Screen printed Decals

[DRPSignsNGrafix]

I'm looking for a b2b wholesale company to do a run of Screen printed decal sheets. I need these screen printed cause the customer final use. Needs them as light and thin as possible. Thinking screen printed would work better cause they would be thinner and lighter then printing on vinyl and laminating them. Who can help me out.

Also looking for someone that can do screen printing shirts as well.

Thanks a lot.

 

[myront]

No reason they can't be printed. The vehicle wrap vinyl we use is pretty damn thin even with laminate.

 

[Johnny Best]

Get someone to screen print waterslide decals. Your limited with size though.
2m cast vinyl with 1m cast laminate is only 3m thick and you could print that like myront suggested.

 

[FireSprint.com]

How thick do these need to be?

 

[Jester]

Get someone to screen print waterslide decals.

It"s been years (pre-digital) since I've seen/used a waterslide decal. How thick is the typical substrate, and what material is it made of?

 

[Johnny Best]

It"s been years (pre-digital) since I've seen/used a waterslide decal. How thick is the typical substrate, and what material is it made of?

When you hold a waterslide decal that is the substrate. Use to buy sheets of it. The paper is coated with a soluble to water coating that releases from the paper once it gets wet. In the fifties every kid put waterslide decals on model airplanes that were provided.
You screen print layers of ink (I used oil based enamel inks) starting with a clear varnish. You pin register all your ink layers.
And finish with a finalr clear varnish layer. You let each layer dry and the thickness of the decal is dertermined by how many layers you printed and the coarseness of your mesh (higher mesh count the thinner the paint layer). If you had a two color logo for example. First layer is clear varnish with a slight overlap of entire logo. Then screen first color, then second then finish with clear varnish over like first layer. That first layer and last layer hold it together when sliding it off the carrier.
Use to do bank logos for glass doors and then handletter goldleaf hours below. Their logo was 4 color and these saved a lot of time. I would finish them off with spar varnish after applying and they had dried. Held up just as good as gold leaf on glass.

 

[Jester]

Thank you for the detailed reply, that is very interesting! In the 1960's I built model airplanes and applied the decals just as you describe. They were certainly thin and delicate and I remember ruining a few with clumsy handling.

I recall these were sometimes referred to as decalcomania, so I looked it up: decalcomania de·cal·co·ma·ni·a (/dēˌkalkəˈmānēə/) noun: - 1. the process of transferring designs from prepared paper on to glass or porcelain. 2. a technique used by some surrealist artists which involves pressing paint between sheets of paper.

If I understand Johnny Best's description correctly, the paper is like today's "release liner", the layer of water-soluble glue from the coated paper adheres to the first layer of varnish ink which together become the "adhesive-coated substrate", the colored ink layers are the "printed graphic", and the final layer of varnish ink is the "over-laminate"!

Hmmm.... so is varnish-ink-varnish on the same water-soluble-adhesive coated paper substrate something which is or could be done with latex or UV ink using today's digital printers?

"It seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same." -- unknown​