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Gold foil printing on adhesive vinyl

yoshiyagi

New Member
Hi Guys,

I've been doing some research on gold foil printing on adhesive vinyl and most of my search results return with information for printing on paper with a laser printer then using a laminator to apply a gold foil on the paper. I'm guessing that what I am looking for isn't possible? What I need to have done is print gold onto a navy blue background, and then have it die cut into a circle that is 3inX3in. The material would then be stuck onto diploma covers. I own a solvent based printer, inkjet based printer, and a copier that uses toner, but none have the capability to print a metallic gold.

Thank you for your time!
 

Henrix Overcash

New Member
Hi Guys,

I've been doing some research on gold foil printing on adhesive vinyl and most of my search results return with information for printing on paper with a laser printer then using a laminator to apply a gold foil on the paper. I'm guessing that what I am looking for isn't possible? What I need to have done is print gold onto a navy blue background, and then have it die cut into a circle that is 3inX3in. The material would then be stuck onto diploma covers. I own a solvent based printer, inkjet based printer, and a copier that uses toner, but none have the capability to print a metallic gold.

Thank you for your time!
What you are referring to is called sleeking. How many are you needing?
 

ss5520

New Member
For that quantity, get them hot foil stamped. You can do this on 2 passes, foil stamp in blue the circle and then the gold on a second pass. Need to make a die (Magnesium or copper) and any printer, that does hot foil printing can do this. Sleeking is a process that you print the cover on a laser printer and then run through a laminator that can do sleeking and the foil will adhere to the printed area. This process will not work with vinyl as it will melt on the laminator as the heat is high, at least I don't believe it will work.
 

Rayd8

New Member
I do both, albeit only with quality papers, never tried it on vinyl. But maybe my bit of information can help out:

Hotfoil with a windmill is typically applied with a temperature round about 90° Celcius. Hotfoil needs a magnesium or copper stamps and a lot of pressure (you need a windmill or a smaller solution with enough pressure: the bigger the surface you want to hotfoil the bigger the machine typically you would need). Hotfoil can be foiled directly on the surface, you don't need to "prelaminate it"

Sleeking most of the time needs much higher temperatures round about 120-140° Celcius. Sleeking needs a toner laser printed surface to be able to 'adhere', not all toners work succesfully, not all papers work succesfully. In my experience the flatter the paper the better the result, also specific printing settings are needed. You can contact a foil supplier, e.g. Kurz who can help you out with this. BUT since you first need another color on your surface, you have two options:
- print the blue with inkjet (read: anything other than laser toner), then you print the part which needs gold with 100% black laser toner, then you sleekfoil it with your sleeking laminator
- print the blue with laser; in that case you first need to laminate the surface with a special laminate which accepts laser print on top of it (typically softtouch laminate or some sort), then you print the part which needs gold with 100% black laser toner, then you sleekfoi it with your sleeking laminator.
My experience is that with a high volume, even if a magnesium die costs a bit more to start the printing, it's quickly cheaper to do it that way. I sleek only for low volume jobs where the cost of a magnesium stamp is to expensive OR if it's variable data you want to foil.

HTH

Ray
 

Kemik

I sell stickers and sticker accessories.
We can do inline roll to roll digital printing and Cold Foiling, but for 500pcs at 3" x 3" it's probably not worth the cost.
I have seen another technique with small sheet feed plotters, the plotter knife is replaced with a heat pen, and a sheet of foil is taped to the material, and the heat pen transfers the image to the material.

 

netsol

Active Member
seems it would be easier to buy a used gerber edge, on ebay, or one of the other auction sites.
you would then have access to ALL of the gerber edge specialty materials
 
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