Photo Slate Coating Changes :(

[harlequeen]

Great, Ucase, will check later.

[pisquee]

We leave our next batch of 4 slates on top of the press (PressMech) to preheat them, whilst the current for are pressing - we find this gives a good workflow, and efficiency in terms of time.

[harlequeen]

I press on a flat press and usually only pre-heat for about 1 minute, and have always got a good press. I'm going to try a longer pre-heat and my usual printing time of 8 minutes. I will post my results here.

[Justin]

I also rest on top for 100 secs with soft pad then cook for 500 seconds medium pressure.

[harlequeen]

No success with increasing the pre-heat time and cooked for 480 as normal. Output was faded, tried again and increased the pre-heat and cooked for longer, but this time it was overcooked with the blacks coming out brown, but quite 'faded' - very light image. I would love to see one of yours Justin.

[Ucase Ltd]

Sorry for the delay. Here's a pic' (I've cropped around part of it as my designs have a habit of being copied - I'm sure nobody here would do that but this is a public forum).

I spoke to Longforte and they say they they use NO pre-heat (on a flat press) and cook for 8 minutes. I use 3D and that doesn't work for me.

This one was made in a ST3042 3D machine.
Preheated for 8 minutes and cooked for 8 minutes at 200c.

It's not as nice as the original coating but I've not had any complaints so far.

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[harlequeen]

Well that looks good, I haven't bought any from Longforte yet, may have to try soon. I will post a photo of one of my recent ones later

[Ucase Ltd]

Well that looks good, I haven't bought any from Longforte yet, may have to try soon. I will post a photo of one of my recent ones later

I know that Longforte, Dyesublimationsupplies and MerlinTransfers all use the same supplier for slates. Not sure about any of the others.

[harlequeen]

Could someone describe the boxes the Longforte slates come in, that might give me an idea as there seems to be 3 different boxes

[harlequeen]

These are 2 slates I have printed recently - using the same exact process both times. One is an old slate I had from a previous order the other is one of a new batch. You can see the difference immediately. I have bought from 2 differenct suppliers and are getting the same results with the new ones.

I am going to send them back as I can't do anything with them.

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