Digital Anoprinting. High quality full colour digital printing into the surface of anodised aluminium.

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1 High quality full colour digital printing into the surface of anodised aluminium. A guide for sign designers and sellers. This guide is intended to explain the process and the advantages of the product so that you can win business from customers and offer a better product than your competitors. At the end is a more technical section explaining the detail of why this is a better product than vinyl or surface printing, but first let us introduce the product. MULTItechnic Limited Coopies Lane, Morpeth, Northumberland, NE61 6JQ Tel: Fax: sales@multitechnic.co.uk

2 Digital anoprinting brings you something new. Internal aluminium signage for public areas such as schools, courts, hospitals and health centres that cannot be defaced by peeling or scraping off the image. External signage with highest quality full colour digital printing that doesn t need a thick grubby sheet of polycarbonate to protect it. What makes this possible is the way the printing is injected into the hard anodised surface of the aluminium sheet.

3 A quick lesson in anodising. Pass a low voltage through aluminium in a gently acidic solution and it builds up a layer of aluminium oxide which is very hard indeed. Raw aluminium sheet is easily damaged and will corrode easily. Anodised aluminium sheet is tough and has excellent resistance to abrasion, corrosion and most harmful chemicals. When it is created the anodised layer is porous. This allows dyes to soak into it to create colours. Once coloured the anodised layer is sealed, trapping the colour inside the hard anodised layer of aluminium oxide. Designers have used this technique for decades to create beautiful objects. The coloured coating is extremely hard wearing, indeed it is so hard that it is used as an abrasive and to manufacture cutting tools. That means it is ideal to create a protective layer, making anodised aluminium objects both durable and attractive. Dipping aluminium objects into a dye produces pretty coloured metal objects, but it is also possible to be a little more creative.

4 Anoprinting. An extensive range of colours has been developed which will soak into the anodised layer without washing out again during the sealing process, and which will stay where they are put without spreading across the surface. It has been possible for decades to screen print these dyes onto anodised aluminium before the anodised layer is sealed. A very common use of this technique has been for industrial labels. Look under the bonnet of your car and you will find lots of anoprinted labels. They have been very successful for applications such as this because even after many years in the depths of a dirty engine bay, covered in oil and mud, occasionally sloshed with all sorts of fluids, they are still well preserved and easy to read. Screen printing is ideal for mass production of labels, but it is very limited for making signs. Colours must not touch or they can mix and produce unwanted interference marks, and the screen printing process is not suited to anything except mass produced safety or information signs. What anoprinting has needed for a very long time is to go digital.

5 Welcome to digital anoprinting. It is now possible to digitally print colour images into anodised aluminium sheet before it is sealed, then permanently lock the images into the surface. This allows you to create stunning designs for information signs, but the greatest advantage that our customers have identified is for durable internal signs in public areas such as schools, hospitals and courts, locations where printed or vinyl signs soon become damaged. Typical vinyl sign damage Because there is nothing on the surface of an anoprinted sign, there is nothing that can be picked at or scraped off. On anoprinted signs the image isn t on the surface, the image is part of the surface, and it is very durable indeed.

6 Out with the old and in with the new. Until now, external information signs have either been hidden behind a thick layer of plastic to protect the fragile image, or have been applied with laminated vinyl which is vulnerable to damage. Now you can offer something much better. There is no white print so colours blend into the surface, and if you choose satin rather than matt aluminium you can create stunning metallic effects with jewel like brightness. You can of course be just as creative when designing internal signage, it doesn t have to be black on plain aluminium anymore. If installing new signs in a college you can reproduce the college crest as a subtle watermark in the background of the signs, or use strong colours for zone identification knowing that they won t be peeled off or picked at as vinyl or paint would be.

7 Time to get technical. It helps to sell the advantages of digital anoprinting if you understand how the chemistry works. It is very simple, and getting this understanding across to your customer could make the difference between winning or losing a job to a competitor who can only offer vinyl or surface printing. When the anodised layer is being created, the surface of the aluminium gives off tiny bubbles of oxygen. As the anodised layer grows these produce microscopic tubes through the anodised layer like a honeycomb. They are so small that you need an electron microscope to see them. One thousandth of a millimetre enlarged to show the pores. It is into these tiny holes that we print the ink. To make the print permanent we need to seal the holes. This is not done by adding anything to fill the holes, it is much more clever than that. At this stage the aluminium oxide is like cement powder, the structure is not yet complete. Like cement powder it needs water to turn it into a hard, strong material. It is immersed in almost boiling water, and this changes the aluminium oxide into its hydrous state. The oxide swells and collapses the tiny holes producing a solid smooth surface with the image trapped inside. It is now set like cement, it is hard and impermeable. Nothing can get in, and the image cannot get out. That is as technical as it gets, the rest is straightforward digital printing. If you are used to preparing files for digital printing then that is all you need to know to be able to offer your customers something new and something better than your competitors can. All you have to remember is that there is no white ink, so you do not need to crop images, they can just blend into the surface of the sign. You have a choice of either matt or satin finished aluminium and the standard sheet thickness is 2mm.

8 Selling points. Vinyl lettering gets picked at, especially inside public buildings. Surface printing is often scraped off by coins and keys. You may find you are up against a competitor who offers sublimation prints, this is another form of surface printing which can be easily scraped off. Digital anoprinting cannot be removed from the surface, it is permanently marked into the anodised aluminium. If the sign is damaged by marker pen or paint, it can be safely cleaned using graffiti removing chemicals. Because this is a digital printing process you can be as creative as you like. Add nice design touches that your competitors cannot match such as reproducing the customer s logo or crest as a watermark in the background of the sign. For information point signs and street maps, digital anoprinting produces much better graphics than reverse printing on polycarbonate or other similar methods of making durable signs. The image is at the surface, crisp and clear in wonderful 1440dpi colours, not buried inside a thick layer of plastic that blurs the image. For external signs we use an anti vandal lacquer. It forms a protective layer that can be removed and replaced should the sign suffer extreme abuse, it provides a much better surface for staying clean without maintenance, and offers even greater protection against UV colour fade. For samples and any further information please contact us, the details are below. There is also a version of this guide available for you to use as sales literature. The first and last pages are designed for you to add your own branding and contact details. MULTItechnic Limited Coopies Lane, Morpeth, Northumberland, NE61 6JQ Tel: Fax: sales@multitechnic.co.uk