And I yours.

Chris: If I may change to subject for a moment, I'd like to ask a practical question. Jim Gerrish and I decided to order the card stock to assist Wiz Kid Qua-Fiki to print his (yet unpublished) "Go Fish Cards" using an HP Photosmart Printer. The results look fabulous, but some of the prints smeared. They seem to need some time to dry completely. Do you know how long it takes for the ink to completely dry so we can run the cards through the printer to print the backs without smearing the fronts?

Qua-Fiki took the smeared cards that we made today home to practice with them. He loves the way they feel like standard playing cards so he can do all his "moves" with them. When we solve the drying time problem, he may put his "Go Fish Cards" deck on the market and he is eager to become a manufacturer as well as an inventor and all around wise-guy. We don't think we will need the liquid coating, but may try that later just to see how it works.

Very satisfied customers! We now return you to your legal debate in progress.

Spellbinder, make sure you add the coating, as if it smears now it will smear later also. Grease and sweat of the fingers are very agressive, that is why we have a finish on playing cards. Or use a laser printer.

Gotta chime in with one more thing here regarding legality. Other than removing the trademark information, how have you changed the ace of spades? I am asking this out of legitimate curiosity, not trying to fan the flames. I am actually in talks with a buddy in the printing industry in regards to possibly doing a run of custom cards of my own, with my own back design. This is idle chatter at the moment between he and I, but someday I may decide to go with it.

I also use an HP Photosmart printer, and agree that the results are terrific. I only get 6 cards per page by printing 3 on one end, and then three on the other end. I have overcome the "smudge" factor during printing by taping a strip of paper over any printed surfaces prior to running the same sheet of cardstock through the printer. Of course, I use removeable tape.

Today I received my liquid coating from Lybrary, but have yet to try it out. I'll work with it in the next few days and report my results.

One of the issues I have yet to overcome is the alignment of front and back sides of the cards. If anyone has any tips please feel free to post, or PM.

I have all materials that Chris offers (card stock, cutter, corner rounder, and finish) and I offer my highest endorsement of the products.

Many thanks, Chris!!

Thank you Spellbinder and Magiguy for the kind words. Could you two post which HP Photosmart model you are using? This would be great to know for my own records and I am sure also for folks who are reading this discussion.

I am suprised that HP inkjet printers can handle this type of cardboard. In my own tests I ran into paper feeding issues with an HP 6122 printer, even though the ink does dry nicely. Magigy's suggestion to cover the printed side with a sheet of paper before printing the other side is very clever. If you use some form of coating you could also print one side, coat it, then print the other side, coat second side.

It is of course possible to use cards without coating. The cardboard has a good degree of gloss and the cards look quite good even without any coat applied. But it should also be clear that the durability of these cards is definitely lower than for a coated card.

Alignment. This is a hard problem to solve because it does mostly depend on the printer itself and there is not much you can do about it. Be careful and consisten with how you load your cardboard sheets. Don't use any duplexers. Use the bypass or manual feeding slot where you yourself can align the sheet. It can help if you gently push the cardboard towards a feeding guide, while it is being pulled in by the printer. The main source of misalignment I have been able to identify is that the printer does not pull in the sheet perfectly parallel but slightly twisted. If you prevent any twisting of the cardboard during the first part of the feeding you will see little misalignment.

Also make sure that you feed the same leading edge into the printer when you print front and back side. That way the top row of three cards will show the least misalignment, the middle row moderate, and the majority of the misalignment will be displayed at the bottom row of three cards. In the worst case you can discard the bottom row of cards.

I was thinking to build my own sheet alignment guide. Depending on how much of a DIY guy you are and what printer you are using this could work very well. The main problem of feeding guides is that they only support the paper at two points laterally. One on each side. This gives the sheet plenty of possibility to twist or cock to the side. Adding two more guides would improve it. It wouldn't be too hard to take a board on which you screw four roller skate ball bearings. Two bearings for each side of the sheet, spaced such that an A4 sheet fits perfectly into it. The bearings reduce friction so that the sheet can easily glide through it but still are placed so tightly that the sheet has no way of moving sideways only straight forward. Such bearings typically cost $1 a piece.

One final comment regarding legal issues from me here. Do what you feel comfortable doing. In the end it is your decision. There are so many different designs you can print that even if you don't want to print any branded cards, you will have enough to choose from.

Thanks for all of the information Chris.

The twists and misalignments are the reason why I went away from multiple cards print on one sheet to a single card print. So if I print a deck it means that I print 54 pages. A double sided print means even 108 pages to be printed. But only this will make sure that the alignment will be in the "Bicycle Deck tolerance".

BTW, I am still having problems with USPCC where I use my Phoenix Ace of Spades that is more than far away from their Bicycle Ace. It was approved by their law department last September, now it seems to irritate them.

I use their copyrighted artwork for prints on Bicycle cards, but I would never use it on my Haicicle stock. This is also a reason why the Phoenix Deck was invented as I don´t run into copyright problems (that is what I thought, but the law guys at USPCC are - hmmm, let´s call them - different.)

So I second the opinion of Chris that as long as you only use it for yourself you should not run into any problems. But if you start selling their trademarked artwork as gaff PDFs, printed gaffed cards etc. you will definitely walk on VERY thin ice.

I am using HP Photosmart C5540 (All in One). After experimenting into the wee hours of the morning and falling asleep, I woke up with the final solution. We are stuck with the width of the card stock ( 8.25 inches instead of 8.5 inches) but we can do something about the length ( 11.75 inches -or so). By cutting the card stock down to 11 inches in length, I can now reverse it to print side 2 (the card backs, which don't matter as much) upside-down. Also, to make sure this works, I set the print layout to "Fit to Page."

I am using a layout of NINE 2.5 " by 3.5" cards. I started the layout process by defining a "page" at 7.5555 inches wide by 10.5277 inches long in my graphics program of choice (simpler is better) Corel PhotoPaint 9. I filled in the background with the lightest gray (10% black).

I then made a card sized white rectangle ( 2.5" by 3.5"). I was able to place nine of these (cut and paste) on the layout gray page, leaving one pixel as borders for each card and at the top, bottom and sides of the gray layout page. I did this by jumping back and forth between 75% view and 1600% view (which allows me to see single pixels). I merged those white card rectangles to the gray background (which barely shows the outline of each card at 1 pixel widths and which is cut away in the cutting process later).

Using that as my card template, I then applied Qua-Fiki's fish designs (for his Go Fish trick) on one template and his simple back designs on another. For those cards that will be double sided whatevers, I can add the other side to the exact position relative to each side, because when I reverse and print, they will be in the correct place...I just have to remember to apply the design upside down at that spot if it is a one way design like a fish or something.

I hope that helps others who are using the same inkjet printer as mine. I finally decided to let the pages air dry overnight for best results. The paper trick got me in trouble several times when the printer began pulling the paper cover off the card stock, so if you use it, tape it down on both ends and be prepared to lose some stock if it gets caught and jams the printer. I decided it wasn't worth it and that as a retired person with time on my hands, I could just wait until the next day to print the other sides.

Now I have to explain all this to Qua-Fiki so he can take over if he wants to play at manufacturing his cards.

Alignment idea:

Thinking and testing how to improve the alignment I realized that my printer misaligns - but pretty consistently. The twist is always in the same direction and the amount of the twist is also pretty much the same. This is particularly true if I setup the cardboard adjust the guides and then let the printer do its job and not interfer while the sheet is pulled in.

If the misalignment is consistent then there is a simple solution to the problem. We compensate for the misalignment in the digital design. If for example your printer puts the printed image slightly rotated to the right on the paper you can turn your design slightly to the left before you export to PDF. If you do that then the print will come out straight. Same correction can be applied for horizontal and vertical offset.

My suggestion is print out a grid of vertical and horizontal lines on two sheets (front and back). The lines will allow you to measure the misalignment on all four printed sides. And check if misalignment is consisten. Take an average of the misalignment you see, and correct this amount in your digital design. For this alignment test you should use the real cardboard because the misalignment most likely depends on the paper and its thickness, too.

And all these problems will also show up at Kinkos...

Even the same printer misaligns the cardboard differently due to the grip of the rubber rolls. You cannot trust your rotation of the cardboard. Clean the rols to increase the grip and you will get better results.

As soon as my card prints are starting to rotate slightly or don´t want to go in automatically I have to clean my printer (quite often). They will love you at the Copy Shops for these special demands... coming with too thick card stock, do test runs, go back again to your computer for rotating images, test again...

You will need new cardstock soon....

So perhaps the best idea is to print a pattern like the Bee decks on the back, as then the back side will not have to be well aligned at all and you can concentrate on the faces.

Christian, my alignment idea is of course only practical for home printing. That should have been obvious but I guess you like to stir the pot.

I checked the alignment on the 10 sheets I got back from Kinkos and without any instructions at all (just perfectly centering the design on the PDF) front and back alignment is almost perfect - too small to measure or see with naked eye. Those $10,000 copiers also have a much better and more consistent paper handling mechanism.

Despite the fact that you like to discourage people going to a print shop it is one of the best printing options available. From a print quality point of view you can't beat it, not even with a good laser printer.

Chris, have a piece of humble-pie, Christian has been gaffing cards with printers for YEARS.

Then my comment is even more true! If he is such an experienced card printer then he should have not made such a stupid remark. He comes off as purely destructive. I guess he doesn't like it that card printing has now become so much easier. I mean how hard is it to take a PDF to Kinkos? Any ten year old can do that.

I will shut my mouth, yes I have a lot of experience in printing onto cards (trial and error for years, experiments on several printers) and so I know where trapdoors are. I just mention a few, ignore them but you will run into them. I encourage everybody to face them and find his own solution:

- laser printers have no color control, so every print will look slightly different on each printer. To match the color red of Bicycle cards (as it is a spot color that has to be simulated) is one of the most difficult tasks you have to handle
- clean the rubber roles more often to get better alignment results
- coat the cards to keep off the sweat of your fingers, sweat is extremely agressive
- better use a laser printer than an inkjet printer, inkjets also tend to bleed. Very difficult is a yellow area next to a black area. They love to mix on an inkjet.
- better use a full back pattern so that you don´t run into alignment issues with faces and back.
- be aware that some prints will be for the bin. If it is bad alignment, smear, tear or anything else, you need a few more sheets for backup. And in the beginning you will have to use up some sheets to adjust your printer. You will get better results after a while so that the usable percentage will increase to nearly 100 %.

I pointed out some hurdles you have to take to get satisfying results. If you invest in all the stuff you want to get good results or you will be disappointed afterwards. I am working with the printing industry now for nearly 20 years and I know the "artwork" that is usually brought to print by laymen so I can point out a few stakes that then can be targeted and eliminated.

Chris, I don´t want to discourage you, I like that you take up the balls and try to find solutions for that. Please continue that way and the final result will be satisfying for everyone. Yes, perhaps I stirred the pot, but never I commented stupid. I had to find out all the above problems the hard way, they are there and cannot be argued. Pointing them out here can help others to avoid them or at least be aware that all this can wait for you and that you have to face these problems.

So this is my last post here in this thread, if someone has a question or needs help, just send me a PM. This is and should be Chris´ thread now. Best wishes and good luck!

You, as a businessman with a public profile, make comments about people that no businessman should be making in public.

You've done it before (on the Genii forum, which got you kicked off), but it doesn't cease to amaze that you continue to say what you do about people in public.

Silverking, you are unfortunately completely misinformed. The reason I got kicked off from the Genii forum was the book/ebook I published on Samuel Cox Hooker, the only publication that makes a serious attempt to explain how the famous card rising is achieved, which upset Kaufman enough to ban me. Here is the publication: http://www.lybrary.com/samuel-hooker-rising-cards-p-680.html make up your own mind.

But I am sure you will try to dispute that, too. You might take a look at your own posts before critizing others. You are not the most polite and humble person yourself. You and others joined in this thread with nothing but negativism and unfair attacks. I have no problem calling it the way I see it and I can live with the fact that not everybody will agree with me. And now I go and print some cards.

I feel I should join in the fight and throw a cream pie in someone's face, but I don't know what all the fuss is about so I will just keep out of it and eat the cream pie instead. I do have another question, however.

Qua-Fiki came up with a second project for me to help him solve. It's really very easy; he needed cheese cards for use with his Miki-Fiki-Mouse act (it's a little mouse puppet that crawls around, then jumps in his jacket breast pocket and pushes up a chosen cheese card from the cheese deck). I don't need any help with that, but I am cutting the cards with my rotary cutter and I get rough edges, even with a brand new cutting wheel. I have tried sanding the edges of a block of cards to make them smooth and that helps some, but does anyone know a better way of smoothing down rough cut edges on a block of cards?

Spellbinder, two suggestions for you. When you sand a block of cards don't sand a squared deck but a beveled deck and do the sanding twice with the deck beveled in both directions. To do this well you will need to construct a clamp to hold the beveled deck in place. This way you can smooth the very edge of the cards and take away the burr that is left by many cutting methods. This sanding technique also significantly improves Faro shuffling.

The other suggestion is to get one of my KardKutters. http://www.lybrary.com/kardkutter-card-c......514.html This machine cuts burr free and leaves very smooth edges ready for immediate use. Ever since I use this cutter I have stopped sanding edges. To get a good Faro deck you will still have to sand the cards but for all other cases the cutter does a great job.

Chris: Thanks for the bevel suggestion. Right now it's less expensive than a cutting machine. Before I invest in one of those, I have to see if Qua-Fiki is serious about manufacturing his card decks in any kind of mass quantities. I refer to them as weapons of mass deception.