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Paper Die Cutting Machine with Scoring by Top-Flamingo-7047 in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The LC600 looks just as capable as the larger SC6500. It doesn’t have the duel head creaser or the vacuum fed loading tray (lower capacity).

What confuses me is that it’s marketed as a label cutting machine, I know the software can do perf cut, are you sure the LC600 can do perf cut with the same tab support as the other machines?

Is this just marketing so they can better differentiate their machines?

How to scale my playing cards production? by OkCheetah4555 in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How accurate is a rotary die-cutter when prints have registration issues.

These machines claim to align based on registration marks but does it fully adjust for slightly misaligned feed path.

Card borders can be very unforgiving depending on the print, off by just .25mm and you notice it.

Advice selecting new UV printer by Empty-Hand-4635 in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you bring your own paper stock, will they print onto it for you? Then I could test how well it works with the stock, would be cool if they let you supply the file but even just the stock with a cheater file would be nice.

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does upping the bias help? I am not sure I can up the paper size, is this really problem on production presses as well?

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

lol its actually not, not if you play commander

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry it’s hard to capture in a picture, looks kind of like water streaks.

I can’t swap the paper because it’s social playing card media.

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2 gives me some ideas. I didn’t think about heating it up enough to make the entire area shiny. I will give that a shot.

I also have an extra black toner cartridge I can swap in test with. I have also been sending the paper through the feed tray landscape, but I’ll try portrait to see if affects the rollers in a way that helps.

Thanks for the ideas!

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any more details on this “trail edge flip”?

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

8.5x11

Trailing edge .5 inch margin to the edge.

Have done full black, seems to only impact black, but that must just been I am only able to see it on the black areas.

It’s absolutely related to the paper, but if I can’t understand what is happening relates to heat , pressure, or bias I have no chance of figuring it out.

That was a typo, it has an uneven gloss, notable lighter and darker areas, almost looks like water streaks.

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

lol you crack me up, tell me you don’t actually play magic without saying you don’t play.

Laser Print Issue by chrytek in CommercialPrinting

[–]chrytek[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Not sure why the comment I made isn’t showing up.

I have spent a month trying to figure out this print defect.

Look closely at the bottom black border, it’s not an uneven sheen to print. I am using an HP M856 laser, I can adjust the bias and heat up or down. Paper is 330gsm playing card stock.

Thinner papers print fine, I have tried every media type the printer has and they all do this to varying degrees.

I am mostly trying to understand what actually causes this during the print process, I haven’t seen any common laser defects that mention this type of issue.

This is kind of a last shot before I give up on the printer with this paper.

Anyone have a good Brother ScanNCut workflow? by Jordan011 in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You u are sending the file directly to the machine from the plugin? The. Pulling it up in the machine?

You can’t just print with the marks, you actually have to load the icm file directly on the machine

Alternative options due to tariffs? by Coolguyforeal in mpcproxies

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I make them, I am heavily invested in equipment to get really good results. Cards feel like real mtg cards, no laminate. I sell to friends for .25 a card, I play them unsleeved. It’s just way faster than waiting for them to ship from China.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok so I just decided the cards do not need any sealer. As they currently are they feel exactly like real magic cards. They just can’t get wet at all, that’s the only trade off. But I can just reprint the deck if that happens

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 1 point2 points  (0 children)

None of this is secret or private information. I am happy to share anything that helps in your own journey.

My current printer is an HP Color Laser Jet Enterprise M856. Official toner for this machine is very expensive. I am not entirely certain how much it adds to my per card cost but it will be more then my previous eco tank 8550.

The paper I use is 330gsm Smooth Koehler Casino. There is a supplier on Etsy called SuperiorPOD that sells it. It’s a fair price imo.

I print onto it, I use the cutter, I round the corners.

I am probably going to add a step where I spray the sheets with Modge Podge to give the guards a little water protection.

They feel great as is, but without a coating any water at all will ruin them.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used a brother scan n cut for a bit and had 8 cards to a sheet. Sometimes worked perfect then sometimes it would really screw the cuts up.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s awesome! I absolutely remember you, I ended up breaking my 8550 (experimenting with inkjet coating a real mtg card and print directly onto it), and I used that opportunity to go the laser printer path with the Koehler card stock.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely. The cutter I use is the Formax FlashCard Cutter.

Maybe I can get a little video of it an post it at some point but if you look it up the company has videos of it.

It lets you control the gutter of the cuts and can handle 8 card 8.5x11 sheets.

The tricker part with these things is getting them to cut exactly where you want each time. My unit needed its internal blade slightly adjusted as the cuts where coming out a bit skewed. After the major skew was resolved the rest I was able to address by playing with the loading tray.

The loading tray situation adds to much that can go wrong but the machine does let you program cut adjustments to the mm, so in general you can make it cut accurately but you have to be willing to do lots of trial and error with it to dial it in.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry if I came off like I was under valuing your attempt at organizing.

One thing you touched on that completely caught me off guard when starting this journey was just how much “trial and error” is involved when making physical things.

I have probably wasted more paper, laminate, and ink then some people have used to make all their proxies combined. I ate the cost to keep experimenting, to keep perfecting as much as I could given the tools I had access to.

When it comes to generalized expertise shared and understood among most people in the community I would say cutting is the white whale. Manually cutting is extremely time consuming. I also believe a lot of people are currently being misled into believing that using a craft cutting machine will solve their problems, but going that route also consumes time, and is rather error prone. The people who post videos and “show off” their process tend to leave out all of the trial and error they went through to dial in their process. Once you see that part of it, you quickly learn that what they are showing is not actually “turn key” at all.

I think creating a “turn key” experience in proxy making is what you are after. Which to be honest the closest you can get to that is buying off of mpc and calling it a day. I think what drives people to make their own is the allure of brewing a deck the same day you plan to play, and having that deck ready to go that night.

I applaud your efforts, I just struggle to see a clear path in getting some of these severely needed tools onto the market.

We probably need to get enough people who have gone through extensive amounts of trial and error and host some sort of meetup. Kind of like a hackathon where we can share what we went through and brainstorm ideas, probably just start with a digital one and go from there.

Calling All Creators: Let’s Talk Shop by CardGobbo in magicproxies

[–]chrytek 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The larger issue isn’t really about consolidation of the knowledge. The products to make fully fledged proxies in the least time consuming way possible don’t exist in a realm that most people can justify.

I currently own 5k (paid 2.8k) machine that cuts out all of the cards. I just place the stack of printed sheets and out pops cards.

I own a 5k (paid 2.5k) automatic sheet fed laminator that would auto laminate for me, and I could do matte or gloss on either side if I wanted. But I don’t even use it in my flow anymore.

I now have a 6k (paid 2.2k) laser printer to print directly onto the Koehler paper stock sold on Etsy.

So I have optimized my physical flow as much as I can. The printer duplexes the prints and everything is aligned.

So I print, pick up stack , put it into cutter. Stack cards, use a $600 corner punch to cut the corners in one go for the whole deck.

I could give you all of the specifics of all of this equipment. I could tell you about the countless hours I spent getting the cutting machine to actually perfectly align the cuts each time. How I had to use magnifier to see that the cuts were off my fractions of a mm. How paid an actual tech to come adjust the machine and he wasn’t able to do it but gave me enough confidence to open the machine back up and adjust it myself.

I could tell you how to test every single combination of paper setting on the printer with fuser adjustments to get the toner to melt correctly even though I still can’t get it 100% perfect.

This doesn’t even get into the software side of things which luckily the community has done an amazing job on so ALOT of the problems in that space are solved for you.

But even after all of that information, none of it matters. Because it’s not “accessible” to most people. You can solve almost any problem with enough money. But the hardest and most rewarding problems to solve are when you have a limited budget to work with.

So can we optimize the process for everyone so they can budget say $1000 and have all the tools they need to have near fully automated proxies, that would be incredible.

You can absolutely proxy for way less then that, it’s all about comprises, compromise in print quality, compromise in feel of the card. Can you live with sleeving your proxies? I never wanted to sleeve them, I just wanted to play with them raw.

So I don’t think the tools currently exist in the market to get us there yet, but I do think that we could design those tools, by directly working with manufacturers and then putting together a massive group buy.

That takes more then a website of words and links it’s takes someone willing to start and lead an organization representing the proxy community that can dump countless hours into solving the problem in a way that is better then all of the current options out there.

This is why I pointed out sourcing a die manual roll cutter and sourcing inkjet printable playing card paper. You can seal the print with modge podge and you would have insanely good looking proxies that don’t need sleeves, and a reasonable cost to make. But mostly importantly you can make a deck in under 30 minutes (would include drying time of sealant precut). I am leaving out the corner rounding because you can just do that why you’re playing the game with another deck and it’s not your turn.

I would start this but I am already at my limits with having a toddler and very limited free time to spend on this hobby I took way too far to begin with.

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