An epiphany

[bob]

I'm sure that I'm not the first to have this particular light bulb turn on but nonetheless...

I was always threatening to put a pair of printed panels on the hood of my truck. I designed a pair, I think I even posted an image of them in these waters some time ago. I never got around to doing it, procrastinator that I am, and I bought a new truck. The old truck was white and printed panels would have looked just fine but my current truck is metallic silver. I relaid out the old panels to fit the new truck but I figured that a print on white would not look very good on the metallic silver. Then the epiphany: Print them on silver vinyl. After all the ink is translucent and the resulting print should look metallic. I tried it. It worked even better than I thought. The only downside is that the yellows look kind of brassy and I had to use manual registration marks for the contour cut, there was a bit of a problem reading the automatic marks. Other than than those two issues the print looks fantastic, just as metallic looking as I thought it would be.

I just thought I'd share.

 

[rushworks graphics]

can you post some pics when you get it on the truck? good idea by the way.....

 

[vid]

I've experienced hit and miss doing that --- more hits than misses, though. The misses seemed to depend on how many hands touched the roll in manufacturing, as well as in the shop. It was Arlon 07 Silver.

For a second surface job on clear acrylic, I printed on clear and backed it with the metallic silver. 2 pass to get some thick color down and it still shimmered like metallic in the sun. (The job was for acrylic inserts in vending carts.)


Very nice effect.

 

[Mike Paul]

I've messed around with the VersaCamm on some clean Edge Ready metallics a bit but find printable reflective inkjet material works better, has more pop, and less imperfections.