MGX 12mil Synthetic

[CreoleCuisine]

I run a LOT of MGX 12mil Xquisite DT Synthetic. I use it to print thousands of menus. It has come to my attention that after a bit of use, the toner is starting to wear. Is this normal? This menu was printed in August. I assumed synthetic was practically indestructible. Yes, they get handled quite a bit but this is really bad!

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

The synthetic is practically indestructible, but your toner is not. Remember that "like dissolves like", and that non-polar solvents dissolve non-polar solutes. Toner is non-polar and thus non-polar solutes like alcohol will dissolve toner. That is, what they clean their menus with will make a big difference in how the toner is affected. Water is polar and thus will not dissolve the toner on the front. I'll add that even if you use alcohol to clean toner-based menus, it will still take a bit of elbow grease, or repeated cleanings, to make it appear like your photo.

Or, perhaps a trillion people have interacted with the menu and it's worn that way.

This is more to do with your customer abusing the menus than the substrate or the toner. The menus can only take so much abuse.

 

[jwheeler]

We print LOTS of items on Synaps synthetics for pocket guides on our KM...same issue. The material is indestructible, but the toner does wear off over time just like your photo. Only way to prevent that is lamination, or better care like @PricelineNegotiator describes.

 

[tngcas]

I run a LOT of MGX 12mil Xquisite DT Synthetic. I use it to print thousands of menus. It has come to my attention that after a bit of use, the toner is starting to wear. Is this normal? This menu was printed in August. I assumed synthetic was practically indestructible. Yes, they get handled quite a bit but this is really bad!

Yes. We've had this happen a lot and reported from the people who use our MGX paper for menus. We also had this issue with the Synaps paper.

If it's not coated (UV Coated) then the oil from people's fingers will start to wear the toner off. The solvents used to wipe the menus down will also wear the toner after a while. Just like you can clean your duplo rollers with dish soap (to get the toner off) the same effect will happen to the toner sitting on top of the paper. If you wipe the menus down regularly then the toner is going to wear off and scratch off over time.

Only way to prevent that is lamination

I haven't had any luck getting any laminate to fully stick to the MGX paper since that requires the glue on the lamination to penetrate through the toner and then to the fiber of the paper, the MGX paper doesn't give a lot for the laminate to stick to. It would work if you encapsulated the menus but the edges/middles will still delaminate over time.

I tried to use the MGX paper to make 1in x .5in keychain tags. As a test I put one on my keyring that was laminated and one that wasn't. The design was a solid black background with white text. I figured the beating it would take from being bounced around against the keys would give me a good test.

After about 3 months the non-laminated one looked just like your menus, scratched and beat up. The laminated one is still on my keychain (about 1 year) - the edges all delaminated slightly (about 1mm) and pealed away but the middle of the tag still looks halfway decent and not scratched up.

 

[SoggyWinter]

I have had zero reported issues with EA toner coming off of Revlar synthetic and MTM/Kelley's synthetic.

 

[jrhmobile]

You may want to explore plastic jackets for your menus where the printed pages are slid into/out of the jackets. That way you get the best of both worlds for menu handling, and can provide a value-add for your restaurant clients.

Following is a Google search of plastic jackets for menus:

Google Search

Hope this helps,

Randy