need advice on UV roller coater

[artbot]

my main buyer (a good friend) has informed me that he had a salesman come by today to discuss leasing a $120,000 uv roller coater. his business does over $5million a year. so i know he can afford it. but the coater will be used to coat only 20-50 (4' x 6') canvases a month.

that seems like a complicated expensive solution for such low volume.

does anyone have any advice for what would be best at this volume? spray, roll, daige?

thanks in advance.

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

artbot, checkout these folks http://www.marabu-northamerica.com/ formerly known as ClearStar

 

[Molenbeek]

Those big machines work great for boards- but for canvas you can get smaller. Like CiberSupply said- look at the Starlam. its $11,000
We carry it and its perfect for canvas

www.advantagesignsupply.com

 

[LenR]

+1 for Starlam

Then you have one manufacturer for both the machine and the liquid for support.

I seem to recall it was only for the waterbased coatings but not sure.

 

[artbot]

seems like star lam might be the industry standard? or is there a worthy competitor?

i watched the video of it working. looks like a nice little machine. i've contacted sarah at marabu to have literature sent out.

 

[LenR]

All my dealings with them have been positive.
I know the machine was in development for quite some time but what they settled on looks pretty good.
I'd be interested to know what you're thoughts are.

 

[artbot]

also, marabu offered to have a printed roll shipped to them, they would coat it in house as a "large scale" sample. (i'm assuming not for free). but it is a nice opportunity to see the final product as it would be managed by the business. such as "do the prints stick together after coating?" "what is the coating consistency over 50'?" etc. just a 4x4 inch sample doesn't say much about a machines capabilities.

same question was posted on luminous landscape. one option that looks very clean is using Print Guard UV Luster heat set laminate. there are photos of the final product posted and the results look very clean. if not possibly "too perfect" for fine art canvases.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=64122.0