place to get cd-r's laser printed/screened

[greymalkin]

hello all,

My dad made an album on tape several several years ago and he only has one copy left now. I have transferred it to cd and cleaned it up a bit for him and want to make some copies (approx. 50). The only problem is I'm an idiot and bought thes TY silver thermal cd-r's that ARE NOT inkjet printable! I was wondering if there is a major store or someplace local I could go to get about 50 or so cd's printed on. The graphic I was going to use is very simple, just black words.



I know it looks a little rough..it was scanned from the original tape cover and had some serious crosshatching going on all over it.

[garrisonkw]

In case you're interested in recreating the logo, the two fonts used are Revue and Zapf Chancery Italic.

EDIT:

I was bored at work. I redid your logo using the original fonts. Merry X-mas.

[greymalkin]

that is awesome. I knew they were gross and tried to feather and whatnot in photoshop but I thought it would take forever to actually find the fonts that were used. I don't know how you knew those fonts but I am glad you did! I truly appreciate that!

wow!

[garrisonkw]

No problem, hombre. That's (hopefully) what these forums are for.

I'd love to say I'm some sort of font genius, but I used an online tool called 'What the Font'. You upload a small image, say 300x100 with a sample of your font and it searches for likely matches. From there, it's just a matter of finding the fonts if you don't already have them. I do design work, so I had both fonts handy.

Here's the web address...

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

[greymalkin]

oh if i could go back in time i'd spend the extra $7 and get the silver inkjet printable cd's! I pretty much have to get access to a thermal printer now to do what I need. I know some store somewhere must offer this service. I'm trying to find someplace I can go and either get them printed while I was or pick them up the next day as I'm on a schedule to try and get these done in time for my dad's 40th high school reunion .

I thought about just getting labels but i'm still scared of the possible ill effects down the line...

[garrisonkw]

You might try to find a local dvd replicator. They usually also handle CDs. I thing labels are ok for CDs. They definitely are bad for DVDs, but I've never had one cause problems for a CD.

[SLK001]

Why don't you just go purchase some inkjet printable CD-Rs down at BestBuy, then print them yourself? I think that this would be much cheaper than having them done. It would look professional, too.

[greymalkin]

i have thought about trying to sell this pack to someone and buying some inkjet printables at a store...but my concern is that I don't know what i'm getting at a big store....thats the only concern there.

[SLK001]

Just buy some Memorex CD-R printables. CD-Rs today don't really give that many "play" issues. I am assuming that you are creating an Audio CD.

[ZAPPER]

You could go and blow about $100 on a silk screen, screen hinges, photo emulsion, squegee, ink, cleaning supplies and any other incendentals, and screen them yourself.


Don't laugh its not really that bad to do, if you think that you will be doing more than one run.

Start with your artwork, you will need a transparent positive the size of your finished product. They make an inkjet film that can be used, but I have yet to lay my hands on any. I cheat, I go to a sign shop and have them cut black vinyl stick on graphics or lettering for me. I put the letters onto a piece of glass about the size of the screen to make my positive.

Prepare the screen, Wash the screen and let dry, Mix up a small batch of photo emulsion and apply to the screen.(sometimes two coats for durabilty) Let the screen dry in a dust free as possible dark area.

Expose the screen with the recomended light bulb size, distance, time settings and wash out the unexposed areas. (place the positive against the screen and shine the light thru from the positive side, If you are going to use the glass and vinyl method make sure that you put the vinyl tight up against the screen and expose that way)(the thickness of the glass is just enough to allow light to leak around the vinyl and botch things up, yeah, I had a brain fart once!)

Build a jig to hold the screen and disk. A thin peice of paste paper board (like off the back of a cheap legal pad) with a hole the size of the disk works pretty good. Add a little cutout to get your finger in there to get the disk out. Hinge the screen to the base board, line everything up and get ready to cover every table in the house with printed disks!

A few random tips:

Use masking tape to cover everything that you don't want ink on. Actually on the screen you would run a lap or so around the inside corners before you even put the emulsion on and then after you expose and wash the screen you would choke that down closer to the printing area to help with clean up.

You can print more than one disk at a time depending on the screen size and you could burn different lables all at once and mask off the ones that you aren't using that run.

There are limitations on how fine of a text and detail that you can do, so keep that in mind when you do the art work. I did a coarse halftone to silhoett (SP) once that was KILLER! (Not my artwork though)

Use like a cheap small window washers squegee, the regular big board with the thick rubber are kind of hard to use I think. Go light on the ink, like a tablespoon at a time. (The stuff gets everywhere and you are only printing a little tiny disk.

Some kind of drying rack might be a good idea or put them into a jewel case right off the press

The truth be told, you will spend more time on set up and clean up than printing.

I screen print something once in like every two years, and by then it is almost like starting from scratch. The emulsion will only keep in the ice box for like a few months and stuff gets lost or broken in storage. It is always a rush job when you have a paying customer and I wind up buying all new supplies (pretty much no profit when you do it like that) Anybody that wants a thousand goes to the pros and the small orders almost always wind up as charity work. Maybe if the mood strikes me I will try to get set up and offer my services out. (Hmmm, I wonder how much to run an ad here?)

[greymalkin]

wow!

i certainly appreciate the support..but i'm a bit too scared and too cheap to go the screen it yourself route .

I think I'll just go buy a 30 pack of inkjet printable maxell's from Office Depot. The main reason I was scared of what cd-r's I got is because I burned my dad a cd not too long ago and within a few months it started skipping and stuff...I'm guessing alot of it has to do with how fast you burn it? can mediocre media last longer if it's burned at a slower rate? I just don't wanna mess this up!

[SLK001]

I've had problems with disks that were burned at higher speeds. If I really want disks to last, I burn at 8X max (that's only about 10 minutes for an 80 minute CD-R).

[greymalkin]

thats what i'll go ahead and do then. thanks for the suggestions and for the re-make of the graphic to go on the cd. it will be greatly appreciated by my dad.

[ZAPPER]

wow!

i certainly appreciate the support..but i'm a bit too scared and too cheap to go the screen it yourself route .

I think I'll just go buy a 30 pack of inkjet printable maxell's from Office Depot. The main reason I was scared of what cd-r's I got is because I burned my dad a cd not too long ago and within a few months it started skipping and stuff...I'm guessing alot of it has to do with how fast you burn it? can mediocre media last longer if it's burned at a slower rate? I just don't wanna mess this up!

Good idea.

[greymalkin]

well apparently no store sells cd-r's made in japan that are inkjet printable. Instead they label them as PRO cd-r's and put their stupid label on the top. I had to settle for a 50 pack of fuji white printable cd-r's and unfortunately they are made in taiwan as well. I guess I'll just burn them at a real slow rate and hope for the best