Printing on wood REVISITED.

Jun 30, 2006 6 Replies

Hi, A week or so ago, someone asked about an oversized inkjet printer for wood. I just came across this laser printer/etcher that works on almost material, and thought it might be of some interest.



Cheers, Roger Haar Tucson


"Roger Haar" wrote

Uhhh................., Roger, since I am not psychic, perhaps you could share an URL or something about this fabled laser printer/etcher.

Thanks

Lee

| A week or so ago, someone asked about an oversized inkjet printer | for wood. I just came across this laser printer/etcher that works | on almost material, and thought it might be of some interest.

I'm interested. Can you provide a link (or contact information?)

Thanks!

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

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I am not sure about what kind of printing you want to do on wood. I didnt see the original article but if you want to print black on wood you can do it with any laserjet printer. just print the reverse image onto photographic paper with your laserjet and then put the paper where you want the printing to be on the wood and iron it on. best if the finish of the wood is very smooth. beats having to get a very large printer.

Doug

I print patterns on self-adhesive labels and stick em on. The white background makes it much easier to see the lines on any kind of wood. It does sometimes pull up some fibers when you pull off the label on certain woods.

-Leuf

There are several options, depending on how deep are your pockets. At the high end are industrial inkjets that will print in color on substrate up to 2" thick.

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is one source. Plan on spending about $60K

In our sign shop we use spray mask vinyl. For this you need a vinyl cutter. One source of vinyl cutters

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. And of course regular vinyl is easily applied to wood, but vinyl has thickness and will need to be overcoated. Vinyl cutters start at $500 but they are unmercifully slow. Plan on spending at least $1,000 plus to cost of materials. One nice thing you can also do with a vinyl cutter is cut sandblasting stencil which is a cheaper alternative to laser engravers for work that isn't too detailed.

You might also want to look into screen printing. The cost is low but is messy and stinky and time consuming to set up. It's a good choice if you need several imprintes. Do a Google search.

Probably the least expensive route is to use your laser printer for water slide decals.

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one source. There are plenty of others, just search the web.

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