Printing on alu-foil paper - No UV

Dear Friends,

I have a new project and we need to print on top of foil laminated paper. It is a substrate with 3 layers, alu foil, kraft paper and PE coating as the last layer. Does anyone have experience printing on plastic or alu foil substrate with water base inks?

No UV available but we do have a in-line coating unit with IR.

Wishing you a lovely day,

 

I periodically print on PVC, use PVC ink and siccative in water. I print at a slow speed and in small piles. It takes at least a week to dry completely!

 

Run your water speeds low metalized paper can carry a lot of water. Use a large micron spray power since you dont have UV .Run small tiers 750 to 1000 sheets. If you are running White best way to run is 2 pass,wet trapping white is not a great idea. Make sure you have compatible inks for metal. Lots of driers,you will be in trouble if you run conventional paper inks. You will have drying issues. You can get specific inks for metal/plastic and also add driers to the inks. Something like a 50/50 drier I think cobalt/manganese. Talk to your ink company first.

 

To print conventional sheetfed offset you MUST use an oxybind or high solids inkset. As mentioned you will want at least a 30 micron powder and run very small lifts. I think 1000 sheets to a lift would be pushing your luck. You absolutely do NOT want to try and run your delivery nonstop. Pulling out the sheet rake when attempting to run delivery non stop, will for certain cause even a small pile to set off. I would also caution you to be very gentle when pulling out the pile from the delivery. If you have cracks or humps in your floor coming out of the delivery I would suggest patching them up. Dont travel far from delivery with fresh off the press piles.
Because there is such a high cost for the stock, the temptation is for estimating to figure on little to no waste. This will prove to be a mistake. Because you will be running oxybind type inks, you will need to get the press up and running as quickly as possible ,so that the ink does not dry on your rollers. This is a job for the best pressman on your staff.
An infrared coating will help, provided that its formulated for a non porous stock. I would advice that you test drying with the inks, and coating you will use, on the stock you will use. Also you want to make sure that the stock gets dyne tested with a known corona treatment, to be sure of its receptivity to ink. If your not familiar with dyne testing and corona treatment you should investigate further.
I would very much like to end this by saying that this is a job for a UV equipped press, with a staff that does this sort of specialty printing day in and day out. The company that does that 2 or 3 times a year job on foil or other non porous substrates is just asking for trouble. You've been warned!!!