Making puzzles depicting a customer. Sublimation puzzle printing
& nbsp Production time 3 days
Printing on Puzzles - Description
Photo puzzles are chosen by those who wish to present an original gift. The puzzle can captivate a person of any age and give pleasant emotions when assembling it. Gradually, piece by piece, loveliest features emerge. You must feel it! Do not want to miscalculate with a gift? Then the photo puzzle with a cute person will get to the very point.
Printing on Puzzles - Useful Information
Puzzles conquer cities and continents.
One of the most fascinating activities is to watch how your pleasant memories add together piece by piece of small particles. Photo puzzles with personal photos are an excellent gift for a loved one. The time you spend together collecting joint pictures will bring you only pleasant emotions. A puzzle with a printed photo can be a nice addition to any gift. This present will show that you prepared for the celebration in advance, thought through everything to the smallest detail and tried to please.
How the puzzle is perceived directly depends on the nature of the photograph you have chosen. It can be made both funny and romantic and inspiring. Choose the feeling that you want to convey to a loved one and look at a suitable photo, do not be afraid to experiment.
Here you can order a photo puzzle of the size that you need. Printing will occur on high-quality equipment and the result will amaze you with the durability and richness of colors. Plus, you can choose a different layout and the number of puzzle particles.
Together with the young Spotpoint team, it is easy to make creative gifts, which cause positive emotions and delight.
December 18, 2012
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Classmates
The term "puzzle" comes from the English. "Puzzle", which means "puzzle", "riddle". The origin of the puzzles is associated with the name of the English cartographer John Spilsbury, who glued a map of Europe on a wooden base, sawed it along the contours of European states, and began to use the “sawn map” for teaching geography. Gradually cut pictures began to be applied not only and not so much for educational purposes, but for entertainment in fashion stores. "Salon" puzzles were an expensive pleasure, as they were made from valuable species of wood. The peak of the popularity of puzzles came in the 30s of the twentieth century, when cardboard was used instead of wood for their manufacture. Puzzles received a new round of their development with the advent of sublimation printing.
Currently popular sublimation print puzzle growing in arithmetic progression, as a colorful, exclusively designed game can be a great gift for children and adults, as well as a great business souvenir for business partners and regular customers of the company.
Sublimation printing allows you to put on puzzles high-quality color images, photographs, drawings, inscriptions and logos. Such images are distinguished by bright colors and smooth color transitions, they are resistant to ultraviolet rays and mechanical abrasion. Thanks to the development of sublimation printing technology, any puzzles can easily be made at home.
To independently print a colorful image on puzzles, we need: blanks for puzzles, an inkjet printer with piezoelectric printing technology, sublimation ink, paper for sublimation heat transfer, heat-resistant adhesive tape, several sheets of white office paper and a thermal press.
Puzzle blanks
Puzzle blanks can be rectangular, square, round, have a heart shape or any other non-standard shape.
The most common are classic rectangular blanks for puzzles, versions of which are presented below.
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| 4x5 | 6x5 | 5x8 |
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| 6x8 | 10x5 | 6x10 |
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| 8x10 | 12x10 | 15x10 |
Popular types of rectangular puzzle blanks for sublimation printing
Puzzles are made of cardboard and polyurethane, on a regular and magnetic basis. The most economical and affordable for buyers are cardboard blanks, the surface of which is treated with a polymer composition. The polymer layer serves to fix the sublimation dyes and provides resistance to jigsaw puzzles.
An interesting solution for sublimation printing on puzzles is magnetic blanks made of magnetic vinyl with a polymer coating. Magnetic puzzles can be attached to any metal surface, whether it is the refrigerator door, the computer system unit or the side panel of the washing machine.
Most often, blanks for puzzles are white, but there are also color specimens. On white blanks, the color is not distorted, it looks natural and pure. If the workpiece has an extraneous color or tint, then the color scheme of the finished puzzles will differ from their image on the screen.
Printer and printing technology
For sublimation printing on puzzles you need a regular inkjet printer with a piezoelectric print head. The cartridges of such a printer are equipped with a piezoelectric crystal, which drives a metal plate, pushing microscopic droplets of ink through the nozzle onto the substrate. A drop flies out of the nozzle like a core from a catapult, while the ink does not heat up.
As for the thermal inkjet printing method, it is not suitable for sublimation inks, which when heated to 160 ° C turn into a gaseous state. In a cartridge with a thermo-jet printing technology, which involves boiling ink, the dyes will evaporate when heated and settle on the inner walls of the cartridge without ever reaching the media.
Sublimation Ink
For sublimation printing on puzzles, special sublimation ink, which include water-insoluble dyes. Such inks, similar in physical properties and functional characteristics to pigment inks, produce bright and colorful prints that are resistant to sunlight and friction. Puzzles printed in sublimation ink will last a very long time, do not fade or wipe away even with heavy use.
Different types of sublimation ink
Sublimation paper
For sublimation printing, special sublimation paper with a polymer coating is used. Getting on the carrier, ink is melted into the polymer layer and fixed in it, without penetrating into the deep layers of the paper. When paper with an ink print gets into the thermal press, ink with polymers will safely pass to the surface of the puzzles, leaving only a faint print on the paper from the image that was once on it.
Some types of sublimation paper
The forums are actively discussing the possibility of using office paper or matte photo paper for sublimation printing. These types of paper do not have a special layer of polymers, so part of the ink, getting on their surface, penetrates deep into the intermediate medium, and subsequently does not go to sealed puzzles. The illustration shows a graphic example of fixing sublimation ink on various types of paper.
Fixing sublimation ink on various types of paper
Legend:
on the left is sublimation paper,
in the center is matte photo paper,
right - plain paper
It can be seen from the figure that only special sublimation paper provides reliable ink fixing in the layer of molymers. On matte photo paper, ink fills, and on plain paper, it is absorbed deep into the media, therefore, it is impossible to obtain high-quality sublimation puzzles using non-specialized paper.
Thermal press
For sublimation printing used thermal press - an apparatus equipped with two thermal soles between which a future puzzle with an intermediate carrier is clamped.
The following figure shows some models of thermal presses for sublimation printing on flat blanks.
Thermopress for sublimation printing
Thermopress warms up the workpiece, and the ink sublimates, passes into a gaseous state, fixing on the surface of the puzzle.
Sublimation Printing Technology
Having prepared all the necessary materials and tools, we proceed to image processing. In any graphic editor, we adjust its size, brightness, contrast, rotate it horizontally so that it is displayed in a mirror image.
We print the processed image on a jet piezoelectric printer. For printing we use sublimation ink and sublimation paper. We carefully dry the resulting image and lay it on the future puzzle, fixing it on four sides with a thermal tape or ordinary masking tape.
We heat up the thermal press to a temperature of 190 ° C. Cover the bottom sole with clean sheets of paper on which we lay out the blank. From above, close the blank again with clean sheets of paper and lower the upper sole of the thermal press. We make two warm-up sessions of 20 s.
A few words about the time and temperature of sublimation transfer. On some sites it is indicated that the workpiece should be kept in a thermal press at a temperature of from 190 ° C to 220 ° C for 40 s to 90 s. Where these values \u200b\u200bcome from remains a big secret, since in most cases for 90 seconds in the press the surface of the puzzles bubble up or go in waves from overheating. Using this extreme mode, you can spoil more than one workpiece.
We recommend doing this: close the thermal press for 20 s, then open the plate and alternately raise all four corners of the sublimation paper, evaluating the print quality. Here, adhesive tape will serve us well - we can evaluate the quality of sublimation printing on puzzles and, if necessary, place the blank in a thermal press for another 20 seconds. The image will not move and will not shift.
We move the upper sole of the thermal press, we remove our workpieces from under it. Carefully remove the top layer of paper, separate from the puzzles the sublimation sheet on which the image was. Consider the result. If your puzzles turned out bright and colorful, and the image on the intermediate medium is pale and lifeless - then you did everything right. It remains only to slightly cut the lines along the edges of the puzzles.
Now let's talk about where ready-made sublimation puzzles are used.
Children's puzzles
Children's puzzles are a great toy designed to develop the logic and fine motor skills of a child. Playing puzzles, the child not only enjoys meeting the characters of his favorite cartoons, but also gets acquainted with new colors and shades, develops fine motor skills of his hands.
Children puzzle
Photo puzzles
The main advantage of photo puzzles is their individual focus. Most often a photo of their owner is applied to photo puzzles, so they are exclusive and unique.
Photo puzzle
Puzzle collage
On the surface of the collage puzzle is a selection of photographs, pictures of images on similar subjects. This can be photos from some unforgettable event (weddings, parties, memorable dates), or a regular selection of photographs of flowers, animals, memorials, landscapes, still lifes, etc.
Puzzle collage
Romantic puzzle
Romantic puzzles are very popular among customers. They can be presented to a loved one on February 23, March 8, Valentine's Day, wedding anniversary, etc. Such a gift will be memorable, original and, most importantly, economical.
Romantic puzzle
Wedding puzzle
Wedding puzzle with a picture of the newlyweds will be a great addition to wedding gifts. It can be hung on the wall, like a picture, or you can play it like an exciting game. It can depict both the newlyweds, and the plots of the wedding celebration or collages. Here you can place congratulatory inscriptions and poems.
Wedding puzzle
Jigsaw puzzles
Advertising puzzles are puzzles with the logo of the organization, its company name, slogan or other element of corporate identity. These are great corporate presentations for employees and customers of the organization. Jigsaw puzzles can be a great prize during raffles and lotteries.
Promotional Puzzle
Promotional puzzles
Promotional puzzles are used as business souvenirs, as well as a duplicate of brochures and leaflets distributed at promotions among representatives of the target audience. Also, promotional puzzles can be delivered with the goods as a gift for the purchase.
Promotional Puzzles
December 18, 2012
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