• 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 ...

Metallic printable vinyl

Are there any metallic printable vinyls out there? Something like a white or silver metallic? Maybe even a printable white pearl vinyl. With the trend going towards metalics, something that I used to print on (high performance die cut vinyl) with a thermal transfer printer, 3-4 years ago, becoming more popular, I figured a manufacturer may have come up with something.

Thanks.
 

88flstf

New Member
We print on Avery metallic all the time. No issues at all. If it is the mylar type then you'd have to go to the R-Tape brand.
 

synergy_jim

New Member
Trim USA makes a metallic translucent overlam... print like normal then lam.... its awesome looking.... like a bass boat....
 

Sign Works

New Member
I've had very good results with Avery and Oracal metallic vinyls. Avery has a pearl white or at least they used to, if it's not still on their color chart I'll bet Sharpline Converting Inc. still has it.
 

mshi

New Member
If you choose the R Tape Vinyl fx make sure you purchase the correct type. They have an outdoor durable and a decorative series
 

robracer

New Member
As an option for Aluminium self adhesive we overmanate clear vinyl on the surface then print & cut...... works better than printing on the polyester coating.
 

bloobird0

New Member
I've tries vinyl from Rtape (fx range) and my experiences were very bad.

Never seen any material that curls so much, OK Rtape says to use coating pen on the edges but does not works so much, prints not not stick after few weeks. My provider told me not to print near the borders, great solution when the design does not allow it :-(

Tried silver, gold and red all with same results, also tested many print conditions (ink rate, temperature etc...)...

All my customers complained about it after only few weeks, even those who I made decals without print (juste dye cut decals) or those which I place transparent printed vinyl on it. I use metallic vinyl quite often.

So my experience with Rtape: curls a lot and glue is not sticking well, the color range is wide but providers in France only resell a limited color set which make nonsense to buy this media. :noway:

For silver and gold, I went back to oracal 352 which is great but limited color range (new color coming: pearl white looks great). Still looking for blue, red and orange metalic vinyl... :banghead:
 

SightLine

║▌║█║▌│║▌║▌█
I'd been wanting to give it a try on regular metallic vinyl for some time. Over the weekend I ran a small test printing on plain Avery 900 supercast silver metallic. Actually printed fantastically on my JV33. :)

I'd imagine plain black print would work fine on most any of the colored metallics while some other colors might come out odd on some of the colored films. On light silver metallic most would okay. I printed our logo with a black background and red stripe on the silver metallic and it looks pretty freaking sweet on the metallic film. This peice in this shot was also laminated with Oracal 290 and contour cut.

We are definitley going to be offering this as an option to customers going forward for some things. Especially small stickers. :thumb:
 

Attachments

  • metallic.jpg
    metallic.jpg
    96.3 KB · Views: 154
I've had good luck printing on GMI silver and gold ultra metallic. Because you aren't printing on white media the colors come out a little dark, so you have to adjust. If you want red you have to print orange, etc.
 

Rooster

New Member
I've printed on silver cast metallic before with great results. If my printer had a white option I can't see why anybody would use a special silver ink when you could print on a quality cast vinyl that would have a far better "metallic" content than you could possibly push through a print head suspended in ink.

I've tried the R-Tape vinyl effects for a mirror finish and the results were awful. Even with their premium product. It curls like crazy as mentioned earlier in this thread.
 
J

john1

Guest
I'd been wanting to give it a try on regular metallic vinyl for some time. Over the weekend I ran a small test printing on plain Avery 900 supercast silver metallic. Actually printed fantastically on my JV33. :)

I'd imagine plain black print would work fine on most any of the colored metallics while some other colors might come out odd on some of the colored films. On light silver metallic most would okay. I printed our logo with a black background and red stripe on the silver metallic and it looks pretty freaking sweet on the metallic film. This peice in this shot was also laminated with Oracal 290 and contour cut.

We are definitley going to be offering this as an option to customers going forward for some things. Especially small stickers. :thumb:

Nice, What about lam? How's it look once overlaminated over the cast cut vinyl?
 

SightLine

║▌║█║▌│║▌║▌█
Perfect! The photo is laminated. The heavy black obscures most of the metallic effect where thats is but overall still looks great. While I'm no Avery fan I bet their Ultra Metallic would really work well for this.

Nice, What about lam? How's it look once overlaminated over the cast cut vinyl?
 

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
there are many printable CLEAR vinyls that can be applied over metallics just fine ... with a lam it makes the 3 layered graphic pretty thick ... but it's worth it. That way you won't have to worry about whether ink will stick to your substrate ... because your sub is suited to it and the metallic is just an underlayer.
 

bloobird0

New Member
there are many printable CLEAR vinyls that can be applied over metallics just fine ... with a lam it makes the 3 layered graphic pretty thick ... but it's worth it. That way you won't have to worry about whether ink will stick to your substrate ... because your sub is suited to it and the metallic is just an underlayer.

also tried like this but Rtape vinyl even curl without print and clear printed vinyl on it. :banghead:
 
Thanks for the info. I know I can lam printable clear on it. Just wonder if one was made for printing, which doesnt sound like there is. I think a manufacturer should make something like this.

I also understand color shifting with the different white points of the metallics vinyls.
 
Top