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Outdoor printed vinyl – help please?
Hi everyone, noob style question….
I have been cutting vinyl for about a year or so for car stickers etc but i have just been asked instead of cutting coloured vinyl if i can print and cut a full colour/multicoloured image for a bumper sticker
I had not done this before so I bought some ”printable” vinyl off ebay, a ”universal” type, and its terrible…
While it says suitable for outdoors, its useless, my inks are OK in the wet, I can print onto paper and leave it outside in the rain and the paper gets washed away where theres no ink before the ink parts, and they dont run!
But this printable vinyl, it has a coating that ”holds” the inks, only issue is the coating comes off the vinyl when wet! it turns into like a gum based glue, feels a bit like old ”gum arabic”
so, at my disposal I have pigment, dyes and a colour laser, stickers are 90mm round, and this useless vinyl, which i then bought a roll of transparent topcoat to cover it with, thats only good if i leave a 2mm white border so i dont get any edge/sidebleeding.
Not good, I want to do this!
maybe i need to change something or change to a different process.
I dont have a lot to spend I’m a small ”outlet” for community projects and charity cases, which i’m fast becoming one of…..
I have some epsons for dysub a few old big colour lasers, a simple cutter and a0 hp500
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6 Replies
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I’m guessing the printable vinyl is for aqueous inkjet machines?
If so unless its laminated it will just wash away, the media has a special coating to hold the ink, but its by no means waterproof – your struggle to find a completely waterproof media for aqueous machines
(Edit: yes there is a few ‘waterproof’ medias, but there not cost effective).Unfortunately this type of work really should be printed on a solvent or UV type of printer – have you thought of sending it out to a trade printer?
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Most of us have been through this and have given up at one point of other.
I used to use a HP3000 with pigmented inks and while it was quite good I always had problems with prints for outdoors, I’d have to make the laminate bigger to seal the edges as the coating soaked in water (which it’s meant to because of the inks)
Laser printing ended up with my laser printer coated inside with melted vinyl and the results were no good anyway.
You need to just sub it out to a sign maker with a printer or one of the many print companies using a printer designed for vinyl.
The results are FAR superior and longer lasting and no more effort on your part other than supplying the artwork.
If you then find your getting lots of print work you look at buying a printer.Steve
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Nip down to Halfords and buy a can of clear lacquer, go over your printed stick a couple of times and see how that works out. let it rain let rain let rain
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Your not the first & certainly won’t be the last person who wants tp use inks that are not suitable for anything other than short term use outdoors, have a search through the forums & you will see the question has been asked loads of times.
People wouldn’t spend thousands or pounds on a solvent machine if you could get away with a cheap second hand printer, why would they ??
Really you have 3 options, buy a solvent printer yourself, sub it out to someone who has a solvent printer or tell the customer you are sorry you can’t do that sort of work.
Your best bet would be to find a trade printer to print digital stuff for you while you grow that side of the business, at some point in the future you may find you are subbing a lot of work out & that’s the time to think about buying your own machine.
Sorry if that sounds a little blunt, it’s not meant to be but you will only hurt your own business & pocket if you keep trying to do this with what you have listed. I don’t own a solvent machine myself because I don’t have the volume of work to justify buying one & never will, doesn’t stop me taking on jobs though as I have a local company with all the right gear who print for me at a reasonable price. [/code]
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Thanks everyone, the replies are kind of like i would expect, but as a mad inventor I had to try!
as *all* my outdoor work will be of upto 150mm square maybe I can get a cheap chinese UV type printer in an a4 format and use precut vinyl or 200mm wide rolls
theres probably some people shaking their heads about now, but my ”work” is in a different world, i just got an order for a ”shed load” of stickers in 6 colours, and the stickers are 15mm square, and the other order is for 10x18mm…..
(something to do with RC model cars etc)If i ever had to print something as big as a cornflakes packet that would be a ”extra large” for me lol
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Nothing wrong with the size, you just need the right tool for the job and a 54" printer could be classed as overkill for doing small stickers.
If you can find a cheaper alternative then go for it.
Roland do a desktop printer for this sort of thing I seem to remember.http://www.rolanddg.co.uk/products/print-and-cut/bn-20/
BN20, if it’s in the right price range it’ll do your job no problem.
Steve
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