Options for coating?

[TradeGraphicDesign]

Hi All,

Was hoping someone could share some ideas. I'm trying to see if there is a way I can apply a varnish to the sheets I'm printing.
They need a bit of protection from general scuffing.

In days gone by, I'd run the sheets through the litho press, laying down a clear varnish on the 5th unit.

But, these days, I don't have the budget, or the space to stretch to a press to apply a nice protective coating to the sheets.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could do this on the cheap? And to complicate things a bit further, does anyone know of a small desktop system for doing this?

Appreciate there are some UV coaters out there, but likely they're out of my range.

Thanks in advance, I was hoping there might be some way to do this

Tim

 

[Stickman42]

What size sheets? How many? How are you printing them? How much/little are you able to invest?

Inexpensive and desktop make me think of a film laminator. Less expensive machine but higher running costs.

 

[chriscozi]

Hi All,

Was hoping someone could share some ideas. I'm trying to see if there is a way I can apply a varnish to the sheets I'm printing.
They need a bit of protection from general scuffing.

In days gone by, I'd run the sheets through the litho press, laying down a clear varnish on the 5th unit.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could do this on the cheap? And to complicate things a bit further, does anyone know of a small desktop system for doing this?

Thanks in advance, I was hoping there might be some way to do this

Tim

Have you considered an aqueous coating running on your printing press / duplicator?
We do this on one of our older duplicators offline.
There are limitations on stock ie must be coated and fit the duplicator BUT we run digital prints through all the time with either satin or gloss.
YMMV

 

[YourCastle]

does anyone know of a small desktop system for doing this?

if you find one for a reasonable price, I'd like to be able to offer this to my clients/agents

 

[tngcas]

if you find one for a reasonable price, I'd like to be able to offer this to my clients/agents

Same. We'd love this option. We had a giant UV Coater back in 2018 but ended up getting rid of it. It took up too much space, was completely impractical to run because of all the setup/cleanup time and had a habit of catching on fire if you weren't super vigilant when running it. After the 2 or 3 fire my business partner wasn't having it anymore. Laminating short run jobs isn't practical.

I've been tempted to invest in one of these things: Ebay Desktop UV Coater but my PAFO (play around find out) budget doesn't extend to $3k that will have zero support when things go wrong.

 

[TradeGraphicDesign]

Thanks for all the suggestions folks. I've switched stocks to get things to set a little better, and avoid the coating.

It did cross my mind if rigging up some kind of jig to apply a thin roller layer of litho sealer

Thats one for a later date

Thanks again. Tim