Is there any way to "stencil" DVD's?

sheeep

sheeep

Active member
I know the standard ways to label CD's/DVD's are ink jet printables, light scribes, getting them sent to a professional or paper labels.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried stenciling DVD's? Experimenting with sharpie has produced results that just kinda look like a stenciled sharpie... are there any "DVD-safe" paints or inks?

My friend works at a silk screening shop, so would speed ball type inks or something along those lines work?
 
I'm assuming you don't want to modify your printer and I don't know that there is any unsafe ink. It sounds like a lot of work, but maybe you have a method in mind?
 
Well, from reading online it seems like everything professionally done is silk screened, so I guess I'll try that route.

Anyone have any experience?
 
Years ago I used black spray paint and a stencil to complete some DVD's of a film I made. It was quick and dirty, and worked with the content of the film, but I wouldn't advise it if you didn't want the DVD's to look homemade.
 
Discmaker's now has a "no minimum" service for DVDs. In the past you had to buy like 500 of them, but now you can get 1 or 20 if you like. They print the graphics right on the disc.
 
Just a heads up... Diskmaker's low-run DVD-Rs are regular disks with an ink-jet print, so they will smear if they get wet and fade in color after time. Basically they're no different than what you can print at home...

If you are doing smaller batches (less than 30 disks at a time) and want a convenient way to print your own disks. Consider picking up an Epson R300 (or equiv) printer and do it yourself. For replacement ink I get my refills from supermediastore.com. They have sales every so often and you can get 3 FULL set of inks for around $50.. (brand name will run you $9 to 12/per color!!!!!!)

If you're doing larger runs... I have a replication plant that you should consider. I've already done 5 small batches of 100 DVDs through them with awesome results. I'll get the name of the process for you if you're interested. However it's not silkscreen , but they use some other process where the graphics are printed directly on the disk and they do *not* smear. It will cost you a little more and it's definitely worth checking out.

The top three disk were done at the plant and the rest of the disks were done with my R300. (sorry for the quality... I used my point and shoot..)

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Mitsubishi makes some really cool paint pens which i use to make some cool artwork on DVD's they come in many colors and have a beautiful glossy feel.
 
I gave in and bought an Inkjet CD printer today. Should come in handy in the future.

I still wanna investigate the idea of screen printed cd's, that would be faster and cheaper for large batches.

The only concern I could have with the screen printing process is flash drying the ink, the heat might damage the disk.
 
sheeep said:
The only concern I could have with the screen printing process is flash drying the ink, the heat might damage the disk.
Click to expand...

i only have experience with actual fabric silk screening but i know for a fact there are several kinds of inks exist. Some inks can dry natural (air-dry) instead of needing to be heat cured like traditional plastisol or water based ink which are used on 99% of the screened t-shirts you wear.
i think the biggest problem you would face is how to keep the disc scratch free as you pass the squeegee ontop.
 
the problem with printing labels is that 's stamped on with adhesive. if you ever felt a disk right out of the player, it gets really hot. the disk spins so fast eventually the adhesive starts to melt and damaging the disk making skip.

i'd stay away from those.
 
Hub-printable is the way to go...

Hub-printable is the way to go...

...for small-batch runs of up to a couple of hundred...with the right setup.

Stay away from stick-on labels for exactly the reasons Car3o said.

I use the above mentioned hub-printables (only because I like the full disc coverage) and have had no problem, apart from ink smearing if you get water on them.

Taiyo-Yuden and MBI are two of the biggest and, at least in my experience, best for dvd media.

I haven't used the water-shield apart from some samplers but I'm thinking of switching over due to the whole "smeary" thing in regards to moisture. They cost a little more but the quality is a real "step up."

Oh, and the Epson "R" series CD/DVD printers are solid machines. OEM inks are cheap and look pretty much the same as the far more expensive Epson inks.

As a side note, I'm running three R280s off my PC for my recital runs. Along with my 7to1 burner I can burn, print & package an entire recital set of around 100 single-layer dvds in about 2 hours. Compare that to my old way of doing it with one burner and one printer and I think I spent more time in post-production packaging than actually editing and rendering.....AND shooting. :furious3: Time-saver indeed.

sincerely,


ian
 
Ian Slessor said:
I haven't used the water-shield apart from some samplers but I'm thinking of switching over due to the whole "smeary" thing in regards to moisture. They cost a little more but the quality is a real "step up."
Click to expand...

I use the TY watershed (everything in the second row and down in my pic) and even though they run about $.67/ea I think they are worth it! They are hub printable, so you get full coverage. I ran a quick test when I first started using them. Basically I printed one, let it dry for an hour and then let water run on it for 30 second or so... no smear!
 
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