Wood Paper

yeah…. that’s an easy one. i routinely print on thin wood, and it turns out great. The best material I’ve found is wood vaneer. It’s available from WoodCrafters in a wide variety of species, colors and thicknesses. Softer woods like mahogany work the best.

To print on it, I use regular pp plates. They seem to work just fine.

You don’t say what purpose the printed wood is to be used for. If for something like business cards I would not use veneer or certainly not balsa wood as they can split very easily if unsupported. There used to be a laminated wood veneer on paper that was made especially for this purpose. I’m not sure how you would find it now — check with a paper supplier in your area.

However, if you plan to mount the printed wood sheets on another material, using ordinary veneer should work, though you’ll have to be careful with impression and use a hard packing to prevent stressing the thin wood.

Bob

Veneer is for wimps! Let’s talk about printing on real lumber!

No kidding. Sky Shipley routinely prints on (into) 3/4” thick pine boards to create the wording he uses on the sides of the hell boxes that he assembles.

The single most important thing he has going for him is that he casts his own type so it is not a big deal to him to wear-out the type doing this. He simply remelts and casts some more.

His other trick is to “print” on the paper cutter! He inks his form, places the wood on top of it and then creates the impression by placing it under the clamp of his paper cutter to apply the pressure. Works really slick to force a deep impression into the soft pine.

How’s that for ingenuity?

Rick

you know, I’ve seen that too. A friend of mine used to be “the man” for printing wooden nickels for Mardi Gras throws. He had a C&P, and printed right onto the wood.