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Question Which materials are good for metal poster printing?
- Thread starter senex
- Start date
Modern Ink Signs
Premium Subscriber
ACM
Aluminum sheets
Steel
????
Find various materials, do some R&D and see what works best for you.
Are you cutting / routing or just print on precut pieces?
Variables variables variables!
Aluminum sheets
Steel
????
Find various materials, do some R&D and see what works best for you.
Are you cutting / routing or just print on precut pieces?
Variables variables variables!
Rohit Prasad
WWW.COMPASSCOLOR.COM
With your UV machine you would want to go with a digital ACM. Check with Grimco, their "max metal" digital would be perfect for this.Hello.
Hello, we are currently thinking about starting metal poster printing in the future. Does anyone have experience with these materials, their quality, and recommendations?
We will print on a Anapurna M2050.
Thanks for any advise
.040 Aluminum on a direct bed printer
I have experienced 3 ways of doing it
1) Printing straight to the enamel coating
2) Buffing the enamel coating while making sure not to burn through the enamel down to the raw aluminum, orbital sander and 320 grit and printing to the scuffed up surface
3) Buffing the enamel coating, as above, painting with Matthews epoxy primer in white, printing to the paint
I think the latter two are a better way to go, option 2 gives your ink a bit of mechanical adhesion to grip to the surface. Option 3 gives your ink a similar surface to grip to as both the ink and the paint I have mentioned are made of similar materials; option 3 also gives you a lot of flexibly to sand off a bad print and not have to scrap the material completely if something goes wrong.
I have experienced 3 ways of doing it
1) Printing straight to the enamel coating
2) Buffing the enamel coating while making sure not to burn through the enamel down to the raw aluminum, orbital sander and 320 grit and printing to the scuffed up surface
3) Buffing the enamel coating, as above, painting with Matthews epoxy primer in white, printing to the paint
I think the latter two are a better way to go, option 2 gives your ink a bit of mechanical adhesion to grip to the surface. Option 3 gives your ink a similar surface to grip to as both the ink and the paint I have mentioned are made of similar materials; option 3 also gives you a lot of flexibly to sand off a bad print and not have to scrap the material completely if something goes wrong.
Grizzly
It’s all about your print!
I would make sure you define what you mean by metal prints.
Direct to Substrate ACM, Direct to Substrate Aluminum (.040, .060 etc), Dye Sub on .060 Metal (https://www.chromaluxe.com/)
We do both direct print and dye sub and have had to educate our clients what that is because there is definitely a price difference between those two.
When most consumers say they want a metal print they are referring to Dye Sub Metal which is generally what they see everywhere which is a totally different process than direct print with a UV printer.
ACM is $1-2 per sq/ft material cost. Chromalux Panels are $8-10 per sq/ft material cost.
Dye sub requires a dye sub print and a heat press.
Direct to Substrate ACM, Direct to Substrate Aluminum (.040, .060 etc), Dye Sub on .060 Metal (https://www.chromaluxe.com/)
We do both direct print and dye sub and have had to educate our clients what that is because there is definitely a price difference between those two.
When most consumers say they want a metal print they are referring to Dye Sub Metal which is generally what they see everywhere which is a totally different process than direct print with a UV printer.
ACM is $1-2 per sq/ft material cost. Chromalux Panels are $8-10 per sq/ft material cost.
Dye sub requires a dye sub print and a heat press.