In this video we’re going to just go through some different types of common UV printing materials and some products you can use to give them better ink adhesion.
The first recommendation when UV printing is to always clean the surface of what you are printing on. We most commonly use some alcohol but for metal surfaces will use acetone.
When printing on acrylic, we use a lacquer thinner, so that it doesn’t damage the cut edges of the acrylic.
Some materials are UV printer ready. Usually these will have a film over them that needs to be removed. But when removing it, static is created and dust is attracted to the surface. For this we recommend just a quick wipe down with some water.
We also have some adhesion promoters that we like to use. On something like stainless steel, there are specialty type of adhesion promoters specifically meant for metal. This one is called Verifix by Bohle. It is a metal adhesion promoter.
You wipe this on, wear gloves, wipe this on a thin coat. Let it air dry a couple of minutes. You print to it and then if you have any residual that you see on the substrate after the fact, after it’s cured, just take a cloth with some alcohol on it and wipe around that and you’ll get rid of any haze that might exist from it.
You also can sometimes get away with just using a standard adhesion promoter, like our Compress AP that’s available on Coleman and Company and this works pretty well on the stainless steel once you clean it with acetone. It’s not going to work as well as the Verifix, but it’s a little bit less expensive as well.
There are also some different “treatment” processes we use. Including flame treatment, corona treatment, and plasma treatment.
Need help getting good ink adhesion with your UV printer? Live chat with one of our pros at https://colmanandcompany.com/ and they can help you find what product is right for you!
