Full color printing on Rowmark- methods?

[Kev Williams]

I have a couple of customers who keep insisting I figure out how to put their multi-colored logos on the plastic ID plates I make them. Some logos are fine in black & white, but they want color anyway. One logo I'm working with has a solid dark-to-light blue shaded shape, which to now I've just tool engraved an outline of and painted that blue. Another logo has 3 grays and a red, I'm not attempting to paint all that...

yada yada... anyway, I know there's ways to imprint these, like sublimation (no) and screen printing (no), but I'm not familiar with other methods or their names. A watch company customer of mine has some sort of small machine that they print logos on watch faces with. I don't know if it's a form of sublimation or not? The machine that does it fits on a desk top, it's not big, and it does everything itself. I'm not sure I like the results I've seen from it, like, the edges of lettering and graphics didn't seem all too sharp or crisp. But what I saw was just one of their practice pieces.

So, what am I looking for, that will place colored text and graphics on Rowmark and other materials? I need to either find a machine to do this, or find someplace that can do some for me...

[Scott Shepherd]

You're not going to sublimate any Rowmark. Sublimation takes place around 400 degrees. Rowmark can't take 400 degrees. Color Laser Toner Transfer takes place around 320, again, Rowmark doesn't like that too much either. I guess you could get by with it in a pinch, but I wouldn't want to do repeat jobs that required consistent quality with it.

Next step with no heat would be direct printing on them with a UV flatbed printer. The little ones go for $40,000 or more. I have customers that own them and we make fixtures for them all the time. I've seen incredible stuff come off them, but they are painfully slow. I would expect the cost to be quite high for one sheet of 12" x 24".

You might try a larger sign company that has a 4' x 8' or 5' x 10' flatbed printer. You might get some economy in cost by doing that. Still not going to be cheap, but it's the only method I can think of that would work well on Rowmark.

Maybe someone else has a better idea. Of course we could print it on PVC free vinyls, laminate it, and apply it, then you could line up the registration marks and cut away, but in the end, it's nothing more than a decal on a id plate, which probably isn't going to make the customer happy.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Direct printing or a "sticker" is the most realistic approach. You can also cut the tags out of FRP and sublimate the whole plate.

[David Somers]

Kev,


Have you posted your question in the Sign Design and Fabrication forum of SMC? I have never really poked my head in there, but wondered if they might have some thoughts. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it is made up of mostly this group. Worth a try though?

Dave

[Gary Hair]

Direct printing with a UV printer would be ideal for this. I disagree with Steve/Scott about the price and speed - my printer can do a 10" x 24" sheet of 25 logos in just a couple of minutes and the price would be pretty reasonable if you provided proper artwork and the materials all ready to go - maybe $3.00-$5.00 each if you do a sheet at a time.

[Scott Shepherd]

Wow, that's cheap Gary. I think my customers print at very high resolutions, so that might be the difference. I believe they are actually printing at 1200 dpi, so it's not uncommon to take 45 minutes to print one tray of pieces.

$3.00-5.00 per sheet? That's very attractive pricing.

[Kev Williams]

Here's a 'my version' sample of what I'm talking about, just 3 x 5"-ish ID plates, logos are simple, would look fine all black but they would rather they be in color. Not high quantities either, these customers only build a few machines a month...

UV printing is one method I was thinking of but couldn't remember, thanks! I'm going to have to call my watch guys, I think that's what they have. Pretty sure they wouldn't spend 40 large for it...

And I think Gary means $3 to $5 per LOGO per sheet, yes? :)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/hey.jpg

[Gary Hair]

Wow, that's cheap Gary. I think my customers print at very high resolutions, so that might be the difference. I believe they are actually printing at 1200 dpi, so it's not uncommon to take 45 minutes to print one tray of pieces.
I can print from 720 up to 1440 and that would probably double the time to go up to 1440, but nowhere near 45 minutes. I have a regular job that prints the entire 10x24 sheet and it only takes 13:45 at a medium resolution. Maybe they just have a slow printer...


$3.00-5.00 per sheet? That's very attractive pricing. Good try Steve, but that's per logo. I have one job that I run at high resolution with fairly large logos on 25 pieces and they pay over $5 each - and are very happy to pay it when they compared the price for screen printing and the setup/minimums that go with it.

[Gary Hair]

That would be a no-brainer for the UV printer Kev. If you printed them on white rowmark they would be very fast and a lot less than you might think! If you wanted to just print the logo it would be very worthwhile having a few sheets printed and ready for you to laser the rest. If it's not white then the price and print time would go up slightly as I would have to print a layer of white ink under the colors to make sure they are true.


Here's a 'my version' sample of what I'm talking about, just 3 x 5"-ish ID plates, logos are simple, would look fine all black but they would rather they be in color. Not high quantities either, these customers only build a few machines a month...

UV printing is one method I was thinking of but couldn't remember, thanks! I'm going to have to call my watch guys, I think that's what they have. Pretty sure they wouldn't spend 40 large for it...

And I think Gary means $3 to $5 per LOGO per sheet, yes? :)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/hey.jpg

[Scott Shepherd]

I can print from 720 up to 1440 and that would probably double the time to go up to 1440, but nowhere near 45 minutes. I have a regular job that prints the entire 10x24 sheet and it only takes 13:45 at a medium resolution. Maybe they just have a slow printer...

Good try Steve, but that's per logo. I have one job that I run at high resolution with fairly large logos on 25 pieces and they pay over $5 each - and are very happy to pay it when they compared the price for screen printing and the setup/minimums that go with it.

I think their printers are slow. I made fixtures for them a while back for printing 1/2 a million pieces. It took them a LONG time to print them all :) That's with 2 of them. I think they are Mimaki's.

Sorry for the pricing confusion! $3 each piece sounds better :)

[Ross Moshinsky]

What color plastic are you using? White? If you are, white FRP sublimated seems like the best option...

[Larry Robinson]

What I did years ago was print on a thin sheet of white vinyl (adhesive on one side) and then laminate it with a sheet of clear vinyl that had adhesive on one side. Then cut to size and stick on our product.

[Jay Selway]

I have a couple of customers who keep insisting I figure out how to put their multi-colored logos on the plastic ID plates I make them. Some logos are fine in black & white, but they want color anyway. One logo I'm working with has a solid dark-to-light blue shaded shape, which to now I've just tool engraved an outline of and painted that blue. Another logo has 3 grays and a red, I'm not attempting to paint all that...

yada yada... anyway, I know there's ways to imprint these, like sublimation (no) and screen printing (no), but I'm not familiar with other methods or their names. A watch company customer of mine has some sort of small machine that they print logos on watch faces with. I don't know if it's a form of sublimation or not? The machine that does it fits on a desk top, it's not big, and it does everything itself. I'm not sure I like the results I've seen from it, like, the edges of lettering and graphics didn't seem all too sharp or crisp. But what I saw was just one of their practice pieces.

So, what am I looking for, that will place colored text and graphics on Rowmark and other materials? I need to either find a machine to do this, or find someplace that can do some for me...

Silk screen might work...

[vic casware]

You could try Pad Printing, same method used on golf balls etc, i'm not sure on setup prices etc but i hear it is economical.

[Jerome Stanek]

The company I do a lot for has a large format printer that takes solid as well as roll. they can print a 4x8 sheet of sintra at 1200 dpi in about 10 minutes it will take 12 ft wide substrate. but they can also print 8x10 inch stuff with it also

[Jim Reinhard]

What about johnson plastics Sublimation frp?

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's a 'my version' sample of what I'm talking about, just 3 x 5"-ish ID plates, logos are simple, would look fine all black but they would rather they be in color. Not high quantities either, these customers only build a few machines a month...

UV printing is one method I was thinking of but couldn't remember, thanks! I'm going to have to call my watch guys, I think that's what they have. Pretty sure they wouldn't spend 40 large for it...

And I think Gary means $3 to $5 per LOGO per sheet, yes? :)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/hey.jpg
For that simple logo you can get a pretty good representation of the grays with your grayscale engraving. For the burned orange it would be very easy to just cut on a plotter and apply in vinyl. I did all of the name badges for a company that way, similar logo but yellow. The material cost is very little and easy to apply. If you don't have a plotter find a local sign shop and have them cut, weed and tape for you so you only have to apply them. While at it talk to them about doing wholesale engraving for them.

[Norm Zurawski]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

[Gary Hair]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

Probably me - The only success I've had with powder coat paint is black, any other colors I have tried either burnt to something close to black/brown or didn't stick. Unless someone else has figured out how to laser other colors it's not really a viable solution.

[Keith Outten]

http://www.dyetrans.com/products.php?webmaincat=sub_prods&websubcat=id_tags#

Click the link if you are interested in a dye-sublimation solution. These have brilliant colors and look great.

You can also contact Mike Null here at The Creek and sub the jobs to Mike. Mike has a solution for making tags and badges that is awesome.

Don't forget to look at our Friends of The Creek Directory (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/friends.php), you can find lots of Creekers who can help you with projects when you need to sub out work.
.

[Tim Bateson]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

Usually powder coat paint is applied electrostatically. I have had good success on wood using my laser, but I doubt it would work on metal or Rowmark.

[Mike Null]

Keith

thanks for the recommendation. I do use a card printer for many of my name tags which gives me full color and a reasonable to excellent image reproduction but on the down side it will only print at 300 dpi which means that fine lines sometimes don't show up. I can sometimes fix that by thickening the line but it's not always an option. Generally, name tags do quite well and I have a pretty good number of repeat customers.

I will go back to Steve's (Scott) first idea of using CLT. I use that quite often on Rowmark for the logo or for the entire tag. You can usually get about 10 to the sheet. Material is less than $2.00 per sheet. I post bake with a heat gun to improve the durability. (Joe Hayes idea)

I do need to flatten these by pressing them down on my shear table after heating them.

On the logo in the example I might engrave the tag masking the logo and use a color fill.

[Kev Williams]

For tht simple logo you can get a pretty good representation of the grays with your grayscale engraving. For the burned orange it would be very easy to just cut on a plotter and apply in vinyl. I did all of the name badges for a company that way, similar logo but yellow. The material cost is very little and easy to apply. If you don't have a plotter find a local sign shop and have them cut, weed and tape for you so you only have to apply them. While at it talk to them about doing wholesale engraving for them.
I've been vinyl plotting for years. Don't really do much vinyl, but I've used vinyl in place of paint many times. People (that I deal with, anyway) have the notion vinyl on the surface isn't very permanent. So rather than just apply vinyl to bare substrate, I engrave it first, then cut vinyl to fit the engraving. Big and small stuff...

Here's a biggun'. Engraving this was fun, 32 x 72" x 1/2" thick plat engraved on a 25 x 19" 5000XT. :)
Painting this was not an option.Would've taken days. Took about an hour to put all the vinyl in. (don't have an 'all done' pic for some reason)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/outrig.JPG



Another biggun'-

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/harbor.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/harbor2.jpg




And for small--
Been doing police ribbon badges like this for years. The police love 'em.
And these are repeat business, whenever another service ribbon is earned or another 5 years (per star) put in, they order another badge!

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/copbadge.jpg



SO-- I could do this with these Rowmark plates, at least in solid colors. But I'm a guy using several 20-30 year old machines,
so I'm interested in a more high-tech less labor-intensive method... ;)

[Mike Null]

Kev

what kind of cutter did you use for the brass name plate?

[Kev Williams]

Just a basic Antares-style carbide tipped, around .010" tip width, pretty much like this one. I use these for virtually everything except machining holes in aluminum (endmills+collet spindle)...

298926

[Mike Null]

Thanks. That's what I use but your result looks better.