Screen print over laminate?

[bjones]

I need to make some front adhesive decals with a white backing, trying to figure out an efficient way to do it short of silkscreening 9 colors.

anyone ever solvent inkjet printed on clear vinyl, laminated, cut then did a silkscreen white topcoat over the laminate?

 

[petepaz]

we have done this many times.
we just set up the decal on a sheet size that can be silk screened then we print the decal on clear vinyl in our roland. after that we flood the sheets with white or mount white vinyl to it depending on the quantity of sheets.
if you are going to put them in a plotter just make sure you don't cover your line up points when flooding the sheets

 

[bjones]

Thanks for the reply. I want to do it with screen ink rather than vinyl.

So, using a plastisol type ink for plastics do you laminate the print to prevent the screen ink from interacting with the solvent print ink or do you not have any issues with that? My plan was to print and cut and then screen white and weed.

 

[petepaz]

we have not had any issues with screen inks and the ecosol/roland inks but i would say you should test it first and like i said if you are going to print / cut in the machine then make sure you flood doesn't cover your line up marks

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I just got done with 3000 decals like that but I used white vinyl instead of screen printing them only because they are being die cut. If you do it this way don't forget to reverse your image on the clear vinyl.

 

[bjones]

I thought about doing white vinyl as a backer, but there are some relatively tight cuts that i'm pretty sure the plotters just won't do well with if it's 2 layers thick. Best case I can print, cut, screen white and call it a day. 2nd best, print, laminate, cut and screen white. In both cases I want to get the cutting overwith first and screen afterward so I can just weed and ship, so i'll probably not do a complete white flood coat but more a specific white art screen. Hoping to hear a few more folks experiences in plastisol inks sticking to laminate and/or interaction with ecosol ink.

 

[Finishline Signs]

Cutting it would be no different than a regular printed and laminated vinyl.

 

[petepaz]

Cutting it would be no different than a regular printed and laminated vinyl.

+1
and we have also print cut and then flooded white with no issues as well
(i thought the ink might seal up the cut but it was fine, just don't weed them till after you flood and it is dry)