Printing on Metallic vinyl.

[Kyle Blue]

A customer wants silver vinyl with a black outline around it for the side of his truck. I know its possible to print black on silver vinyl but will it last? Will laminating it make a difference? I'd love to hear from anyone who has done this and has an idea. Thanks.

 

[SightLine]

Thread from just the other day on this...

http://signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=80719

If you laminate it then your ink "should" last just as long as it would on any other vinyl. I'm just now experimenting with printing on metallics myself. Seems to work just fine and prints great. Of course - since they are not specified as "print" vinyls there is no gurantee that the material might not have any contamination like fingerprints, etc. on the surface which could affect printing.

 

[Kyle Blue]

Thank you SightLine, I was just searching the forums and found the same thread. I keep forgetting that you should search before making a thread.

 

[MikePro]

with a little tweaking, you can print on almost anything!
+1 to make sure you laminate

p.s. another option would be to use a black sharpie on your plotter. cut. liquid laminate. weed. apply.

 

[GZ SIGN DESIGNS]

Just did some custom graphics on a Honda Goldwing using Avery supercast silver metalic with black printed on ,then overlam. no probs.

 

[joeshaul]

Probably will be fine with lam and a higher quality vinyl.

If you have that metallized polyester stuff (believe RTape EFX, and a few other names), it'll want to curl when printed to the edge and is a beast to print on without a nice blank space. I have however cut out of metallized polyester and then cut an outline out of black separately and overlapped it with good results.

Also, keep in mind that the inks have a transparency associated with them and depending on what you're printing overtop of, the black may not be as rich as you want due to the blending.

 

[signswi]

This type of thing is exactly what the Gerber Edge/Envision system exists for.

 

[westpointsigns]

I print a lot on Oracal 651.

Silver and Gold print just fine, and I always laminate anything printed that is going on vehicles or signage. Chrome and holographic is kind of a pain especially when contour cutting but it can be done.

Lots of warning labels on 651 White, Yellow, and Orange. Those go out unlaminated.

 

[splizaat]

The only thing we were able to get to work with a design with black all the way to the edge of chrome vinyl without it curling and lifting around all edges was a thermal-ribbon Summa printer