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The discovery of flatbed printing onto sintra (which I learned about at
school from my exhibits professor) has changed my life!  I will never
print on anything else again.  The results are fantastic, durable, and
you only have to ever do it once.  (proof-read carefully) 

We have several local printers who now provide this service. I work with
a graphics person in-house to create labels and we lay out a bunch of
them on a 4-foot by 10-foot template, leaving the little corner marks on
each label for them to cut each one out.  When a sheet is full, we send
the whole file over to the printer, and for $375 we get anywhere from
10-100 labels (depending on size)on 3mm (1/8") white sintra, already cut
out and ready to install.  No corners to peel up, nothing to rip,
scratch, or fade.  The colors come out crisp and clean and nice.  You
can work the sintra like wood (sand, cut, etc) if you need, and it's
thin enough that you can bend it to fit on a curved surface if
necessary.

We started doing this about a year and a half ago on all new labels, and
I'm working my way around our entire science center, with the goal of
replacing all paper and vinyl labels someday.  I keep a terribly torn
and worn out vinyl label on my desk as a reminder. The labels we have
that are under plex have stood up the best over time, but look tacky - I
will replace those with sintra someday too.

Owning one of the flatbed printers in-house would be a dream.

Good luck,
Cricket

Cricket Brooks
Exhibit Specialist
Science City at Union Station Kansas City
www.sciencecity.com
(816) 460-2239
(816) 812-2307 [cell]

-----Original Message-----
From: Informal Science Education Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Allan Ayres
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 5:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Experiences with flatbed printing?

ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
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*****

Ever since we got our trusty HP DesignJet in the office here it's been
my little joke with my boss every year that we should put a "Sintra
printer" into the budget.

Well, it appears the universe has called my bluff, and such things
actually now exist.  "UV curable flatbed printer" is the keyword... 
print on any substrate!  Wood, plastic, metal, glass -- apparently any
reasonably flat thing you can lay down on the printer, it'll print on
it.

These things are still in the realm of service bureaus at this point (I
don't think my boss will spring for a $200k printer, regardless of how
geeky cool and useful it may be), but I just wanted to ask for feedback
from anyone who has had much of this sort of printing done. 
Vendor?  Cost?  Process?  Durability?  Good/bad applications of the
technology?  Examples you've seen?

We have a project in the pipeline for which large-format graphics
printed on wood and metal might be exactly the right look, so we're
trying to get a sense for how to approach it.  Thanks for any insight.

--Allan




--
~~

Allan Ayres
Exhibit Developer
Lawrence Hall of Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-5200
[log in to unmask]
510-642-1254

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