Crown cap printing

Hello my friends,

I finally have some money to spare, and I was looking to make crown caps with my company logo

I have a couple of questions, hoping that somebody knows!

1. How do commercial breweries do thiers?
2. What other options are there?

Cheers

Marius

 

I have no idea to be honest..... But I am very interested in hearing some replies for this one.

 

I've seen sites where you can custom order, but since I only bottle from keg into swing tops, don't recall any off hand. Google anyone?

 

Etsy :: audreysragquilts :: Custom Image Bottle Cap - Jewelry/Scrapbooking

Crafty Caps LLC - Home

Used metacrawler quick... Good luck!

 

My wife was just telling me the other day how she wants to start doing this. She makes little girl hair bows (I got to admit... she is good at it...lol) and wants to make these to put on the bows. From what I understand from her it is a little time consuming and not very practical for brewing. Once she gets her stuff up and running I'll fill yall in on it....


Edit.... Just now looked at the second link. That one has more potential for what we are looking for. Still kind of high though. Would be cool for special occasions though.

 

Yea, little $$, but great for like a wedding or something special... Might be cheaper out, but it's kind of a niche market I'd say...

Paper template and a sharpie anyone? LOL that sounds soo ghetto- but it'd be cheap and do the job!

 

I may get something made up for Christmas. My bride and I have discussed giving out some brew this up coming holiday to family and close friends instead of buying folks crap they would never use.....lol

 

I just want to contribute my two cents to this subject...
The two sources for custom caps linked earlier in this thread appear to be simply stickers with a sealant or laminate over top of the image...not quite the kind of finish you'd see on a real brewery's caps. I've tried a couple of other techniques such as silk-screening and custom rubber stamps. Neither worked nearly as well as I hoped, nor would I recommend anyone else give it a shot...save your money. I'm not quite sure how the pro ones are made, but I'm willing to bet it's going to be hard for someone at home to replicate it, or be able to have a manufacturer create an order fewer than tens of thousands.

 

Template+airbrush? TEDIOUS.... but would work...

 

Commercial brewery bottle caps are probably offset printed on with enamel inks? Some probably printed on the sheet metal prior to making the caps? I'm guessing here.

Easiest would prob be to put stickers on the caps...some people get their caps etched...but IMO, caps dont have to be super snazzy, they don't hang around long once the top is popped...

 

Hokie, you are correct that they are basically stickers, but the quality is pretty good. I've used Crafty Caps on a few projects and was happy with the work. You can give them pretty much any image and they'll get it on a cap for you.

There are other threads about this around, but any other custom cap producer will have a a minimum order that will far out last any homebrewer. I'm talking PALLETS of caps as a minimium. I think someone else has done some laser etching with good results, but you'll be limited on what you can put on there.

 

The first of the two links has this disclaimer at the bottom.

NOTE: These caps don't survive the bottling process, so they don't work for home brewed beer (the resin cracks).

 

Boooo! There goes that idea.....

 

Crafty Cap survive bottling no problemo.

 

Yeah, no problems with the ones I have. My wife got some for me at Christmas. They're a little pricey, but if you are doing something special, or bottling some to give away they look nice. Just don't soak them in sanitizer, a quick dip or spray and you're good to go.

 

I have a very fancy method, Sharpie marker.

I have thought about laying them out on some carpet and spray painting them, but i would never spend that kind of cash.

 

I see no reason why silkscreening with the appropriate ink after
bottling would not work perfectly. You may have to create a
housing for the bottle to sit in, as it would be difficult to squeegee
directly onto a small circular surface.

I have not tried this, but silkscreening is used in a wide array of
commercial applications using metal.

 

I had this exact same feeling about silk-screening crown caps. I bought a high-res silk, built a template to place the caps into, and even bought ink made for metal and other non-porous surfaces. I did not build a frame for the silk, but even still, nothing other than a very basic design worked. Forget about text or fine lines...the threading of the silk feathered the ink beyond the intended borders and the texture of the fabric embedded in the ink left on the cap.
Only a third of the caps I ran through would end up semi-respectable looking. Even with that, the ink needed to be heat-cured on to the metal (perhaps the the brand I used), and that could jeopardize the integrity of the seal in the cap.
All in all, it wasn't worth the effort. Right now, I'm looking into the possibility of toner transferring and other ink transferring methods...not too too much on the horizon that I can tell though.

 

by not building a frame, do you mean you just tried to screenprint with only loose mesh? if so, that's not going to work at all....

 

Indeed the silk *needs* to be stretched taut

 

Points taken... I did secure the silk onto the template over the caps with masking tape to keep it from moving. Nonetheless, there are a lot of variables in the silk-screening process that just make it way too much trouble in my humble opinion.
In the past few hours, I've stumbled upon methods for image transferring that I think may be promising. They involve simple inkjet printing and clear acrylic medium. Hopefully it's simple and economical enough to make it worth the trouble. I'll give it a shot and let everyone know if it turns out well.

 

go for it!M

 

yeah, screenprinting is another hobby in itself and would be really pricey just to make bottle caps
lookin forward to the results of your method

 

try vinyl ink...it doesnt need to be heat cured...it dries on its own...i think MULTICRAFT makes viny ink and you will need an extremely fine meshed screen

 

Just a thought for those trying this method. Where I work we use an ink that is UV cured. I could get paticulars if anyone is interested.