I am a printer in northern California in the San Jose area (there are very very few of us left here) We had a job on 24 pt board that required a spot varnish over a matte coating (they actually had us run it through again to make the varnish stand out) I have been in this industry for very close to 50 years and my foreman has just about the same amount of time in the industry also, we ran the two passes in lifts of about 300 sheets and we winded it within a hour. We both voiced our concern about this job believing that for the sheen they were looking for it should be sent out to uv coat because even at small loads and winding about 25percent were sticking. Well to our surprise they took this job on in huge quantities for sheetfed presses (one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand) We have a meeting tomorrow and before I tell them they are out of there *&^%$%^ minds I want to know if anyone out there maybe has some experience with this huge amount of spot varnishing and could give some suggestions. Any info would help or reassurance that we are correct and this job is completely unpractical would be so appreciated... This is a 5 color job (4color process and one pms with a matte coating) printing on a 6color Mitsubishi with a conventional roll coater
gloss spot varnish HELP
- Thread starter mkjsphh
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Cost wise it would be better than having to go through all that. Putting a varnish over a coating is a big risk. Unless it’s snowing powder in your delivery area, there is no way your not going to have waste from sticking. I’ve been in the business for over 30 and I’m the production manager for a university print shop. If we have a job like that we print it and have it sent out for UV.
You would get a better result by gloss coating, followed by a matte etch. You need to experiment with the etch on your equipment to make sure it doesn't scratch on the finished product.
Years ago I was the Production Manager in a shop where we had a press with a UV coater, we regularly did this type of job with a gloss flood coat, then a spot matt UV varnish in a second pass, this method works well, but does require the UV coater, any other method in the quantities you're talking about is a compromise.
Years ago I was the Production Manager in a shop where we had a press with a UV coater, we regularly did this type of job with a gloss flood coat, then a spot matt UV varnish in a second pass, this method works well, but does require the UV coater, any other method in the quantities you're talking about is a compromise.
Bret Hesler
Well-known member
I'll second Magnus59 suggestion if you have UV capability. If not, sending out for UV coating is going to be your best bet.
We were going through this exact issue with a 30,000 qty booklet job earlier today. Our customer opted to ditch the matte AQ and go with the gloss varnish, but we did float the idea of running matte strikethrough varnish with gloss AQ or even a flood gloss UV. (the strikethrough varnish won't work with offline UV coater).
We have no experience with either so don't know what issues we would run into, but we may be testing this out next week. Will update here if I find anything substantial.
If anyone with more experience has some insight, would love to hear it as well.
We have no experience with either so don't know what issues we would run into, but we may be testing this out next week. Will update here if I find anything substantial.
If anyone with more experience has some insight, would love to hear it as well.
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turbotom1052
Well-known member
Have you considered dropping out the area you wish to gloss varnish from the matte coating, so that you don't have to worry about trapping and drying over the matte coating?
Take an impression on the blanket, unmount, cut out the surface layer with a scalpel, remount.
We've only really tried to knocking out coating for large sections of the sheet. Never thought it would be possible to do any more than that. How much detail have you been able to achieve with this? I assume small text/fonts/curves would be out of reach.
Intricate areas (eg individual letters) are not achievable, but you can still get reasonable results depending on how skilful you are with a scaplel. it's similar to making silk screens by hand.
You can also keep the blankets for reprints. We used to do a job regularly for a swimming pool coating company, some of their colour swatches had to have a spot gloss coating, others had a pearlescent coating. We would keep the blankets for that job and remount them for each reprint.
Matte Etch is not a varnish, it is a medium that is applied over a gloss laminated (celloglazed) surface that reacts with the lamination to change it to a matt finish
Pearlescent coatings use the phenomenon of light refraction. Pigments consist of a structure of transparent layers with different refractive indices. The different optical wave lengths are amplified or absorbed dependent on the thickness of the pigment lamina. Therefore the coating shimmers in the defined color only and not over the whole color spectrum. The smaller the pigment size, the more silky the brilliance and the stronger the coverage.
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QualityPrint
Well-known member
If the UV coating isn't an option try strike thru matte varnish down first with an overall gloss aq coat. Happens all in one pass.
Any issues with drying? We ordered some high gloss AQ to test with matte strikethrough varnish but I'm fully expecting to run into drying problems. Our work would be very heavy varnish coverage - mainly text and small vector logos knocked out.
I've read all the suggestions and they are all avenues to follow, however, since you already run a matte varnish over the print, sending the job out to a company with a UV screen coater will result in the most dramatic result. You might actually have them us a Raised Image UV gloss to heighten the impact....possibly even get your client to pay a bit more for this as well. Best of luck.
turbotom1052
Well-known member
you can use a cad plotter to cut a polyester coating blanket with a bit more precision than an exacto knife. The problem with using a scalpel or exacto knife to cut a rubber blanket with any sort of precision, has a lot to do with the blanket not being under tension if its off the cylinder. If you can find a way to tension the blanket a bit you will find it a bit more precise. There are companies that will provide a polyester blanket cut via CAD from your pre press file.
@turbotom1052 Though probably not feasible with our own equipment (graphtec plotter and an esko router cutter), I would be interested to see how precise a CAD plotter could get.
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