LITHO PRINTING ON MIRROR BOARD | Quality printing London
1 May 2013
LITHO PRINTING ONTO MIRROR BOARD Quality printing London
Mirror board is a laminate of high clarity metalised polyester film applied to a cast coated board. Mirror board offers the most reflective finish of any board on the market. The product is available in a range of stunning colours and two weights of 270gsm and 400gsm. Mirror board will add true impact to your printed products.
Typical printed products using mirror board: Brochure covers, Report covers, Thick duplexed invitations (as shown), Thick duplexed business cards and thin simplexed business card versions.
Solways printers have just completed a print production using mirror board. The mirror board 270gsm was litho printed in CMYK, gloss laminated then duplexed with an uncoated 350gsm board that had been litho printed in one colour. The question that you are asking is why did Solways printers gloss laminate the front of the mirror board ?….. Solways used fully oxidising inks on a litho press however a wait of seven days was required for the litho inks to fully harden. This said the surface of the mirror board remains fragile and soft. Invitations, by their purpose, will be handled and thus could become marked. To keep the invitation in a pristine condition Solways printers made the decision to gloss laminate the face of the mirror board. An added benefit was that the gloss laminate added thickness.
The next worry was of board curl …… duplexing two different materials with two different weights would markedly increase the chance of curl. In addition, with a gloss laminate, there was a cause for concern from the pull of the gloss laminate material, this would again increase the possibility of curl. We are pleased to say that there was no curl to this duplexed invitation. Samples are available for your consideration.
Pushing back the boundaries of print is always challenging however without machine proofing and with a time deadline this can and has caused a sleepless night or two. All mast satisfying as fine design requires top quality paper and print!
Now that this mirror print production is complete we can return to our blind embossing, hot foil blocking, thermographic printing, bespoke watermarking producing top quality printing on time and full of emotion from our printing factory in London SE1. If you want to know more about this product or Solways call me, Tim Solway, for a chat 020 7407 2875.
Posted by Tim Solway
Sounds like yet another professional project Tim. I don’t think any invitation recipient could have forgotten this memorable piece of print in a hurry! Your post took me right back to my days spent printing UV litho on foil; even though UV inks are cured and don’t dry by oxidation, drying time was always a factor. The caliper of the board was always a limiting factor imposed by the litho press and it’s great to learn that you’ve managed to overcome this by duplexing the mirror board.
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Thanks for your comment Steve – great to hear from you. Look me up when you are next in London. Best regards Tim
Great example of print solutions that are now available.
I recently used holographic board to silkscreen on for a personal project (http://tinyurl.com/pwfkfyk) and had issues with board curl so appreciate your concerns and the final result.
regards
Neville