Printing onto blank cards

jarredAwesome · Apr 4, 2016

Hey Guys,

I bought some blank bicycle cards, and I want to put my custom images onto it. I am finding that some printer settings work better then others.

Do any of you have any suggestions for the best way to print custom gaff images onto blank cards?

RealityOne · Apr 4, 2016

Ink jet printers smear and laser jet printers flake off (although I haven't tried the new color laser jet I got back in December). The best method I've found is to use ink-jet iron on sheets -- the paper you get, print on and then iron-on to a t-shirt.

Prof_Utonium · Apr 8, 2016

I experimented with an idea from some lecture notes (can´t recall which): Remove the finish with fine steel wool or very fine sanding paper. Then you can print on the card with a normal inkjet printer. Afterwards restore the finish with matte finish spray (art supply).
Unfortunately the results weren´t too good:
1) It is very difficult to match the printing colors to the original colors
2) The shine of the finish looks quite different to the normal cards
3) The matte finish adds an undesired rough/smooth effect (unless you can actually make use of it...)

I´m really curious to try RealityOne´s iron-on-sheet idea. Sounds promising.

mclintock · Apr 8, 2016

Isn't a matte finish supposed to be rough? Isn't that what is generally used for Invisible Decks?

Prof_Utonium · Apr 9, 2016

Yes it is. So the roughness didn´t come as a surprise. But I don´t know anything else that you can purchase in a spraycan that is a better match to the original playing card finish but not rough.

RealityOne · Apr 9, 2016

Here is one way of doing it (although it seems rather involved):

http://www.lybrary.com/make-your-playing-cards-a-11.html

jarredAwesome · Apr 9, 2016

I ended up getting The Gaff Factory; it had everything I needed to know. What it suggested was a bit of a long process, but it looks like the results are really good.