Do I have a unique printing problem ?

We have been approached by a Japanese customer to print very short runs(<100) of our designs on their paper for subsequent making up into limited edition fans in Japan.

The problems arise from the traditional techniques used by their craftsmen, where the fan leaf would have been a wood block print using starch bound pigmented inks.
First, we have to use their paper, which is made by laminating several layers of hand-made paper together using wheat starch paste. It might be considered to be the equivalent of a slightly porous paper, about 95gsm in weight.
Second, the paper, after folding and being attached to the sticks, is then pressed under a damp blanket for 24 hours.

So in essence I'm looking for some recommendation of a printer/ink system that would give us a printed image that might withstand this sort of treatment.

I have successfully run their paper through our QMS330 laser printer, but with the toner remaining on the surface, the image cracks along the folds, showing white lines where the traditional wood block print would not. The wood block print would drive the ink deep into the paper, and I've an idea that part of their ink formulation would have included waterproofing agents.

I have considered the possibility of using a transfer dye sub method as one possible way forward, but having come across no mention of it ever being used on paper, even a treated one, I'm not sure.

I have an Epson1290, and I could try archival(?) inks in that, or go for a pigmented ink(+suitable printer), but how water resistant are these inks on other than the recommended papers ?
Because of the short run, we could also consider post printing waterproofing, so long as it added no obvious change to the appearance of the print.

Any experience or advice on any of the points above would be gratefully received.
John

 

An update.
I'm in touch with a company re the possible use of a gel inkjet printing system to get round the problem.
Has anyone any experience of these systems that they could pass on, beyond the few reviews that exist on the web ?

 

I've done runs of paper that was constructed in a similar fashion but the paper contained seed and the intention was for the receiver of the document to bury the page and the document itself could be used to grow a tree. It was some marketing gurus idea for the ultimate in recyclable product and fitted my clients company. The paper itself was the same as you say barring the seeds. We destroyed 3 printers and when we used higher end printers some would print the image well but the curling of the paper on the stacker was ridiculous. Paper like you describe cant be heated too much or it will be stuffed. That's an even bigger problem to overcome then getting a clean print if your client want's any kind of quantity. You'll get very small runs with decent ink integrity and not curl but large runs are very difficult regardless of equipment. We ended up completing the runs but to be honest it probably took years off the life of the printers it didn't actually kill and we had techs constantly fixing those that survived afterward. We had a run of 8+ million impressions but at the end of the day profit was minimal.

 

Fnesr, thanks for your reply.

My original thought was that the novelty value of my heading might have attracted a solution, and though my second posting now seems to be the way I shall go, I think your own problem equals if not betters mine.

So, come on good people, what bizarre printing jobs have you been faced with ?
Regards
John

 

printing disaster

Well let's see here, there was the failed attempt to print and cut labels out of 3.0mil shiny silver sticker paper.
The inkjet printing went okay, until you spilled your drink on it, and watched the image just dribble right off the acrylic...
So... we wiped off the inks and ran to the yellow pages and paid another small and local printer to print it on laser jet.
That went just fine.
Then our customer said they wanted their paper to be laminated. But we had just paid $1/page on a 60 page print job to have it printed by someone else. That we were only being paid $40 to do. But it was our first serious job and we were determined to do our best to please the customer.
So we laminated our stickers. (and that absolutely ruined the tack on them)
Then our customer told us that the 'evil' diecutting printer wanted over $120 to do the diecutting and if we could pretty please do it ourselves. She was certain we could cut them with compasses and Xacto blades, and if we could drop the price to only $15 to do the labor, she would reward us with more work and many good references.
Well we looked at each other, but we both loved the trade and wanted to do well by our very first good customer. So we took out the Xacto blades and 15 hours later, and 20 Xacto blades later. We had some roughly cut round stickers that you could cry at, they looked so dreadful.

Then she said she needed them ASAP, and asked us to ship them that day. We told her maybe we should do it over again at our expense, but no, no, no she wanted what we had right now.
So we shipped them.
And we waited.
And she screamed, and screamed, and screamed at us over the phone.
But we had done exactly as she had ordered, for exactly thrice as much as she had paid.
And she wanted a full cash refund, but we were tired of this and hung up on her.
Together we vowed, if we were going to consider doing that again, we had better have done it successfully at least twice before.

A whole year Later...
After hundreds of hours of research and cross-referencing we did find an affordable way to provide those same diecutting services that look professional without using compass xacto blades, or costing $160 per die. However it is our trade secret, but you may order from us our bonanzle shop is http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/Skaldi and ask for a die cutting quote.