How did they print the white ink onto 3.5" floppies?

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by demolition

Well, I'm not after making 1000x of a single print but rather to make a bunch of one-off prints, so it would have to be something that would be quick from drawing to application, i.e. similar to the t-shirt transfer method but without the need for heat. Perhaps to do an ink-jet print on something where the ink will not be able to dry for a little while and then carefully apply it to the floppy surface? It would probably be faint, but then it would be easy to finish it by hand if I only want a simple single-color print.

What are you producing?

[idrougge]

There are transparent label papers used by scale modellers that are applied using water. The material is expensive, but looks quite good. The problem is that no normal printer has white ink.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

What are you producing?

I would like to make single-color prints on my floppies without using labels, exactly like the topic of this thread. It would be nice to also be able to make white prints, but black would also be acceptable.

Originally Posted by idrougge

There are transparent label papers used by scale modellers that are applied using water. The material is expensive, but looks quite good. The problem is that no normal printer has white ink.

I have tried some printable transparent decal sheets (with adhesives, so not using water) but on floppies you can see the glossy surface of the decals so it doesn't good enough I think.

[nzlpoa]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Small world. There are probably a million people thinking the same thing right now!

Yep,,,, i just wondered when i saw this as well

[Enverex]

I had a similar issue recently wanting to print directly on to RFID cards, eventually gave up the "print/stamp directly on to it" idea because it would basically be a massive faff or just not feasible (cost, time, etc).

To be honest, for the sake of your own sanity, I'd recommend what I did which was basically buy business-card size permanent self-adhesive gloss / photo labels. It doesn't have that authentic look of the "directly onto the plastic" but the quality is absolutely amazing. As in higher than professionally printed brochures, so there is that upside. Here is a bunch of the ones I've done (scroll down about half-way) - unfortunately the camera doesn't really capture how good they look, but if you saw them in person they're basically perfect.

So yeah TL;DR: Don't go crazy, use adhesive gloss printable business card sized labels instead.