UV Printing and Painting issues

[omt65]

We have a Oce Arizona GT 360 printer and we are reverse printing on standard acrylic and back painting with Matthews paint. We are having problems with the ink cracking. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

[StarSign]

How are you prepping the material, how long after printing are you painting?

 

[omt65]

printing and painting

We print on just the unmasked acrylic.
Dry time has been anywhere from 2 hours to several days
After printing, we apply the Matthews tie-bond to help with paint adhesion
Let the tie bond tack the recommend time and then top coat with matthews paint. We have tried these tactics without any further luck:
We have tried cutting the reducer (warm) in the tie-bond (50%)
We let the tie-bond dry for an hour + before adding the top coat
We have top coated without and reducer in the paint
We have pulled the gun back off of the material more than normal (14-16”)

 

[J Hill Designs]

shouldnt you be using lacryl or the like? Are these for backlit applications?

 

[omt65]

These aren't for back lit application. We have been using Matthews paint for years on acrylic with screen printing, vinyl and even another uv printer with out too much trouble.

 

[StarSign]

We sand the surface with 600, use waterbased paint, wait 24 hrs before painting. The tie bond may be reacting. We have fought this for years, we can print 100 signs and they look great then the next 3 the ink pinches.

 

[StarSign]

Which inks are you using?

 

[omt65]

We are using the standard OEM inks. We have only had this printer for 3 weeks.

 

[StarSign]

I an guessing that you use the KI ink, and you are seeing the problem in the dark colors more then the lighter colors. The ink isn't biting onto the material, (that is why we sand first)

 

[omt65]

It doesn't seem to matter what the color is and it doesn't happen on all of the printing.