Printing on metallic vinyl

[SellersSign&Design]

I ordered a roll of Oracal 951 Silver Lake metallic to do some
test prints on my L25500. So far the results look promising, but it's not working 100%. I'm getting a lot of pooling and blurring with the ink, and I have my heat settings turned up to what I use to print reflective. The vinyl is also curling and catching as it comes out of the printer. Has anyone printed on this or any other metallics with a latex printer and gotten good results? And yes, I know 951M is not listed as a printable film, but sometimes you have to think outside the box!

 

[letterman7]

Don't have a latex, but on some of my metallics I have to wipe the roll with alcohol as it goes through. Seems that there is some sort of 'print through' from the backer as it's stored on the log.

 

[All Graphics Calgary]

As I believe it's a cut vinyl, it most likely has some sort of lam for UV protection. Could be tough to print on..

 

[letterman7]

As I believe it's a cut vinyl, it most likely has some sort of lam for UV protection. Could be tough to print on..

What? Die cut vinyl stock does not come laminated. No reason for it to be. But, reading the description of the product, it's on a silicone liner... hence my thought of migration to the vinyl from the liner.

 

[danno]

We have had the best results printing with our solvent/eco-solvent machines on the metallic. Our L26500 wasn't able to give us the look we were going for.

 

[Bill Modzel]

I did a job last week on bright gold metallic. It was basically a black imprint, some solid areas and some gradients. It was a job that we usually Edge printed but this one was 36" x 40". It did have a circle of 3/4" green type also.

Anyway, the first test print puddled in areas and walked in others. I wiped it down with alcohol and ran three of the that looked perfect except the green was too dark, which I expected. I cut the green type out of 2mil vinyl and applied it with rapid tack than overlamed the whole thing with oraguard 290. I poked a few pinholes around the type and pushed out the air with the squeegee edge and they looked great.

I have run silver and gold metallic before which ran perfectly with no cleaning. Oh yeah, HP 26500L.

 

[ExecuPrintGS]

I printed a couple thousand decals last week on 951 silver grey, ran the heat just a few degrees higher than we do on normal oracal 3651, i noticed a little curling on the lead edge during test prints so i gave a little more header so it was past the heat when it started so the vacuum could hold it and it ran fine. Problem came when i had to cut them, took some time to get the settings right for the eye to detect the marks on the silver metallic.

 

[AaronSSsignsKC]

All it is is a heat/saturation issue. Play with youre setting a bit maybe try less passes etc to keep the pooling down.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Some good suggestions here. I will try wiping it down and also maybe go up even more on passes and see what happens. Thanks!

 

[MHester]

Back to this discussion, I'm trying to find a printable silver metallic to run through my HPLatex and then cut out on my Graphtec. I dont want to spend hours sifting through websites looking for the vinyl, so I'm hoping someone can recommend something. Attached is a pic of what I'm trying to make, I think it's about 2 mil vinyl. (it's being outsourced right now for 25 cents each 1" X 2" sticker) I figured I could make them cheaper than 25 cents each?? Stear me in the right direction if I'm wrong please. Thanks.

 

[Lucky Sky]

Back to this discussion, I'm trying to find a printable silver metallic to run through my HPLatex and then cut out on my Graphtec. I dont want to spend hours sifting through websites looking for the vinyl, so I'm hoping someone can recommend something. Attached is a pic of what I'm trying to make, I think it's about 2 mil vinyl. (it's being outsourced right now for 25 cents each 1" X 2" sticker) I figured I could make them cheaper than 25 cents each?? Stear me in the right direction if I'm wrong please. Thanks. View attachment 118208

R-tape has a line of printable metallics that I can print Eco-Sol on my Roland SolJet. They turned out beautifully, not cheap, but worth the price. I don't know how it will come out with Latex, but might be worth checking into.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Back to this discussion, I'm trying to find a printable silver metallic to run through my HPLatex and then cut out on my Graphtec. I dont want to spend hours sifting through websites looking for the vinyl, so I'm hoping someone can recommend something. Attached is a pic of what I'm trying to make, I think it's about 2 mil vinyl. (it's being outsourced right now for 25 cents each 1" X 2" sticker) I figured I could make them cheaper than 25 cents each?? Stear me in the right direction if I'm wrong please. Thanks. View attachment 118208

You are unlikely to beat that price on a metallic film that is for wide format after you factor labor, but Try BigFish / Gans Ink he has a really good chrome metallic film for latex that would work for those types of decals.