Full color printing on Rowmark- methods?

[Jim Reinhard]

What about johnson plastics Sublimation frp?

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's a 'my version' sample of what I'm talking about, just 3 x 5"-ish ID plates, logos are simple, would look fine all black but they would rather they be in color. Not high quantities either, these customers only build a few machines a month...

UV printing is one method I was thinking of but couldn't remember, thanks! I'm going to have to call my watch guys, I think that's what they have. Pretty sure they wouldn't spend 40 large for it...

And I think Gary means $3 to $5 per LOGO per sheet, yes?

For that simple logo you can get a pretty good representation of the grays with your grayscale engraving. For the burned orange it would be very easy to just cut on a plotter and apply in vinyl. I did all of the name badges for a company that way, similar logo but yellow. The material cost is very little and easy to apply. If you don't have a plotter find a local sign shop and have them cut, weed and tape for you so you only have to apply them. While at it talk to them about doing wholesale engraving for them.

[Norm Zurawski]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

[Gary Hair]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

Probably me - The only success I've had with powder coat paint is black, any other colors I have tried either burnt to something close to black/brown or didn't stick. Unless someone else has figured out how to laser other colors it's not really a viable solution.

[Keith Outten]

http://www.dyetrans.com/products.php...ubcat=id_tags#

Click the link if you are interested in a dye-sublimation solution. These have brilliant colors and look great.

You can also contact Mike Null here at The Creek and sub the jobs to Mike. Mike has a solution for making tags and badges that is awesome.

Don't forget to look at our Friends of The Creek Directory , you can find lots of Creekers who can help you with projects when you need to sub out work.
.

[Tim Bateson]

Just wondering about the guy that was using powder coating paint and lasering it? Just a thought.

Usually powder coat paint is applied electrostatically. I have had good success on wood using my laser, but I doubt it would work on metal or Rowmark.

[Mike Null]

Keith

thanks for the recommendation. I do use a card printer for many of my name tags which gives me full color and a reasonable to excellent image reproduction but on the down side it will only print at 300 dpi which means that fine lines sometimes don't show up. I can sometimes fix that by thickening the line but it's not always an option. Generally, name tags do quite well and I have a pretty good number of repeat customers.

I will go back to Steve's (Scott) first idea of using CLT. I use that quite often on Rowmark for the logo or for the entire tag. You can usually get about 10 to the sheet. Material is less than $2.00 per sheet. I post bake with a heat gun to improve the durability. (Joe Hayes idea)

I do need to flatten these by pressing them down on my shear table after heating them.

On the logo in the example I might engrave the tag masking the logo and use a color fill.

[Kev Williams]

For tht simple logo you can get a pretty good representation of the grays with your grayscale engraving. For the burned orange it would be very easy to just cut on a plotter and apply in vinyl. I did all of the name badges for a company that way, similar logo but yellow. The material cost is very little and easy to apply. If you don't have a plotter find a local sign shop and have them cut, weed and tape for you so you only have to apply them. While at it talk to them about doing wholesale engraving for them.

I've been vinyl plotting for years. Don't really do much vinyl, but I've used vinyl in place of paint many times. People (that I deal with, anyway) have the notion vinyl on the surface isn't very permanent. So rather than just apply vinyl to bare substrate, I engrave it first, then cut vinyl to fit the engraving. Big and small stuff...

Here's a biggun'. Engraving this was fun, 32 x 72" x 1/2" thick plat engraved on a 25 x 19" 5000XT.
Painting this was not an option.Would've taken days. Took about an hour to put all the vinyl in. (don't have an 'all done' pic for some reason)





Another biggun'-








And for small--
Been doing police ribbon badges like this for years. The police love 'em.
And these are repeat business, whenever another service ribbon is earned or another 5 years (per star) put in, they order another badge!





SO-- I could do this with these Rowmark plates, at least in solid colors. But I'm a guy using several 20-30 year old machines,
so I'm interested in a more high-tech less labor-intensive method...

[Mike Null]

Kev

what kind of cutter did you use for the brass name plate?

[Kev Williams]

Just a basic Antares-style carbide tipped, around .010" tip width, pretty much like this one. I use these for virtually everything except machining holes in aluminum (endmills+collet spindle)...

tool1.jpg

[Mike Null]

Thanks. That's what I use but your result looks better.