help! printing on both sides of business cards

Probably your best bet would be to print without much impression. For one thing, the second pass is going to somewhat flatten any impression from the first pass. Perhaps print the back first with low impression and then print the front as the second pass? You could probably get a bit more impression on the front that way. But if you’re wanting bite on both sides, you’re going to have to use a very thick, very soft paper. Lettra 600GSM or the like. Depending on the paper, you might also want to run it damp.

You could print the front and back on separate sheets of paper and then duplex them with 3M Super 77 spray. That way you could have impression on both sides without the 2nd pass smashing/canceling the 1st pass. It really depends on how deep you want to bite into the paper. I printed some cards on my kelsey using #220 lettra and didn’t need to duplex, but it wasn’t a deep deboss that showed through to the other side. You can see and feel the impression. The design has a solid, type and one point lines. The picture is too big to post. Send me a message if you want to see it. I can show you some other pictures too, of stuff I have printed and then duplexed using the above method.

Girl with a kluge,
I’ve used this method before also but curious about your process.
The only job I’ve done it on didn’t have any registration requirements because the back was just a texture. How would you keep registration while still being able to produce the sheets at a reasonable rate?
It was a complete mess when I did this, because of the over spray, and took much longer than even printing the sheets.
Any tips?

I printed tic marks along with the image. When I printed the back/other sheet, I changed the side guide and lined the tic marks up. I put a few printed sheets in my paper cutter to make sure I was straight and just started printing. The over spray is messy, but I just put a clean large sheet of paper in my garbage can, put the printed piece on top, sprayed, set it aside, sprayed the back, jogged the two sheets together and pressed them together. I had to add a new clean sheet of paper in the garbage can every now and then. I stacked them all up and put chipboard on top and bottom and then put some weight on the stack overnight. In the morning I left the chipboard on top and bottom to protect the sheets from clamp marks and cut them to finished size. I have some cards I made 5 years ago for an Old Maid exchange and they are still firmly laminated with no curling or delaminating.

i am not into heavy impression but if you want to thicken up a card stock then print two fronts side by side and two backs side by side laid up head to head withe a 6mm gutter then put a crease through the middle of the heads ,spray or glue machine apply to the back and fold and press ,this way you just trim them out in the normal fashion . I cant post an example as i am too thick for computor uploading !!

Peter’s method works. A local equipment dealer, Hicks Brothers, does foil embossed cards that way (on a Kluge). Otherwise they couldn’t have both sides embossed, and each form invisible from the opposite side.

I have found that you actually get a better fold on heavy stock by using a perforating rule rather than a creasing rule. The fold will be extremely accurate, and there will be no residual pressure exerted by the folded edge on the glue.

I have done this on full sheets, printing side-by-side, perfing in the center, and then gluing up one side and folding over immediately, adding some weight to the top and then trimming out on my cutter after the glue has cured.

I don’t use spray adhesive, but rather a liquid glue brushed on (if just a few sheets) or using a gluer. I use an old paste-up waxer and can run it with a cold glue or hide glue depending on the job at hand.

John Henry

If you use a crease and matrix that when folded leaves a wee gap in the spine this can be glued one side as mentioned above but you can then sandwich a dark red or other coloured board between and you then get a good white red white layer which is very effective for the type of work done by many of you folks here .