Sublimation Printed Plaques

Sublimation Printing

Sublimation with RCS Digital Printing – We were requested to provide our printing services for some winner trophies for a model car club that were eye catching, good value and easily produced in low numbers.

The printing process

Sublimation printing is a process of applying special sublimation ink on to a surface via heat. Using a heat press, the combination of heat, time and pressure causes the inks to convert from a solid state in to a gas. This enables them to penetrate the specially coated surface so that a long lasting full colour image is formed. This forms a print that is more durable than other methods simply printed onto the surface of the item.

So with that said, lets get started….

First task is to create the required artwork and unlike general printing, this is usually done in RGB.

Once complete, print your image on to the specialist sublimation paper and remember to mirror your graphics if you haven’t got this set automatically in your printing profile..

A few millimeter bleed area makes registration of the panel to the artwork easier and avoids any white edges. Remember to peel off the protective film on your panel prior to lining them up!

Heat transfer tape allows a temorary residue free way of keeping things lined up in their correct position.

Once your press is set for the correct time, pressure and temperature for the substrate according to manufacturer specs you are good to go.

Place the print with the panel facing down on to your press. Cover with a sheet of paper for example to stop any stray contamination from the print process.

Whay waste time, use as much space as your heat platten will allow.

Set the press in action and get your heat gloves on…these panels will be rather hot when done! seeing as you are pressing at a temp of between 180-200 degrees

Once complete, remove the print from the panel and allow to cool off.

They are good to go after that but in this instance we wanted something a little more presentable. So, the plaques were combined with a self adhesive card strut to allow a free standing trophy.

In the area and interested in model cars already or would like to get in to them then please get in touch with the team at ADUR as I am sure they would welcome any new interest.

Website ADUR RC

Facebook ADUR RC

Feel free to contact us with any digital printing requirements you may have.