Printable vinyl

[Martin Pearson]

Hi, Don’t wish to appear rude but a lot of members are more likely to answer questions from people who have introduced themselves so they have a better idea who they are talking to.
As for vinyls that you can run through an A4 printer then yes they do exist but it would give people a better idea of what to sugest if they knew what you wanted to do with it. The main problem with desktop printers is that the inks fade very quickly so they are not really suited to most applications.

[Robert Lambie]

unless its something like an old fargo printer i doubt your ink will do much more other than smear…
i would think you will need a coated vinyl for this type of thing… even then, as martin has said it will fade. to increase the life ide laminate it by hand. but dry as ide expect wet app to spoil your print.

[Nick Minall]

you need the water based ink jet vinyl Oracal do it, worked fine when I tried it.

but you do need to laminate it

[reddwarfcrew]

Hi my name is William i am an art teacher at a centre for adults with learning difficulties we are funded by the local authority but that does not pay for trips out and all the other "luxuries". We currently have 120 clients in our care and each and everyone has their own wonderful personality and by giving them a way of making something it brings lots of joy to the community.We have recently had this vinyl cutting machine donated along with the computer and a program to run it, we have been using it to make house name plates which we put on cut logs then varnish up, they look very nice and they are selling quite well at our monthly craft sales. We were just wondering about printing on vinyl so we could get more detail in our designs,any other ideas for small easy craft making ideas would be appreciated, i am sorry i did not introduce myself in the first place but hopefully i have now done the right thing.
Thanks in advance for any help
Regards
William.

[Martin Pearson]

Hi William, to be honest if these are for door signs then I think I would stay well away from printing, even after laminating you will get no real life out of them if the are outside in the sun (hypothetically !!) all the time as desktop inks are not uv stable.
I wouldn’t be inclined to put anything else on them anyway, if they are cut from logs the beauty of them is the wood not any decoration you try and add but thats just my opinion. What about painting some sort of decoration on to them?

I have a few books from craft suppliers knocking about somewhere still I am sure, if I can find them I will post some details for you.