Scratch-Off Varnish

by Newprint | January 07, 2019

Scratch-Off Varnish – Get your products up to scratch!

Happy New Year! This year, our New Year’s card comes with a special coat of scratch-off varnish. Read more about the use of rub-off coating below. Before doing that though, how about you have a try at releasing your inner child? Explore our interactive card and discover the wonders of our magic printing machine. Simply keep pressing your left mouse button and “scratch” off the surface of the image. Go for it!

^{© Copyright Illustration: Katharina Wieker}

The use of scratch-off coating

Scratch-off ink is a special type of print varnish. It is used to first hide an information that the end customer can then reveal by scratching off the coating. This could be a ticket number in a raffle or – as in our case – a humorous illustration unveiling the secrets of the workflow at a print shop.

Scratch resistance and colours

Scratch-off coating comes in various levels of scratch resistance as well as a range of colours with gold and silver being the only opaque shades.
Tailored to the specific purposes of your product, the scratch resistance may be varied according to your needs.
You could even use a wipeable type of varnish e.g. for advertising cosmetic face masks that can easily be removed with a single swish! However, you guessed it, this is obviously not advisable for scratch tickets. An even more durable coating is used for postcards that have to withstand the strains of sorting machines and postmen’s bags.

Processing

The first step is completing the base print (if necessary with customised content, like in the case of batch numbers). This should be done on a substrate that’s not too thin (We don’t want the material to wrinkle when it’s scratched!). Coated paper is most suitable for this purpose. Then, a transparent barrier coat is applied onto the pre-printed paper using the method of screen printing. This allows for damage-free scratching. After that, the actual scratch coat is printed onto the barrier coat. Finally even this be printed onto once more (single-colour).

Added value- added fun

No doubt the fun challenge of your scratch-off product will awaken your client’s inner child. Not only will this add significant value to your print products but you will also have your customers spend more time with your product’s message. Therefore, the extra cost of a scratch-off card should always be seen in the context of its added fun-factor for the end customer. Can’t go wrong with a witty concept!

Digital scratch-off coating

As shown above, a digital script of your product can be programmed allowing for virtual scratching on your website! Here, the width of the brush stroke can be adjusted as you please. No flaking or searching for a suitable coin but all-digital scratching fun.