So, I’ve done a bit of homework and looked up how laminates are printed (mostly on rice paper) and glassed onto boards. If the board is wooden (not white), will the laminate show a “ghost” on say a wood-grain? If I were to just glass a vinyl sticker underneath the fiberglass, would it be a horrible mistake later? Any advice on this would be much appreciated.
Dave
i think ,although i dont know for sure it may leave a slight goasting? maybe cut close to the lettering be sure to put the resin down first before the laminate i got a knarly bubble under my foam board…stencil it on the wood maybe? they sell clear paper at the art shop… its plastic like but they say it printable…logo sticker shops do vinyl cheaply…
Hey Lordie,
It really depends on the colour of the wood. I’ve done laminates on rice paper and they show up just fine under glass on wood.
Make sure you put some resin down under the laminate before you glass over the top, that will stop the bubbles, but not too much because it will want to float away when you put the glass on.
I wouldn’t do vinyl, I’m unsure how the sticky on the back would go in a couple of years.
Another trick would be to print out you laminate onto the rice paper, turn it over and paint a solid colour such as white or yellow on the back, just inside the outside line of the print out. That will give it a non wood feel…
So, the rice paper will go REALLY clear? I’ll probably have one of our local shops do the printing on rice paper for us, and if need be, we’ll bust out the exact-o knives and do some trimming of them to get it close.
Thanks for the advice,
Dave
Hey Dave, Hicksy’s on it. I’ve done just plain text through the printer on rice paper and the heavy silk screen paint on rice paper, and the edges of the rice paper have never shown a shadow on four of my balsa boards. The balsa wood always has different shades of light and dark wood and I have not been able to find the edges of the rice paper yet. I always pour resin on the decal and then lay the cloth over and continue laminating to prevent bubbles from forming under the decal.
Poe Rava
So, I’m talking with a laminate printer and he is warning me that if I print on a printer with rice paper that it’ll probably fade or distort the color of the laminate if I glass them on top of wood. The tops of our boards are fir and purpleheart (stringer). What kind of laser printer and ink do you use with rice paper?
The set up and professional printing of the laminates is somewhat cost prohibitive.
I thought if you used UV inhibitor Epoxy Resin that you’d be protected from fading on both the wood and the logo… Any advice?
Thanks,
Dave
Howzit lordboots, If you are going to use an ink jet printer for the laminate the only way to keep it from fading is to use a printer that uses archival ink which is UV protected. Epson and Canon both make these kind of printers. I've been using a C-82 for the last 2 years ( C-80 before that) and my lams don't fade. Epson's Durabrite ink is supposed to keep from fading for 40 years, that should be long enough.Aloha,Kokua
Kokua,
Thanks for the very helpful information. I did a search on HP and durabrite, and found that HP printers have their own durabrite style ink:
http://news.com.com/HP+brand+to+inject+new+life+into+ink/2100-1003_3-5327721.html
It’s called Vivera, and it sounds exactly the same as the properties. I’m going to purchase some cartridges for my HP printer tonight and we’ll give it a whirl. I’m pretty excited, as we’ll be glassing in a week or so.
Dave
Hi lordboots
I print onto ricepaper with an epson printer, but use cheap chinese copy ink cartridges (will I get barred from swaylocks for admitting that???)
Even they do not fade(at least after 1 year), but you can see a shadow under epoxy and over balsa, so I crop really close and no problem.
I did have ink bleed under vacuum though (cheap ink!!!) so set down the decals when I prime the balsa, when tacky I carry on lamming as usual, no bleed this way.
Good luck
lordboots
a couple of photos
Thanks for the advice. My printer isn’t good enough for the Vivera ink (HP), and I don’t know anybody with a Durabrite (Epson) capable printer, and my photographer has a Canon i9100, but Canon has PG ink ($75 per ink, 6 colors for those), and I don’t even think they make it for his. I guess if I want permanent inkjet printing, I’ll have to find a local bureau with a good inkjet printer and go from there.
I appreciate all the help and advice.
Dave
I work in the printing business and if you are looking to choose a printer for good light fade, try to find one that uses a pigmented (rather than dye based) for optimal color stability. Pigments are fundamentally more stable than dyes. The Vivera and other dye systems are better than older dyes, but generally not nearly as good as pigmented systems. Often large format systems incorporate pigmented inks because of their use for outdoor signage. I believe that epson has the least expensive pigment based color printers.
Most black inkjet inks are pigmented and hold up very well. For full color, I have used the HP5500PS with UV inks. I am currently toying with printing board sized computer graphics printed on the same system.
Be careful with inks you haven’t used before, especially refiller inks; the formulation of the ink vehicle (the stuff that carries the colorant) varies wildly and could easily cause bleed problems, particularly if using poly resin.
As far as the UV inhibitors, they should help, but dyes will fade in the presence of even flourescent lights and their much narrower, UV free, spectrum.
Matt
Thanks. I’ve sent you a private message to see if you’d be willing to print a couple for me. My buddy and I are making the hollow wooden surfboards, so we’re just looking for a couple of them. I’ve got the rice paper coming, so I can send over with art on cd if you want.
We still have a couple of weeks worth of stuff to do before we get into glassing. Have to deal with the venting plug, and I still am bending and gluing up balsa for my rails.
Dave
If you have a Kinkos or some other copy shop just take your CD and paper there and have them print it with a color lazer printer. Lazer printer “ink” (actually called toner) is pigment based and very uv resistant in my experience.
Cool. Another very good idea. Thanks.
Dave
I have a vinyl cutting machine as I also make signs. To avoid that ghosting look I cut my logo in vinyl, then cut a square out of very fine 2oz glass I then put masking tape this all around the edges onto a table so that the glass can’t move and is tight. I then stick the vinyl to this, cut off the tape, then when laminating I place it between 2 layers of glass making sure the first bottom layer is wet out. I have had no problems with it delaming ( I have only done this with epoxy) I don’t know about polyester.
The more expensive vinyl is thinner, it should also be prepared on the same day you are going to put it on the board, because when the vinyl is not on the paper backing it shrinks a tiny bit, so when it is stuck to dry glass for a few days as it shrinks it starts to twist the glass a bit making it difficult to lay flat and laminate.
This was a problem I saw right away with wood boards. When ever I glass wood, I do a complete lam and then drop the decals on before hotcoating, the paper shows a lot less
agree there jim …
i always put it down to the wood taking that bit more resin as it cures , leaving almost a dry look under the logo , because rice paper isnt porous , the resin above the logo cant get through it …
i actually put a small layer of 2 oz just under the logo , it holds the resin there and keeps it looking clear and wet …
so either method does a similar job …
because when you dont have glass under , there is a tendancy for the logo to delaminate easier , plus timber blowing bubbles when your glassing gets trapped under the logo …
so your method would actually work better for a hand lam …
but i vaclam so i dont get the bubble drama , i have more issues with it being dry …
regards
BERT
Have any of you ever tried printing directly on to glass or another fabric?
I have been intending to try this with both glass patches as well as a paper backed silk ~2oz sold for art purposes with the paper allowing it to feed through a printer. I have done test lams on scrap foam with RR epoxy with the silk. It wets beautifully and looks as clear as glass.
Light weight glass (1-2oz?) could simply be taped to a piece of paper as a carrier and run through the printer. The tricky bit might be avoiding deforming the image during lam.
Matt
done it , but didnt get good rsults …
but i would encourage you to try , i may have missed something or did it wrong …
if you have sucess im interested …
regards
BERT
watch the bleed …