printing on silver mylar?

[gabagoo]

I have to produce some decals on silver mylar. I told my client that I would print on clear and then laminate it to the mylar. I suppose thats the way it has to be done?
Is it worth trying to print directly on?

 

[MikePro]

might work if you have some sample material to work with, as you might have to dial-in your profile/temp. settings.
i'd go with print on mylar and laminate with cast laminate/clear vinyl. possibly work into the design having an unprinted "frame" to make sure you don't give it a chance to delam.

 

[iSign]

what is the imprint? Full color with detail?
If not, do you have an Edge... Gerber makes an "edge-ready" media that you can print on, with the usual limitations of edge printing, in terms of size & resolution...

that said, I have achieved some excellent results with printing on clear over polyester chrome media

 

[natedawg9640]

yes, we print on it thermally on the edge all the time. shoot me a pm if you need a hand.

 

[gabagoo]

I have an Edge ,but the graphic has a fine gradient and I am not happy about the Edge results, besides, every time I buy Edge ready material I need to buy way more than I want and then it sits...and sits

So you guys dont think printing on clear and laminating to silver mylar is a good idea?

 

[Sign Works]

I've done quite a bit of thermal resin printing on the R-Tape vinylefx films with great results. I believe they come with a clear vinyl top layer that is suitable for thermal resin & inkjet printing. I have not experimented with it on the inkjet but have heard that it works well also.

 

[natedawg9640]

you could laminate the mylar first, and then run it through the solvent printer. it would eliminate any distortion or the possibility of ruining a finished print if something naughty should happen while laminating.

 

[gabagoo]

Now that I have finished printing on clear I get that adrenaline rush as I think to myself...How the hell is my Summa going to be able to read the registration marks on mirror silver? Will it? never thought about that.

 

[J Hill Designs]

try putting matte lam over the reg marks

 

[MikePro]

i've done it many ways:

* put a piece of white trans film over the reg. marks and hand-draw them back on with a sharpie/straight edge. works everytime.

* anticipate the issue, pause the printer when it starts to print the sets of marks, and put down tabs of scrap white media, and unpause to let printer print the marks on top of your tabs. works everytime.

* my favorite, and easiest way, is to put a piece of white vinyl/masking tape on the underside of the clear backing when the cutter doesn't recognize the trans. print. noted: this works 50/50 as sometimes it STILL won't read it for some reason.

 

[gabagoo]

tanks guys will try if necessary or of course I guess i could cut out white knockouts and place them over the registration marks. the summa uses a 3mm square to read so that may actually work

 

[petepaz]

we have printed on clear and laminated to the mylar should be no problem
you just have to make sure what ever they are using it for will be ok
(we do a lot of gov. jobs and usually they use mylar to meet temp specs and if you mount clear vinyl to the mylar you just caused the product to not meet the spec and it may fail during use)