Printing on a Coated Black Paper with Metallic Ink
I wanted to know if any printers have used the paper stock Plike 122# cover, in Black? It has a coat to its surface that makes it feel velvety with a smooth finish. Has anyone printed on this using metallic ink? The potential design will be 2-sided, so I would also need to know if this type of ink would absorb quickly or would it just smudge and become a potential nightmare?
I received a sample in the mail, but thought I would ask around before doing a full setup on my press…
Thanks!
You are most certainly going to have problems with absorption and setting not occurring easily with plike. It’s great stuff but it wants to be printed with an ink that dries on it’s own and doesn’t rely upon absorption. Now, OIL base inks do this on their own over time a little more quickly than rubber base or acrylic will (everything dries eventually), so you probably wanna use an oil based ink (I don’t really see too many rubber based metallic inks anyhow, so you’ll probably be using oil based anyhow.)
For this reason, drier is your friend! Three way drier will be the way to go I think.
http://www.boxcarpress.com/photopolymer-supplies/ink-additives.html
20.00 is pretty cheap considering the can may last you years depending upon how often you print.
A few drops will help save your job- about one inknife scoops worth of ink takes up to 5-6 droplets of drier, maybe double that if you’re on a substance you know will be trouble. You ONLY add this to the ink you’re getting out to print with, and you absolutely need a bit of glass or something non-absorbant to mix it on if you want to keep the ink wet during your print run. It really helps.
You’ll still probably need to wait a day or so between layers to keep the ink from scarring due to pressure from the reverse side’s impression, you want it to totally oxidize before you attempt a second layer.
………………. You wanna know what looks absolutely exquisite on plike though? Foil stamping.
Be careful foil stamping on plike. It looks great, but I have had trouble with fine detail on it. Some smaller, maybe 10pt text on plike business card refused to foil correctly: The counters of the type would fill in or it wouldn’t release at all.
We just printed some notebook covers on plike using metallic gold and clear varnish, both soy-based, and they were dry within the day and look amazingly sharp.
Thank you both for the information!
Modernman-
Did you mix the clear varnish with the metallic gold ink then print? Or did you run it through the press twice, first with gold then with the varnish? Also what type of varnish did you use? I am obviously not too familiar with mixing anything but ink with ink ;)
Has anyone printed with just metallic ink on French Paper Muscletone in black?
It was a two colour job, one of the plates was printed with a generic soy-based gloss varnish and the other plate was printed straight metallic gold. We didn’t mix them together at all.
Although I wouldn’t call plike coated, it has a similar texture and allows the metallic inks to leaf and really reflect light, seeming more opaque. On black muscletone metallics will still look good, but the surface of the paper has little peaks and valleys in it and the metallic flakes in the ink don’t leaf as well, so it won’t quite be as vibrant.