How do publishers print (second try)

[cgutzmer]

Who knows how the publishers print?

Can anyone tell me what kinds of equipment the professional publishing houses use? This is for cardmodels of course, I dont need to know how Harry Potter books are printed
Thanks!
Chris

I have since learned its called offset printing. I have also learned its likely out of my meager capabilities but we shall see Ron's son is going to have a chat with me tomorrow with tips and advice

[Chthulhu]

Chris,

You might also talk to Lou Dausse at PMI; he prints, or has printed, some models from a variety of publishers, under license.

[cgutzmer]

I dont think he did offset printing though. If I am going to take off on any kind of endeavor like this I would want to make sure I can provide a service to the customer that they cannot get themselves. I would want to supply a product better than what they can get at kinkos etc etc

I will touch base with Lou though, he probably has some good insights
Chris

[elliott]

When I was a cartographer (there's that word again!) we did some training in offset printing. All I remember about printing maps is that it is messy, hazardous, noisy and expensive. The machines (I'm assuming you're talking about color prints) cost a small fortune and range from small 6'x6'x6' to gi-normous (and they are HEAVY - steel I beams and concrete pads to bolt them to). Multicolor presses are faster but are more expensive and larger. One color presses are cheaper and smaller but require you to change ink for each color, set up again and take a lot longer. The more you print of a particular item, the cheaper it is.

From the limited searching I did Answer uses offset printing as does Modelik. Modelik also does digital printing, not sure about Answer. I would think a laser color printer would be the way to go.

One final note: Answer, Modelik and I think JSC all offer their printing services up for contract work for commercial printing (travel posters, brochures, pamphlets, etc). Trying, I'm sure to justify the expense of owning and maintaining those expensive presses and the employment of the skilled, not-cheap workers who operate them.

[SJPONeill]

I noticed yesterday that the Modelik website now offers professional printing services - perhaps you could arrange a snap! deal with them: they could provide the hard copy printing services when required and you could talk them into offering their cool models digitally?

[buffalowings]

all I know is, it ain't cheap!!!

[whulsey]

Spend a bit over 20 years in graphics and pre-press, so would say to be economical feasible you would need a print run of about 5000 pieces. Now with saying that I've been out of the field for about 5 years so they were starting to do some pretty nice things with short run printing, so it may have dropped down since then.

[Art Deco]

I don't know anything about printing, but I have read that there are some new kinds of digital printers available in recent years that have made low-cost small runs viable. Online "publish on demand" services like Lulu.com use this technology. Hopefully others better informed can contribute more on this.

[cgutzmer]

Originally Posted by SJPONeill

I noticed yesterday that the Modelik website now offers professional printing services - perhaps you could arrange a snap! deal with them: they could provide the hard copy printing services when required and you could talk them into offering their cool models digitally?

I have already tried contacting all the major publishing houses ( a couple times now) about offering electronic downloads and the only one that ever responded was Halinski and it was a firm negative - wont even consider it. :(

I was sent a PM about a place that does the short run digital offset printing in quantities as low as 300 so I am going to look into that and see where it takes me too
Chris