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Tips & Hints
The following tips come from our own experience as well as
that of our customers.
Traditional Write-On Tags:
Dry time for pens on Copper and Stainless Steel markers.
Since Stainless Steel and Copper tags will not absorb the ink, you must allow the
ink to completely dry before handling the marker. At normal room temperatures and
humidity allow 1 hour. For wood and terracotta products, which are absorptive very
little dry time is required.
Pen Selection
We strongly recommend you use our nursery pen 300-120
or 300-134, however other outdoor rated pens may also work. The Sharpie brand
of pens have not proven to provide the best results and we would recommend you avoid using
them for garden markings. See the results below, labels printed at the same time and
subjected to same outside exposure (South facing in California, yes it does rain in
California!).
 "Sharpie"
8 months exposure
 Orion Pen
300-120 same exposure as above
Cleaning Stainless and Copper markers.
Use of a strong cleaning solvent (with proper precautions) such as paint thinner will
clean off marks on the Stainless Steel or Copper markers. Allow the solvent to
completely dry before applying new marks.
Computer Imprintable:
Alignment of labels to marker stake.
Place a small mark, period, asterisk etc along the left and right edge at the middle (7/8
in.). When applying the label line up the marks with the mounting holes and you will
insure the label is straight and centered. These marks will be covered by the bezel.
Printer selection.
While almost any laser or inkjet printer will work here are a few points to consider:
1. It should have a straight feed path, on many printers this will cause the labels to
exit out the back of the printer. The fewer bends the labels must make the better.
2. It must be able to handle paper sizes other than standard paper, i.e. envelopes.
3. Avoid LED type laser printers. They do not print well on the label materials.
4. Printers with single sheet feeds are more convenient. Often you do not need to
remove the standard paper from the printer.
Re-Running partial printed sheets.
This must be done with caution, a label stuck inside your printer is not a pretty sight.
Orion Industries has purposely made the labels half size to reduce label waste.
If possible try to print 5 labels at once or limit running the sheet through the
printer to two times.
Use of practice sheet.
The label package comes with one practice sheet which allows you to confirm that the print
will be positioned correctly and you on the correct side. You can copy this sheet, however
do not make copies of copies as the dimensions will be distorted by the copier.
Color on inkjet Printers.
All desktop inkjet printers use a water based dye ink for the color ink. These inks
do not hold up well in an outside environment. On the other hand black which uses
carbon black holds up very well. Our lab and field testing has shown that the Orion
UV cover will extend color fast 5-10 times over non protected labels. Use 400-176
for color inkjet printing, 400-175 for laser or black only inkjet print. Still want
to print in color? Send us an email and
we can suggest a printer that works great and will not break the bank.
Computer Imprintable Labels on other tags.
With scissors and a little patience customers have used our labels and covers on the zinc
or copper wire labels. Since these do not have a bezel the edge of the label is
exposed and may lift in time. Other than that they will work fine. However we
still recommend you use our stake 320-090GR.
The covers do make the difference!
The most common complaint we hear is that the marks fade and can longer be read.
Orion's sunblock covers reduce the amount of UV light that fades the mark.
See the difference below with two hand written labels with the Sharpie Pen given the same
exposure, one with cover and the other without.
 With cover
applied
No cover with same exposure.
Using Office Labeler to print a different image on each label.
Many people want to have a different image printed on each label along with the data that
is specific to that plant. By using the database feature of Office Labeler this is
possible in the following way;
1. Refer to chapter 5 and chapter 11 if you are using the internal database in the Office
Labeler manual.
2. Set one of the fields in your database to hold the exact path to the image you want for
each record. ie e:\blubs\isis\iris01.tif.
The image file must be in a TIF, BMP, PCX or WMF format.
3. With the label design on the screen, Click Utilities-Set Merge File. Select your
file and click 'Set'.
4. Place an image on the label at the size you want your imported images to be located.
(see page 43 of the manual) This can be any image, this step is used to set the
location and size for the merged image.
5. Double click on the image. Select the 'Properties' tab and then 'File'.
Click the 'Merge' box. Now select the field name that holds the path to each
image. Click 'OK', 'OK', and 'OK' again.
6. The image box should have the text 'Merge Picture' inside it. Now when you print
each label will have the image you selected.
Tip for embossing copper tags. If you have problems getting your
embossed tags looking neat and spaced evenly, try this. Using your computer,
print a piece of paper with your text on it. Lay the paper over the tag to be
sure it fits. Cut the paper to a manageable size. Position the paper over the
tag, and using a ball point pen, carefully trace over the text. Also, if you set
the tag on several pieces if paper or cardboard while you emboss, it will make
it easier to emboss.
Have a tip you would like to share? Send
it to us and we will consider adding it to our growing list of great ideas for using
Orion Industries products in the garden.
Still need more answers or assistance? Check out these links which we have found
to be very helpful.
www.gardenweb.com The forums are the heart
of this site.
www.gardennet.com Great information and
special features for the gardener.
  
Orion Industries (707) 529-8707 Email: info@gardenmarker.com
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Orion
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