Printing 300gsm Card in-house

[Justin]

You can print glossy no problem at all, this is specially coated which is different.

[technick]

Could you recommend an A3 glossy paper with Inkjet (Epson xp960) to print on around the 250gsm mark? I'll be using these in mounts. Cheers

[Justin]

I'm only using matte card I'm afraid, bought some from Hobbycraft online with free delivery, worked out ok.

[Justin]

Back to this again I'm afraid. Canon sprinter is cracking but didn't prove practical printing the small cards we use. In time I know I could find a more suitable card but we would have to hand cut. So, we found another online supplier who print them really cheaply and the end product is superb. That's the good bit, bad bit is customer service is an absolute nightmare and they've started making a lot of mistakes.

Our Canon would be fine for printing but we need an automatic way to cut the A4/A3 sheets. I've seen a few business card cutters but wonder if something exists that will cut the cards for me? Kit would need vertical and horizontal cuts and size needs to be changed, most seem to be set at business card dimensions.
Maybe asking a bit much and if something does exist I'm sure it would be expensive. Getting them printed for us is by sure the best idea but finding a company that can do them at a sensible price and give good service is proving difficult.

[Brant]

Have you tried Route 1 print? They virtually give print awayaway.

[Justin]

Never seen them before, will check out prices cheers.

I have found a machine in China, circa £1k that they 'claim' will cut the cards to size. if I can see one working or find a review it would be worth having a look.

[webtrekker]

What's wrong with using a contour cutter Justin? Even a cheap Cameo will cut thick card. You can then cut them to any size or design you want.

[Justin]

We did cut a few through the cutter but it proved very time consuming, setting up reg marks and we had to put the card onto an adhesive plastic sheet to get it through the cutter well. Feeding A3 sheets through took forever.

[webtrekker]

We did cut a few through the cutter but it proved very time consuming, setting up reg marks and we had to put the card onto an adhesive plastic sheet to get it through the cutter well. Feeding A3 sheets through took forever.

Justin, I cut (or used to cut) magnetic party invitations, credit ard sized, from printed A4 magnetic sheet with reg marks. I used to get 27 invites at a time from each sheet and it took no more than about 2 minutes to mount the sheet on the mat, align the reg marks and cut them. Some cutters that are used mainly for vinyl and not meant to support a cutting mat aren't very good for this though. You need a general purpose contour cutter such as a Cameo or, in my case, a Silver Bullet cutter. Mine can cut printed card up to 18" width and any length up to the size of mat I'm using.

[webtrekker]

Can I just add that anyone thinking of using a contour cutter to cut heavy card should be aware that there are various types of card, and that card with a low fibre density doesn't cut as well as card with a higher density as the loose fibres cause problems.

Also, the tackiness of the mat matters to a certain degree. Too tacky and the card will be hard to remove from the mat. Not enough tack and it will move on the mat while cutting. I use 3M ReMount spray on my mats so that I can control the tackiness to a fine degree.