The best gloss text & cover for digital toner printers

See a lot of threads about different papers so here is what I have found through trial and error on gloss papers for our digital toner machines...

Sterling Ultra Digital is great for offset presses but doesn't run, at all on our digital toner based presses...it folds up like an accordion in the fuser unit...and when it doesn't do that then the fuser unit bubble up the paper, we believe the fuser heat is turning moisture in the paper to steam thus producing the bubbling of the paper...it can be really bad....

Futura laser runs okay on the digital machines but do experience some jamming more than we think it should.

Hands down the best paper we have found it Mohawk #80 or #100 gloss text...it runs like a dream (even duplexing) and the prints look great...and Mohawk Kromekote runs great even the 12pt. We found the Kromekote was the next best thing to UV coated cards coming off a digital machine...

Our previous favorite was Hammermill Color Copy Gloss but they don't make it any more but it ran as good as the Mohawk...but we still love the Hammermill Color Copy Papers that are still available...

Test were done with Okidata/Xante Color Printers (C9200 series) and on Canon C3220's...

Love to hear what you think....

 

Sorry to hear that about the Hammermill Color Copy gloss. I wonder why they stopped making it?
On our xerox 242, I found the hammermill color copy gloss was very good gloss, probably #2 nicest gloss, and we could get it at a very competitive rate and I don't remember ever having a jam or curl problem with it.

Best gloss look of the non-cast-coated was sterling ultragloss for us.

Mohawk gloss runs great and doesn't curl, but the gloss level isn't quite as nice.

Agree, also hands down the nicest gloss on our machine is kromekote cast coated gloss, but it of course is also the most expensive.

 

Newpage makes a great gloss stock and a budget line as well that (to me) looks just as good once printed. Blazer is the budget line and Millcraft paper gets me a great deal on it. It runs every bit as good as Mohawk in every text and cover grade on our BizHub 6000 and our 1200 (black and white).

 

This week I compared output quality using Sterling Ultra Digital, Futura, and Mohawk Color Copy 100# gloss cover stocks. I profiled and calibrated each stock, and printed one particular customer job--it was a 12" x 18" page with an edge-to-edge dark blue background.

I printed on 12" x 18" and 13" x 19" sheets. I also used some other sheets (a cast coated sheet and a couple of matte coated sheets). The goal was to determine which sheet gave me the smoothest-looking output with the fewest artifacts (streaking, banding, mottling) that all digital printers may exhibit to some degree. The machine I used is a well-maintained, fairly new KM AccurioPress C2070.

The best-looking prints, in order of my own preference, were:

(1) Mohawk, for the smoothest field and the whitest sheet
(2) Futura
(3) Sterling