New AlumaMark Colors

[Jeff Belany]

Have you seen the new AlumaMark colors? Just got some free samples from AlumaMark through Johnson Plastics. Red, yellow, orange, blue and greeen. Pretty cool. I think there will be some places to use these. Check it out.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Dan Ashlin]

Cool, I could probably use these for big trophy plate orders. I was never happy with the way the colored aluminum lasered and engraving or sublimating takes too long.

[Hilton Lister]

Surely it is faster to sublimate a whole bunch of plates on a sheet at once and then cut them up than it is to laser? You must know something I don't. Cheers

[Dan Ashlin]

Surely it is faster to sublimate a whole bunch of plates on a sheet at once and then cut them up than it is to laser? You must know something I don't. Cheers

Well, for one, I'm using older equipment, so it takes a bit longer to print out the plates, get it ready for the press, etc. Plus, i like to multitask, so I can just set the plates on the laser, get it running and then go do something else. In my experience, the time factor evens out pretty much. That, And i always thought the sublimated plates looked sub-par. I really like using the flexibrass for smaller trophies, that's convenient as all getout.

[Dane Fuller]

Dan,
Have you ever tried Awardmark from Bur-Lane? They sent me a sample the other day and I ran 10 plates for small trophies. It turned out really well and is a bit more cost effective. I think I'll order a sheet to finish this year's Little League season and use the rest for title plates on the framing side of the house.

[Dan Ashlin]

that looks like some pretty good stuff, never heard of them before. Thanks for the tip!

[Mike Null]

Dan

I use laser sublimation on brass and aluminum with results that in my judgment look far better than engraved. Faster too.

Dye sub sometimes produces iffy results especially if you're not careful with time and temp.

[Dan Ashlin]

Dan

I use laser sublimation on brass and aluminum with results that in my judgment look far better than engraved. Faster too.

Dye sub sometimes produces iffy results especially if you're not careful with time and temp.

Ok, i'm not sure what laser sublimation is, maybe thats my problem lol.

[Hilton Lister]

It may be faster to laser plastic (flexibrass?) than sublimation because you wouldn't have to cut the plates, but its nice to be able to offer a full colour club logo or crest as well as text at no extra charge. Besides, I have just discarded my Epson printer for a Ricoh and I'm still playing with it!!

[Mike Null]

Dan

Laser sub uses a sublimation toner rather than ink. It is not widely available but there are cartridges for a number of new and older HP printers.

I use black only. If I need color I use color laser transfer with my color laser printer. If I really must use dye sublimation I out source the transfers.

The photo is a rather large piece of laser subbed brass--not brass finished aluminum.

[Dan Ashlin]

That looks much sharper than the dye sub I have here. Might be worth looking into. I do a lot of sublimation on plaques though, so I would have to go for the color. Is it cost effective for how often you have to replace the ink?

[Mike Null]

That's the beauty of it---the cartridge lasts a long time--much longer and cheaper to use than dye sub. It also uses standard paper.

With color you can only print on metal as it leaves a ghost on white. The only color versions I'm aware of are old HP 4550's.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Like Mike, we also use an HP 4550 for sublimation. They are becoming more and more rare. There are major benefits to the machine compared to dye-sub. As Mike mentioned, it uses regular paper and the other main pro is it's essentially zero maintenance. No clogging and printing is fairly quick. There are a few cons. The color is not great. Sublimating on white doesn't work. The toner leaves dust on the paper which transfers to the white. We use this process primarily for people on a tight budget or people who want to write a lot yet don't want to pay for all the time it will take on the machine. If you look at the plaque Mike posted it would probably cost $1000 in engraving alone to do that bottom plate rotary engraved. Industry rates for rotary engraving is anywhere from $.20 to $.40 a character. Seeing as that is probably 10,000 characters, that plate would cost a fortune to do anything but sublimate.

As for JDS LazerBlak, the color of the material is funky sometimes, particularly the gold, but it's as easy to engrave as steel or brass. We use 50pwr, 100 speed, 500dpi, the same as we do with brass and steel. We used some "gold" LazerBlak the other day for a budget minded plaque. By the time I turned on the heat press, got it hot, and sublimated the material I had it lasered into the LazerBlak, mounted, cleaned, and boxed. LazerBlak is a fine product and if we didn't burnish engrave and sublimate, we'd use it more frequently I'm sure.

I should also touch on the trophy plate concept. We use sublimated aluminum plates and IPI's version of Flexibrass (SAL series). The sublimation almost always takes longer. Fact is, the laser doesn't get distracted. It doesn't get called away. If you tell it to run, it runs. End of story. The plates are also easier to peel off the flexibrass and everything is perfectly square and center. When sublimating, you can put a full sheet down and leave trim marks but I've yet to see anyone do this successfully. Maybe it's just us, but if your fence is just a fraction off by the time you're 4 plates down, you're cutting off center. Not to mention it is fairly easy to get out of square as well. To sublimate plates, we cut the plates first and individually align them on the paper. This may sound more time consuming, and honestly it is, but if one plate is a little off, it's off by less than 1/32" typically and it doesn't affect anything else. We find it to work the best.

[Hilton Lister]

For cutting multi sublimated or engraved plates from sheets, we use an old small plumber's treadle guillotine. You're right though, I wouldn't try it on the table shear as the guides seem to move slightly over time and I doubt I could get the corners square.

We always sub or engrave the plate outines, so just use those as a guide.

[Larry Bratton]

That looks much sharper than the dye sub I have here. Might be worth looking into. I do a lot of sublimation on plaques though, so I would have to go for the color. Is it cost effective for how often you have to replace the ink?

Laser printers use toner, not ink. Toner is pretty cost effective. I can't say if generic toners can be used or not in lieu of the oem toners or not, but if they can, that would be a plus. I purchased some toner last week and got 3 colors with shipping for less than a $100.00. Try buying sublimation ink for anything close to that..ain't gonna happen.

[Mike Null]

Black sublimation toner will cost about $170 and is not the same as regular toner. It does last so much longer than ink jet cartridges I stopped using my ink jet printer except for faxes.

[Larry Bratton]

Black sublimation toner will cost about $170 and is not the same as regular toner. It does last so much longer than ink jet cartridges I stopped using my ink jet printer except for faxes.

I was referring to color toner..the regular non-sublimation type. I use an Okidata c3400 and it does a good job with CLTT. I am wondering if the generic will work. I bought some of it, but I don't do that process often. I use the printer mainly for regular printing or doing an occasional garment. For that I am using Stahls Exact Print paper for the garment transfers. I am hoping the generic toner will work with that process.