Linen cardstock is a kind of paper stock that has an attractive and beautiful appearance like a piece of linen fabric. It has many advantages and uses in practical life. Different people use it for the preparation of visiting cards, wedding cards, invitation cards, and flyers. They give an increased visual beauty to different structures and help them look enticing. It is embossed that goes through different manufacturing procedures for getting a unique and improved texture. It possesses a feel of linen fabric and contains a raised crosshatch pattern. It creates a stronger and crisper paper. Let’s explore how to print and manufacture linen cardstock.
How to Prepare a Linen Card?
The process of making paper remains the same. There are many kinds of paper available in the market. People use it according to their needs. Let’s explore how to make different kinds of paper.
The Manufacturing Process of Paper
All the companies use trees or their leaves for making paper. The raw material for the synthesis of paper comes from renewable trees. Paper is recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable. The papermaking process starts with the formulation of pulp. You can make pulp from different sources such as trees, fibers from hemp or cotton, and recycled paper. There are different processes for making pulp, such as mechanical or chemical processes. They have some advantages and disadvantages as well. You can bleach, brighten, or add colors to the bleach for enhancing its surface attributes. Additives may increase its opacity or ink holdout. After all this, we pour it on a wire mesh where it settles and spreads before going to the conveyer belt. After that, we remove the water from the pulp and make it dry through various processes. Then we calendar it to create a smooth surface. After that, we wind paper on giant rolls.
The Finishing and Texturing it
After all the steps, we can add additional features to paper that can whiten, brighten, or coat the surface of the paper. You can coat it with colored materials. You may coat it from one side or both sides. You can add a cast coating that can give a super shiny surface. Coated papers can look beautiful through matte, gloss, velvet, or dull coatings. You can emboss it, which is a process that presses the paper to create a pattern inside it. Common patterns include linen or stipple. An embossed paper increases its ink holdout, which reduces the absorption of ink into the paper. You may have many options to improve the texture of the paper.
How to Add Linen Texture
When you have made simple paper and want to make it look like a linen fabric, you may follow this method. Reel up the paper on enormous rolls and then feed it from rolls into a machine that resembles a very large mangle. The top roll of the mangle is composed of steel and contains a linen pattern engraved on its surface. After that, mangle presses the paper through the “nip” between the top engraved roll and the bottom soft roll. High pressure forces both the rolls to get closer to each other and transfer the engraved pattern onto the surface of the paper. After that, you can wind embossed paper into a new roll and send it for different uses. You may cut it into small pieces according to the requirements and use them for creating beautiful designs.
How to Print Linen Card?
Linen cards find many applications in different fields. Let’s explore its uses and printing techniques.
Applications of Linen Paper
This paper has beautiful finishes and an appealing texture. When you are going to design an attractive business card, you may consider this paper stock for increased visual appeal. You may also use this for the designing of wedding and invitation cards. It also helps you create attractive and elegant restaurant menus and flyers. The United States and other countries use it for printing currency. You may get these papers in various colors. You may print your books on them to give an attractive and beautiful finish. Universities and other institutes may print their certificates on them for making them appealing and alluring. Upscale stationeries and folders printing has revolutionized with the arrival of this paper. They help to make extra efficient and presentable greeting cards.
Digital Printing of Linen Paper
Toner based digital printers utilize an electric charge to attach the toner to the paper, where a traditional offset will use ink, pressure, and water to print. By using traditional offset printing, you may get an ink dot, which you press into the fibers of the paper, allowing it to fuse better with the surface of the paper. On the other hand, on toner-based digital printers, lasers replicate the impressions to be printed onto a drum. Here electricity charges the toner and fuses it with the drum. Then opposite charge on the paper detaches the toner from the drum onto the surface of the paper. In this way, it transfers the image onto the surface of the paper. After that, the paper passes through a heated fuser drum that melts the toner to the paper. When you print the linen paper on digital printers, they require no pressure to squeeze the toner into the grooves of the paper. It happens that toner sets on top of the ridges and is not pressed into the valleys. It makes your images look mottled or pitted.
What Prints the Best?
When you are considering digital printing on linen paper, you should try to avoid thin types. You should note that large solid colors will not look smooth. They will end up looking washed out. Medium to heavy text looks good when printed digitally. Tans and lighter blue colors look mottled when you print them digitally. The advantage of the digital printers is that you do not have to pay for a plate and can see how exactly your file will look on the paper. You should take some time to look at the samples of the printed files and try to find out the colors and fonts that give the best results. This practice can help you create a masterpiece that uses the texture of the paper according to your needs.
Linen cardstock has many advantages due to its visual appearance. Its appearance, like a piece of linen fabric, makes it look beautiful. You can prepare this paper stock by following the normal paper making procedure or order it from any paper supplying company such as Thunderbolt Paper. You have to follow a special procedure to create a linen appearance. You can print it by using digital or offset printing techniques.
