major printing issue on an fx

[rushworks graphics]

we print on metallic silver polyester alot and we need to print multi colors. ever since we have used the polyester, no matter what manufacturer we have used and we have used oracal(orafol), fdc, gerber and avery, all silver metallic polyester material, whenever we print onto it we get major spotting where the foil color has been layed down. for example, you can print say 5 rows of 10 decals(so amounts to 50) and at least half of them will be unusable! we get so much spotting, bits where the foil has not layed down at all, its just a complete waste! we have tried different profiles, different heat settings etc. we just got in some new gerber poly and used the profile recommended by them and its still the same!!! oh and our head is cleaned regulary to.
anyone have any idea how to solve this? anyone use the poly with success? i now for a fact it can be used how its supposed as we've seen samples from other companies using a gerber on the same poly material and it looks perfect.(we don't know what compnies they were though)

 

[Fred Weiss]

Your options are Gerber Label Stock or Gerber/3M Deluxe Silver. Standard polyester films will not accept a foil transfer ... it has to be a specially treated surface.

 

[rushworks graphics]

the gerber label stock was the profile i was using as recommended by gerber...but i'm getting a washed out look now also!

 

[Tony Teveris]

The Gerber suggestion only changes the “firings” to the material. I sure they suggested this to have you see if it helped, and as you can see it does not.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I was talking about the actual film you are using ... not the profile. Standard polyester films are not printable with an Edge. If you don't want to use the Gerber Edge Ready material then your only workaround is to overlay clear vinyl on your standard polyester film and then print it.

 

[Mike Paul]

Try printing at a lower speed.

 

[rushworks graphics]

would putting the matte clear foil onto the poly material first, then printing maybe work ya think??

 

[signage]

would putting the matte clear foil onto the poly material first, then printing maybe work ya think??

Did you read post #2? The foils are not going to adhere to non Gerber Ready Materials for this application. What Fred suggested is printing on clear vinyl then lamination/applying to your polyester vinyls.

 

[rushworks graphics]

i did read post number 2 yes, and i was told by gerber that the perticular material i was using is gerber thermal printable. i do get mixed results printing on it, but i want better results. thats why when fred said about it needing to be treated first i thought maybe putting a clear lam like the matte clear lam foil used for protection on first, maybe would help.
what fred said about printing on clear then putting that over the poly material makes sense, thanks for the suugestion fred.