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Does anyone happen to know how well normal desktop printer ink takes to blank Bicycles?

I'm looking to print some custom cards and am wondering about their durability.

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Ah... I searched on 'Print' instead of 'Printing' oops!

Ok. Follow up question that hasn't been answered by either of those...

Has anyone tried the transfer paper for making custom transfers for models?
I'm wondering if that and spray varnish would work.

It will look like cheap cards you printed yourself.

Get a professional to custom make them for you. Cards by Martin, but he is sadly dead. There's a german guy who does it. I forget his name but someone will post it I'm sure...

DaveM wrote:Does anyone happen to know how well normal desktop printer ink takes to blank Bicycles?
I'm looking to print some custom cards and am wondering about their durability.

Hello Dave,

I needed some frog picture playing cards for a John Guastaferro trick.
"Fairy Tale Frogs"
I down loaded some clip art frog pics from the internet.
Messed a little with the images using photo shop.
I first printed the image onto A4 paper, then cut out where the image would fall, used this as a template, & attached
a blank card to it using double sided tape, & sent it back through the printer.
I was really pleased with the result, they look really good, & I have now done the routine many times, & the cards are still AOK.

Hope this helps.

CArl...

So it is possible and is durable?!

I'll give it a try cheers!

The method I am going to use is to create a Photoshop template and do a test print of a square with playing card dimensions. Then I'll cut out 4 holes in the paper near the corners of the test image so the playing card will slot into place and be held there. It will then go through a printer (thank Barry & Stuart for that tip).

It means I can reuse the paper to get the position perfect every time and the square image in the template file will serve as a guide layer which can be hidden when I come to print.

Have a look there:

http://www.card-shark.de/index.cfm?page=34&lang=en

LPB.

I have a vinyl cutter and can cut vinyl shapes (normally used for banners or signwriting on cars, etc.) I created these cards below using this method, the vinyl on the cards makes them act as a breather too.

The vinyl is very sticky but, because of the shiny new blanks, was quite awkward to apply (compared to the normal, stick and peel process)

Ta for the photo. It's good to see how you've done it. I fear a vinyl cutter may be out of my price range but as a former print broker, I'm sure I can wangle something.

You might want to check out Lybrary's DIY playing cards section.

Here's what I do. Get the nail colour removal on a tissue or a cotton and lightly scrub it against the bicycle card. Since you have scrubbed a little, a little bit of shine is left and the normal printer ink will be printed successfully, but will need time to dry. To do that, I left the card printed to dry for a while, like 3 days. I actually forgot about it. Then with the roughing fluid, I sprayed it. The colours stayed and everything was good.

Beware that the air dots on the surface of the bicycle deck won't take the letters PERFECTLY. They tend to be a little bit fluffed. But nothing much.

If you print directly on a Bicycle card out from the blank cards box, the ink will sort of ski on the shiny surface and that would ruin the card.

Beware of applying too much of the alcohol on the card to scrub off the shiny surface. Just a very little is what you want. You just slightly and lightly stroke it.

That's how I printed on the cards. It works fine with me and with my printer. The only trouble was the ink to dry, You will HAVE to respray it because the ink even when it seems dry, is just messing with you and waiting for you to place your hand on it and find out that its actually not that dry. It actually never dries without coating and will create a smug. So you will have to:

1) Rub with alcohol
2) Print
3) Coat with Krylon ( I used to roughing spray Krylon )