foil printing

[sarahjayne]

Doing a bit of research into this as I've been asked for foil on stationery and thinking of doing wedding stationery as a side line and we want to do cards for the school fund raiser this year - as I have all the craft materials and card etc already. I have also bought quite a bit of foil printed ribbon for different things - so being able to do that would be great.

The main decision seems between toner based foil and laminator and limiting myself to card or a traditional foiling machine but are the dies expensive to purchase/ can you make your own? I read something about photopolymer stamps as dies - has anyone done this - how's it done and what can you print onto? I ask because I have a Polydiam UV exposure unit for photopolymer stamp making in storage - there's this plate on E-Bay that seems to indicate I could use this with the exposure unit to make my own polymer dies - and I'd fit a lot onto an A4 sheet.
I don't want to buy on impulse and then decide it was the wrong choice.
I've seen this
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Hot-Foil-Stampin ... 3a63444d26 it's only a bit more expensive than a hot foil laminator but I assume I have to buy dies for it. There are also a couple of used ones on E-bay but this is cheaper.
Anyone any advice?

[John G]

The polydiam exposure unit is the ideal UV source to make the polymer dies, they even sell the hot foil plates.

http://www.polydiam.com/products?page=s ... egory_id=4

I'd go for buying a hot foil press and utilising your polydiam UV unit. The hot foil press uses heat that travels from the heat plate, through your polymer plate and with the right pressure and dwell time - presses the foil onto the item to be printed. If you go the laser route it would be too time taking and limited to very thin card only.

Cheers John

[John G]

You should be thinking of one like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-foil-printing-press-blocking-stamping-letterpress-type-printing-plates-/200719048567?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item746d3c177d#ht_2970wt_1185

The item you have listed in your thread infers it comes from Portsmouth but if you delve deeper it actual comes from hong kong I think. Got a feeling you'd be paying import duty and the feedback doesn; 't look promising either.

[SJL12]

Hi there everyone,

I am new here

Not sure if I am on the right thread or sorry for hijacking this one.

I am about to hopefully start doing hot foil stamping onto leather accessories very soon!
I think I have found a company and a small machine for home.

But where does one find the good quality leather blank goods from? I have done a search and google gives me nothing much at all.

Looking for blanks in phone covers, note books, washbags, makeup bags, travel passport holders, credit card holders, keyrings etc and all leather.

Can anyone please help?

Thanks so much!

Sarah