Foil 2 sided

For many years we were told you cannot foil a business card 2 sided. We have started to do more foil and wonder why we were told this. I know some of the issue is paper weight, heat, pressure and with a windmill possibly abrasion to the first printed side while doing the back side. What we dont know is what the true limiting factors are. We would love any feedback as to the pitfalls or what to watch out for as we move forward.

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The 2 biggest factors are probably, but not limited to:
A) Operator Technique; If an operator relies on heavy pressure, rather than even pressure on either side, the structure of the stock will be used up and little left for second side impression.
B) The stock itself; thinner stock, or those that burnish easily, often don’t look great on the back side of a foil stamp.
Now there are a thousand other reasons it can work or cannot work. It is Absolutely essential to test and require flexibility from the customer. Experimentation will yield papers, foils, and images that will work together.
Don’t leave out stamping then mount back to back images.
This is only a brief summary. There are So many variables. My suggestion is to, Go do it. Get your feet wet. Experience with existing dies, stock, and foil. Learning is the process of eventually knowing.

The 2 biggest factors are probably, but not limited to:
A) Operator Technique; If an operator relies on heavy pressure, rather than even pressure on either side, the structure of the stock will be used up and little left for second side impression.
B) The stock itself; thinner stock, or those that burnish easily, often don’t look great on the back side of a foil stamp.
Now there are a thousand other reasons it can work or cannot work. It is Absolutely essential to test and require flexibility from the customer. Experimentation will yield papers, foils, and images that will work together.
Don’t leave out stamping then mount back to back images.
This is only a brief summary. There are So many variables. My suggestion is to, Go do it. Get your feet wet. Experience with existing dies, stock, and foil. Learning is the process of eventually knowing.

ericm - Thanks for the feed back. Most of what you said was what we thought might be an area where issues would come from. Since we had no way to confirm the common sense issue’s we had to ask. We are looking at gluing also. We have a small gluer that has been more of a problem than a solution but we are working out it’s limitations and each time it gets better. We did find a good glue product and even did some samples with a foam roller to apply the glue that did well.