to support these types of claims and there is not as much information on these 2 as there are for sublimation and uv printers. There are some interesting machines here with the neoflex being the one that got my interest. I dont think I will personally be perusing these options but it does seem like a viable option.
As far as my needs go, my art consists of mostly simple modern art on aluminum panels. A lot of the collections are actually a series of colored panels aligned in certain ways similar to this: http://i.imgur.com/svX4qtn.jpg
I have discovered that metal suppliers can actually coat the aluminum panels, but it remains to be seen how close these panels can come to the colors that we need to be applied, so that is ongoing as I wait on samples. However I have found many local aluminum suppliers so at least I have many options there and I am confident I can find one that will suit my needs. Having the epoxy coating on the panels probably means we can also hand paint the panels to match the designs which is the easy part so long as the paint adheres to the surface.
This is an ongoing venture so the information I posted is just information I have found doing my own research and does not yet come from any personal experience.
I will probably make a new post after I have some experience with this so that it can help others who are searching on the web like I did.
If flatbed printing is anything like roll printing any dust or imperfections can show up as defects in the print.
So the quality of the top coating will probably also play a factor in the choice?
When you mention metal companies doing coatings I wonder if these panels are done in a clean room or out on the smelter floor...
Would it not be worthwhile to just print on a Roland style roll printer and laminate the prints onto the aluminum panel?
So the quality of the top coating will probably also play a factor in the choice?
When you mention metal companies doing coatings I wonder if these panels are done in a clean room or out on the smelter floor...
Would it not be worthwhile to just print on a Roland style roll printer and laminate the prints onto the aluminum panel?
SignManiac
New Member
Are you framing the aluminum prints in some way? or just printing full bleed to the edge of your material. What is your common thickness of the materials that you have printed on in the past? I've had pretty good success printing UV flatbed on the aluminum composite materials, so far.
player from what I have read, where dust particles can play a role is when you're applying a precoat yourself, waiting for it to dry, some dust particles can play a factor. I would assume that any aluminum supplier has the process down since they do these coatings commercially in a controlled environment using fancy equipment. I do see many suppliers readily offering precoated aluminum panels in many different colors, so my guess would be that they have this process perfected to not allow any kind of bubbling.
I have seen the laminate process you're referring to and in fact a neighbor of mine is a professional photographer that does this all the time. This type of process would not be efficient for the type of art I deal with since i mentioned, the panels are mostly solid colors with some of the art pieces having very minimal artwork being done on them. The art really is not so much whats being painted to the panels, the art is mostly the arrangement of different colored metal panels of various sizes that come together to make one piece of art. This is why I have been very upset with many of the responses on here since everyone is assuming I am having landscapes or seascape type painting reproductions done, which is not the case at all, but rather buying these solid metal pieces with the minimal brush strokes applied that really, even a non art person can do with no art background.
Thanks for the input SignManiac. No framing, they are float mounted onto the wall. They are full bleed to the edge and I believe are about 0.043 thickness.
I have heard great things about the UV flatbeds. I probably will eventually get into that. I ordered a bunch of sublimation supplies as thats what I am interested in trying out first hand. I have over 12 years experience using photoshop and illustrator and I remember ironing on designs onto t shirts when I was a kid and I had a lot of fun doing it. I like creating things myself. My father is a professional artist but I did not inherit his talent. I am a very technical person but I do love creating things myself so at the very least this will be fun for me to get into. I ordered a smaller printer and heat press to get started so I can learn that way, but I definitely plan on ordering an epson 9890 soon as well as an oversized heat press probably from geoknight.
Do you bake the finish on yourself?
Wayne, Skyhigh cracks me up too... Working late tonight, got a good laugh.
John, get your butt out of your time out chair, I enjoy your input too! Don't stay away for too long!
John, get your butt out of your time out chair, I enjoy your input too! Don't stay away for too long!
No I buy them finished.
BESTBLANKS
New Member
Sublimation on aluminum panels
Hi, We are a turn-key sublimation supplier/wholesaler and can help you with everything you need!
You may want to consider Chromaluxe Photo Panels. They are a high quality sublimation aluminum and come is many sizes and finishes. Please see this link for more info: www.bestblanks.com/chromaluxephotopanels.html
Please click or call - 888-431-7385 www.bestblanks.com
We are glad to answer any questions you have.
BESTBLANKS.com
Hi, We are a turn-key sublimation supplier/wholesaler and can help you with everything you need!
You may want to consider Chromaluxe Photo Panels. They are a high quality sublimation aluminum and come is many sizes and finishes. Please see this link for more info: www.bestblanks.com/chromaluxephotopanels.html
Please click or call - 888-431-7385 www.bestblanks.com
We are glad to answer any questions you have.
BESTBLANKS.com
BESTBLANKS
New Member
Sublimation on aluminum panels
Hi, We are a turn-key sublimation supplier/wholesaler and can help you with everything you need!
You may want to consider Chromaluxe Photo Panels. They are a high quality sublimation aluminum and come is many sizes and finishes. Please see this link for more info: www.bestblanks.com/chromaluxephotopanels.html
Please click or call - 888-431-7385 www.bestblanks.com
We are glad to answer any questions you have.
BESTBLANKS.com
Hi, We are a turn-key sublimation supplier/wholesaler and can help you with everything you need!
You may want to consider Chromaluxe Photo Panels. They are a high quality sublimation aluminum and come is many sizes and finishes. Please see this link for more info: www.bestblanks.com/chromaluxephotopanels.html
Please click or call - 888-431-7385 www.bestblanks.com
We are glad to answer any questions you have.
BESTBLANKS.com
Hi BestBlanks. I am aware of the chromaluxe and your website as well. You offer a lot of great items. Unfortunately the Chromaluxe does not offer the sizes that I need such as 12 x 24 and 16 x 28 so I think my best bet for this might be going to a aluminum supplier who can custom cut to order.
Bly
New Member
Good post. My wife is an artist and gets a lot of her stuff printed in China too.
I encourage her and any other artist to do the same because they are usually the biggest cheapskates and pains to deal with out there.