Direct to substrate durability

[Chuck Peterson]

I outsource my digital printing except what I can do on my Gerber Edge. I have an upcoming job I am considering having printed directly onto Dibond instead of on vinyl. Two 4x8 panels. I'm not sure what printer my supplier uses but they tell me it UV cures the ink. My concern is that from what I've seen out there they dont seem to last as long as vinyl with lamination. It sure would be easier for me to have them printed directly to substrate but I don't need a phone call in six months or even a year telling me its fading, or scratches off easily. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Biker Scout]

No reason why you can't laminate the panels afterwards. Either film or liquid laminate will suffice.

To me it doesn't matter if it's latex, solvent or uv cured... all prints should be protected from scratching and the elements. That is if you actually want to stand behind your work.

 

[Chuck Peterson]

Any other input?

 

[particleman]

If you had a choice I would pick vinyl with an overlaminate. I would assume your vendor has their act together when it comes to printing directly to metal, but I can tell you from experience certain types of dibond will not work well with UV. Some UV ink just doesn't stick really good to metal in general (poor scratch resistance). You would need to make sure your vendor has done it before and knows their ink sticks well to metal. You would also need to make sure they aren't cutting some corners and buying a cheaper version of dibond perhaps and inadvertently buying something with a teflon coating. It will appear the ink has stuck to it, but it will scratch right off. Yes you can overlaminate with film, but that UV laminates with film poorly (silvering) and if the ink is not stuck well it will lift off and or crack. UV Liquid laminate works if you have the equipment to do it, but does not prolong fading.

With battling all of those issues in the past, when we would get a 4x8 dibond order we would just print it on a good quality vinyl and stick it to the dibond. 99% of the time we also were able to not ruin anything with this method. At that point we never had to worry about, will it chip, crack, fade, etc. I've seen signs I've personally made 6 years later in the area that still look really good from the road.

 

[growler]

I print direct to dibond/ACM daily.

I have boards out all over the place, finished print sizes of 6m x 2.4m and larger with zero issues.

It all comes down to life expectancy and install location, facing and all those sort of factors.

Client needs it to last 2 years, print and no laminate, 3 years print and laminate, 4 years + longer than that is pushing digital print where I am due to the obscene UV levels here and I would suggest Cut vinyl if possible.

Digital prints have a finite life no matter what, it's easy to explain that to customers, if you give them a guarantee that exceeds your ink/printer/board guides then that is a risk you take but always pass that risk to the client in as nicer way as possible.

I have seen prints, north facing (to the sun down here) that get sun from 7am until 8pm and they can fade within 12 months no matter what the print tech was used.

If people are scratching dibond/ACM easily they need to look at their print setup, curing, inks etc.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Growler, may I ask what equipment/inkset you are using?

Just want to compare to my Océ lifespan estimates.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

I can't comment on longevity yet, as we only got our Océ 6 months ago.
Our rep/tech claim 2 year outdoor on IJ256, so we'll see how things go in the next 18 months or so.
We laminate all outdoor jobs, so hopefully we'll get a bit longer out of them, but as long as we can get a solid 12 months out of the prints, that's all our current clients really require.