Looking for non UniSub coasters/placemats

[JSR]

Does anyone know of a supplier that sells wooden coasters/placemats that are *not* made by UniSub and that do *not* use UniSub board?

[Andrew]

I believe Transferpress do a non-unisub version. Very few places beyond Unisub manufacture this type of material. I could really do with China driving these costs down to make coasters and placemats more cost effective.

Are you still having issues with the unisub material? We've done about 500 coasters today and regularly do this type of volume and hardly ever get an issue.

[JSR]

I've been having some very strange results this week. I've been profiling a dark image which seems to print okay on my test prints using old non-unisub placemats. However, as soon as I go to print on coasters (the BMS ones that Martin said are made from UniSub board), the reproducing biases heavily towards red/purple.

If I do test prints on UniSub placemats, they look the same as the coasters. They are just incapable of reproducing accurate colours.

I've tried reprofiling using a UniSub placemat as the source, but the profiling device doesn't want to read the colours (maybe because the UniSub board is too glossy, or not white enough, or something).

I can see on the profile prints that certain colours are different when the UniSub board is compared to other profile prints (done on fabric, or metal, for example) so there is definitely something in the UniSub that's making certain colours different. If I could profile it, I could attempt to correct it.

I appreciate that I'm probably being over-picky and, if you're printing a high contrast sunny scene, then you're unlikely to notice it. But having the ability to work on colour-matching has made me a little paranoid when I find something that's putting a hurdle in the way of getting it right. At the moment, UniSub is that hurdle.

Back in the old days, we could get placemats and coasters that did not use UniSub material. I still have a couple of old coasters here like that (sadly, I've used my last old placemat now, though). It seems that everything is now lumbered in the same basket - which is fine, until you discover that the basket is tainted.

[Andrew]

I guess there is a good chance that even coasters that aren't labelled as unisub are still possibly the same material. Unisub are large suppliers of sheet stock in the coaster board and frp etc and I know companies often buy the large sheets to cut runs of bespoke size or shape items such as coasters. As far as I can remember the Transferpress coasters were virtually identical to unisub on the surface so might very wll be the same.

Out of all the products that we have printed I have always found that the unisub coaster material to give the very best results. The vibrancy of colours surpass every other surface we have printed on. I guess this could actually turn out to be a problem for some if you are used to producing prints for other surfaces then unisub lifts the design colours over and above other products.

[JSR]

Out of all the products that we have printed I have always found that the unisub coaster material to give the very best results. The vibrancy of colours surpass every other surface we have printed on. I guess this could actually turn out to be a problem for some if you are used to producing prints for other surfaces then unisub lifts the design colours over and above other products.

The vibrancy of the colour isn't the issue, it's the accuracy.

When creating a profile, you first start with a patch sheet of known colours which is always the same. I have here patch sheets done on a mousemat, a subli-soft t-shirt, a piece of 12"x8" metal, a unisub placemat, and a unisub wooden tray base. All printed with the same ink, same paper, same printer and pressed with the same press. Nothing changes except for the item itself.

The mousemat, t-shirt, and metal all match colours (vibrancy and gloss is dependent on the surface, naturally, but the colours effectively match).

While the two unisub items match each other, they do not match the mousemat, t-shirt, or metal. Most of the colour patches are the same but there are some noticeable differences - mostly in some of the greens and dark greys, but also in at least one of the blues. The dark greys and the blue suggest that it is a "red" issue (the dark greys look a bit reddish and the problem-blues looks a bit purple), which would correspond with the issue I had with the coasters.

Normally, the colour could be corrected with the profiling device but there is something preventing the device from properly scanning the unisub placemat/tray. This could be the high gloss nature of the product, and I'm wondering if I can find some kind of transparent matte sheet I could lay over it to try out.

[Paul]

it can not be the gloss issue as this thing is used by photographer to match the colours on high gloss photo paper. So it must something else...

[JSR]

I don't know what else it could be, but I have some matte transparencies coming and I'll see if that helps.

[Paul]

no point JSR. It will affect your color reading! It does not mater how transparent it is it still block some light coming to munki. How about sending one placematt to me and i see if my will cause same problems?

[socialgiraffe]

I have purchased from Wentworth Jigsaws before. They are exactly the same as The Magic Touch, not sure about Unisub as I have never purcashed from them. I agree with Andrew about driving down the costs, we did a run recently for quite a famous comedian for his tour. Due to the production costs and his mark up they were selling at his tour for something like £25.00 for four placements!!!!!

[JSR]

no point JSR. It will affect your color reading! It does not mater how transparent it is it still block some light coming to munki. How about sending one placematt to me and i see if my will cause same problems?

We can try that if I have no success. Although the transparency may block some of the light, it won't alter the colour accuracy beyond the level of brightness which can be corrected later. That'll be better than not profiling at all.

The transparency I'll be using is like the screen protectors you get for iPads. They don't tend to interfere with the colour too much from what I've seen.