nikonbrain Loc: Crystal River Florida

O.K. I do alot of large format printing on a Canon IPF8300 44 inch model . mostly canvas gallery wraps .some paper for a handfull of artist. I just purchased a 38 inch Daige laminator to do face mounting metallic prints to acrylics .Of all pro labs involed in this Like Artisan HD and Prolabdigital , and whitewall they use Lambda type printers using a wet processing chemical baths made popular by artists like Peter Lik. a laser printer on Kodak Endura , or fugiflex crystal archive paper. i have printed on kodak professional metallic paper and love the look of the pearlescence of the paper and it is said to come close to the endura. Does anyone have any experence with face mounting the Kodak paper or fugi , moab ,canon etc. or SILVERING efect from laminating any particular paper......I have not attempted any laminatting yet just acquiring supplys and samples ..... just starting for my own prints first . Thanks in advance

Stevejayd Loc: Palm Desert Ca

Hi,
Sorry I cannot help you, but am anxiously awaiting responses.
I just did a small exhibition (23 prints) of portraits from Vietnam and Cambodia. I was not happy with the mounting on just foam, or standard boards. Is the laminating Cold or Hot? Would it work with the inks from a canon imageProGraph Pro-1000?
Steve

Brokenland

The process involves extracting the colors from the reverse side and printing backward on the reverse side of the acrylic glass panel. Doing this allows the acrylic to act as a barrier of the print which has been printed on the opposite side. I've seen this done and it's not that complicated. I good way to learn this is by allowing Michaels stores do this for you. The framing tech will walk you through the procedure.

nikonbrain Loc: Crystal River Florida

The process I am doing is called face mounting to acrylic. It can be done with a dye or pigment based printer , it is not dye sublimation printing as with metal prints . This process does not require a straight shot print through style printer as in direct metal printing . A prepared polished edge extruded piece of of plexiglas or lexan is set a side . A finished print with about a five inch leading edge is laid face up on a sled or shoe . A two side piece of photo clear adhesive by Drytac is peeled back 4 inch and stuck face down on the leading edge of the sled . It is now started through the rollers of the laminater, with the other end of the laminate now above the roller the peel is grasped by the operator as the machine feeds it into the press . The same thing is done again on the plexiglas . Backing is now applied to the back usually a composite. You can watch a video on YouTube. Acrylic (plexiglass) Face mounted prints by Bumblejax....I will be using Kodak professional Metallic paper or a metallic paper by Breathing Color.. I am using a cold laminater , I can leave the AC off and my product could easily reach 100 degrees to soften the adhesive to prevent Silvering I Hope...that's my main question..

nikonbrain Loc: Crystal River Florida

The other way is dye sublimation, in which a printer dedicated to dye sub inks is used . The image is printed in reverse, flipped horizontally or vertically or automatically by software . Once printed the image is placed face down on a on a panel with a glossy or matte polyester layer . It is put in a heat press at about 350 -400 degrees f for a period of time for the image to transfer to the polyester. Time range is usually supplied by the supplier of the objects to be printed on . See Heatpress Nation or sawgrass . Inks not compatible if printer already has regular Ink in it you will" brick " the print head...And there are printer that print directly on metal panels like the chromaluxs panels from Breathing colors those printers start around $7000.00 ...