Spray on coating to make a printable disk?

[NightWing]

Was wondering on this for a bit.

Could a coating be created to spray on a non printable DVD/CD to make it one?

I know thats is how they make ink printiable vinyl but would be nice if you could spray an creats your own inkjet compatable disk.

[The village idiot]

I asked Mediastreet this very question months ago. They said that they didn't have anyway of coating the disks. Seems that you should be able to buy this "stuff" somewhere by now. Making your own would be cool.

[NightWing]

Actualy it came to a head today talking to a good friend. We are both very plus on disk and been looking at the new Epson cheep printer for DVD/CD. If they was some way to coat the disk would be worth it for us.

Hum..... Wonder if primer type of paint would work.... The guys from some of the wide format color printer companies explained the vinyl ink stuff as a coating kind of like small rough indents that allows the ink to grab to it so to speak.

Would need to bond to the laqure coating on a disk but allow a rough enough surface to allow ink to stick. A tall order!

[kiki]

I too have wondered about this.
Something like "sprayable whiteout".
Surely this is something that is attainable.
I have hundreds of backups and refuse to move them on to printable media. Many of these backups were done when media was 5 bucks a shot.
Even if you had to rough up the surface a bit with steel wool to get good
adhesion and wait 24 hours for a good dry. I could, slowly, go through my
collection and get rid of my almost incoherent sharpie scribbles.
Or, I could always take a course in calligraphy?? NAH! I need some spray.

Kiki

[NightWing]

The sprayable whiteout is a greate idea. Well the chemical in whiteout are usualy found in a kitchen as the ledgen goes.

Well there is the thermal printer from Casio. It prints in band and finaly saw one at Staples the other day. But it does not print a full disk or in color. The full thermal ones are very expensive.

Well you could run it through a plotter. Drop out the blade and stick in a sharpe. Beats the callgraph. But limited.

Did try rub on labels and were ok.

Using hub labels right now. You get 26 a sheet. And dont muck up the data area.

I guess I get to go pass the paint section of a local warehouse hardware store. And sacerfice a few.

[BJ_M]

TY printable CD's use a spray on coating -- i found out when i started to wash a unprinted one .. it is also water based ...

when wet it felt like wallpaper glue ....

when i washed it all off (as i now had to do) .. the surface was a normal smooth white back ..

[NightWing]

Hum.... Intersting....

Thw water base makes sense. Something that WONT eat the laqure coating. Could blast it with air to rough it up but not scrape it off so to speak.

This is getting intersting!

How about spray on glue? Hate the stuff since it stinks and is so sticky. But would leave a nice rough surface! And could maybe stick to the laqure on a standard disk. After a layer of krylon as the fix? Or would that be too thick?

PS: May grab some next time I am out. Messy but would be worth it!

[The village idiot]

it is more than just a rough serface. The coating must absorb the ink. The Memorex CDR that I have tried seem to be most like athe gelatin coating used on many glossy papers, just not glossy.

Just imagine if the coating could be sprayed on with an inkjet printer Then you could make print to the hub disks from anything!

[NightWing]

This is getting intersting...

The best, like you said, would be a sponge coating type. Wonder if a setting of high gloss and then a coating of Krylon to fix it in position would work. High gloss would kick out a minum amount of ink which could cut down on the puddling. Or something to set the dot gain to the amount to just barely get the job done.

I remember the ink vinyl had a merkey look to it.

[ZAPPER]

Your playing with fire here. Common sense says don't do it. But what the heck, here are my thoughts. At work we use a primer called X-I-M whenever we paint plastic. It seems to work OK on PVC pipes that we sometimes use for decrotive columns and such odd ball projects. I ain't sure that it comes in spray cans but I think that it does. If it don't you could use a touch up gun or one of those little areosol paint bottles from Home depot or a craft store. Lay out a batch on a soft rag and place a small weight on the center of each disk to lightly embed the disk into the rag to prevent over spray on to the face side. I see the potential for a lot of problems. If it ever chips in a player, you don't know me. If it is thrown out of balance due to uneven coating, you don't know me. If it heats up in a player and causes trouble, you don't know me. I know that a lot of people want the disk to look professional or cool for many reasons, but the disk must preform first, the disk goes into a player, the cover insert is what should be held and fingered and used as a coaster. If the tecnnology is not here yet just wait. I ain't gonna be the test rat. (unless I find that can of primer around here somewhere)

[BJ_M]

krylon now makes a plastic paint that sticks to even shiney plastic like bee's on honey ..


they have a mat finish version also --

[themichael]

Use to use flat white enamel to make a writable area on slick plastics. Spraying it on a spinning disk would help give it an even coating.

I think there was a thread lik this already. Don't remember how it ended...

[The village idiot]

New info!

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=216612

[dxj40c]

I think you have missed an important element. Finding something that will stick can be achieved through experimentation. Getting it on evenly is your problem.

I work in a paint laboratory, and in the process of testing coatings we require a uniform coat of paint. You can't achieve this by spraying or brushing. It requires milled drawdown bars, perfectly flat vacuum plates, and a constant-speed drive to pull the drawdown bar across the surface.
Needless to say, this equipment is in the thousands of dollars.

In the case of coating CD/DVD, if the disk did not have this uniform coating, it would vibrate worse than an out-of-balance tire. This would give a new definition to the term 'wobble'.

Your idea is great, if you could find a solution you could be a millionaire.

Paper Labels are run between fixed rollers to achieve consistent thickness
and therefore work most of the time. If the rollers have pits or are uneven
the labels will be out of balance. I suppose they account for a lot of people on this forum who will not use labels (from bad experiences).

[NightWing]

Wonder if we could do it simular to wave soldering? Flow of material and move the disk upside down over it?

Hey finished my taxes early this morning and the mind is a bit overloaded still!

[The village idiot]

I think you have missed an important element. Finding something that will stick can be achieved through experimentation. Getting it on evenly is your problem.

Actually I didn't miss anything. I can guarantee 100% that I can come up with a method that would work, and would be repeatable, as long as the "stuff" doesn't damage the disks. And I could do it for under a MEGA-buck!* Just haven't done the thinking or testing. There are a couple of ideas for people that want to try up in the media forum. The threads are concerned with spraying a clear protectant after printing, but some of the ideas would make a good starting point. And I also never said it would be easy or cost effective. But in the art world (this is bordering there) sometimes you have to try unconventional things. The first place I might start is by spraying the stuff while the disk is rotating (I think either WillHay or gmatov came up with this idea).

Also still don't know how the adhesive coating would damage the disk, these compounds have some kind of solvent in them, so it might just plain eat the disk, and leave you with a mess!

So if someone decides to boldly go where no one has gone before, I wish you good luck.





* MEGA-buck defined as any amount over what I would be willing to pay (can afford to pay) to build it, I'm not rich so this wouldn't be too much.

[gmatov]

First, the author of this thread should decide if he wants to print on CDs or DVDs.

CDs have a so called laquer top surface. Now, whether this is a true laquer, or a water based laquer, I don't know. Solvent based, laquer thinner is one of the few things commonly used that will eat it. (Commonly, because I just know someone is going to bring up exotic compounds that will eat through the container it is shipped in and eat halfway into the planet. Only halfway, though, as when it passes the core of the Earth, it will continue eating its way out of the planet.)

X-I-M, mentioned above, might just be one of those compounds, the X is probably Xylene, the I might be isocyanurate, and the M is probably methyl chloride ar methyl bromate, or bromide, both used for paint and varnish strippers, probably not a good idea on a DVD, let alone a CD.Also not a good thing for a heart patient to be sniffing, as it reduces the blood's capacity to carry oxygen, similar to CO.

Village, I think you mentioned in another thread that a canvas is painted with gesso prior to painting a picture. It's just another oil paint, or maybe a different vehicle, even water based, so the oil paints won't soften it and run. Superfine clay, a pigmented white inkjet refill, probably wear your nozzles out in a disk or 2, abrasive as hell, may even be diatomaceous earth, as we call it today, pool filter media, among other uses.

I think the very BEST thing to do is simply demand that the disk makers identify the blank printables as compatible with Epson, or Canon, or HP, or Lexmark, or whatever.

Epson just might be the best, though I don't use them, but my Canon and my HP will make good prints with itr, and my Canon will NOT print to HP Premium paper. They also do well with Kodak paper, but not with 8 or 9 other "show" papers I have 50 packs of 45 or more of each left, junk.

You, more than most, know that the gel coat is tailored for a specific ink formula. The proper "recipe", you could grab the disk before it is done printing, it will be dry to the touch. NOT waterproof, nor even water resistant, but won't stick to the desk if you flip them over to protect the written side.

Ah, well, keep on trying, just for the fun of it.
Cheers,

George