How To question - Metal Sign ??

[Gino]

Typical.

 

[Signscorp]

We print on Aluminum and Composites all the time. A good prep is Solv S1000 surface cleaner prep. Another is Supply55 adhesion promoter. But some suppliers sell digital ready panels already prepped from the factory.

Do you laminate afterwards? or do you deal with scratching on the panels at all?

 

[Boudica]

Do you laminate afterwards? or do you deal with scratching on the panels at all?

We do not laminate our direct uv prints. We just make sure they have a day or two to really cure before they go out the door. Sometimes we will cover with R-tape for safe transport.

 

[Signscorp]

We do not laminate our direct uv prints. We just make sure they have a day or two to really cure before they go out the door. Sometimes we will cover with R-tape for safe transport.

Which Flatbed do you guys have? At the moment we only use our HP 750 for Coroplast

 

[Boudica]

We used to have an hp scitex 550, but about a year ago we upgraded to an agfa Annapurna H2500. It's awesome!

 

[Signscorp]

We used to have an hp scitex 550, but about a year ago we upgraded to an agfa Annapurna H2500. It's awesome!

wow you guys have some gear in your two person shop! I'm super tempted to get one of those if we can move ACP to the flatbed. At the moment we probably do like 600k per year of ACP sales and it'd be incredible to not need to print on vinyl.

What got you guys to switch? and do you do all your ACP on it now? or are there reasons you still do vinyl

 

[Boudica]

We outgrew the HP, and support was ending. My boss likes to upgrade our capabilities every few years, and I'm willing and like to learn new equipment. "Sweet Anna" has really stepped up our game, it's crazy fast, the quality is fantastic, and I really like having white ink accessible on the fly.
We don't run ACM through it unless its a full sheet. When it's cut down, it's never completely flat, the corners tend to lift. Head strikes are bad. So we use vinyl for those.

 

[spectrum maine]

FLIP THEM OVER

 

[Black Star]

These people think this is Home Depot. You find a guy with an orange vest and ask him a question. He tells you to get a pro to do the job. You get pissed off at the guy and you , he, she, it thinks he should be treated better.
Free info comes with a side of grief. The grief will be good for that thin skin you, he, she or it has.

This web site is named Signs101. Of course people are going to ask questions. The name of the website implies that it is for entry level questions.

"History. The slang sense of the number "101" originates from its frequent use in US college course numbering systems to indicate the first or introductory course in some topic of study, such as "Calculus 101" or "French 101"."

 

[Elwood "Woody" Smith]

Just print new ACM panels and call it a day. Easy Peasy.

 

[Boudica]

Just print new ACM panels and call it a day. Easy Peasy.

Welcome to the conversation Woody. We've been over that already.

 

[signheremd]

Do you laminate afterwards? or do you deal with scratching on the panels at all?

We laminate most things if they are likely to be up for a few years, but we don't laminate Real Estate Signs or other temporary signs. For instance, we never laminate coroplast and almost never foam board or gatorboard signs.

We have a FluidColor flatbed printer. It gives the choice of leading or trailing lights which can give you glossy or sharp almost matte prints. Adding gloss lamination makes either glossy. We really like our machine and do run a lot of ACM on it. My favorite part is printing the whole sign instead of doing as cut vinyl, plus adding images, but then I started in the 80s with a Gerber that had manual weights and 12 font slots...

If you do that many ACMs, you'd be crazy not to add a flatbed UV printer.