Print & Cut onto Metallic material / smashed glass

[Taylor Made Print]

i am printing some samples for a customer who wants their logo on a smashed glass mirrored vinyl, the print looks terrible and the machine also fails when reading the reg marks, is this normal? can i just not print onto these special materials without laying white ink down first?

 

[d fleming]

If you have white ink capabilities, use it. You will have a terrible time with holographic, mirrored and chrome, finding reg marks to plot after printing on these materials. If you can slam a block of white where reg marks will be (good luck) then it might read them. The light reflecting off of these materials just makes it almost impossible for sensor to read. Someone else may have a cool solution that will help us both!

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

Use a Summa with the Camera sensor and the cutter will read them
Bruce

 

[ikarasu]

Throw down a piece of masking tape over top of the mark, grab a ruler and draw.

 

[jharler]

I bought some of this tape to hold my screen printing transparencies to my screens, but I found that using it to cover the registration marks on holographic media helps my Graphtec read the marks. It might be worth a try:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XTHB0I

Essentially, it turns the glossy finish to a matte finish, which seems to be enough to help the sensor. You could try using small pieces of matte laminate over the registration marks too.

 

[Kemik]

Maybe if you list the software, printer model and cutter model someone will be able to offer better solutions.
Using Raster Links, Mimaki's can print a red block around the crop marks and have sensitivity settings for the sensor, also if you have white ink, you can use FineCut to change the red block to whtie ink.

 

[bob]

If you have the capability with your setup, the easy way is to just use manual marks. You position the 'laser' dot or blade if you have no light pen capabilities, over each mark in turn. The hard way is to register the media in the printer, print just the marks, place a square of white vinyl of each printed mark, back the media up in the printer to the registration point you used to start this, print your image. I print on a lot of metallic vinyl and am forced by circumstances to use the double print method. Thus this is practical advice from actual experience.

To all those of the 'draw marks on masking tape' school, where, exactly, do you draw the marks?