How to apply silk screen to create creative ideas
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1. Overview of silk screen
The screen-printed printing plate has a mesh shape, and the ink on the printing plate is pressed down by the squeegee during printing, and is printed on the substrate from the through-hole portion of the printing plate. The change in silk screen effect mainly depends on the design and materials of the screen and the physical properties of the ink.
Screen design and materials
The size of the mesh affects the fineness of the silk screen. The finer the mesh, the better it is to print a detailed image. Now the mesh is generally from metric to 63 to 150, and rarely more than 150, except for the technical limitations of the mesh material and the manufacturing screen, it is more important that the ink also has a certain viscosity, so the larger mesh (ie mesh) Thinner) often makes it difficult for ink to pass through the mesh. In addition, many silk screen products require a thicker ink layer to express the texture of the printed matter and to exert the characteristics of the ink. When printing such products, use a fine mesh and appropriate ink.
Silk screen ink
Screen printing inks are mainly divided into two types: thermosetting and ultraviolet curing. Thermosetting inks have more choices and lower costs. However, the thermosetting ink layer will volatilize, so in the production process, if there is not enough ink to wet the screen, or the printing time is too long, there will be a situation of plugging the net, and the thermosetting ink takes a long time. Only to dry completely. Therefore, on the convenience and effect of production, thermosetting inks are not compatible with UV-curable inks.
In recent years, in the screen printing, UV-curable inks have become more and more popular, except that it avoids the problem of the net, and more importantly, it can be dried in a short period of time. In today's environment where production volume and efficiency are high, UV-curable inks have solved many problems for them. Moreover, the ultraviolet ink can produce printing effects that cannot be achieved by some thermosetting inks. For example, some ultraviolet light inks can receive different burst patterns when receiving ultraviolet light of different wavelengths, that is, a so-called special crepe or ice pattern effect. Ultraviolet inks are most commonly found on printed matter, rather than local UV glazing. Although flexible board printing can also be used for local UV glazing, the silk screen UV glazing is undoubtedly superior in terms of texture and outstanding image performance.
2. Differences between offset printing and screen printing
The basic principle of offset printing is "oil and water are not blind". Use this principle to make the relevant PS version. Ink, transfer printing through a blanket is a simple printing method. Now there are a variety of offset printing methods (water printing, waterless printing, flat pressing, round pressing, etc.), and strict requirements on substrates and related consumables.
Screen printing is direct printing, printing by offset printing, using the thickness of the mesh and the soft and hard angle of the squeegee to control the printing effect. There are various printing methods (flat roller type, round pressure). Circular, flat and flat, and unconventional shapes, etc., a wide range of substrates and printing consumables.
Traditionally, the output and investment of offset printing are large, and most of the fixed equipment has low adaptability to printed materials. Therefore, it is generally necessary to "print materials to accommodate the machine." On the other hand, silk screen printing has the opposite effect on production efficiency and general equipment investment. Different printing materials such as paper, film and cloth can also be applied, so it is "machine-compatible printing material". Silk screen products are widely included, such as stamping products, frosted patterns on tobacco and alcohol boxes, ceramic flower paper (flower paper pattern transferred to ceramics), general printed matter (partial glazing), electronic products (nameplate and flexible Line), ironing drawings and more.
3. Correspondence between offset printing and screen printing
Driven by the product packaging is constantly seeking new and beautiful to attract customers, the designer's imagination is more and more rich and bold, often across the industry's routine, ordinary packaging printing can not meet them. So, in this case, now we often see offset printing and screen printing to work together to create amazing prints! In the special effect of screen printing ink, it can be said with aroma ink, liquid crystal color changing ink, thermal temperature changing color ink, fluorescent color changing ink, frosting ink, ice ink, mirror ink, foaming ink, light storage ink, etc. Wait. These inks are silk-screened on the stencils to create a seamless match. It’s amazing that there are such wonderful things in the world!
The use of special screen printing inks is often seen on delicate and expensive packaging papers, and the screen printing effect on the offset advertisements makes the advertisements lively. For example, a night view of Victoria Harbour, with bit by bit of luminous ink, the entire image will become realistic and interesting. In terms of functionality, the flooding of counterfeit products makes anti-counterfeiting packaging an important issue, and many anti-counterfeiting methods are achieved by screen printing.
4. Equipment and technology required for the silk screen process in the offset factory
Today, screen printing and offset printing are becoming more and more popular. The silk-screen factory has also become a trend. However, traditional silk screen printing equipment, such as manual silk screen printing, is not only far in production efficiency, but also has thousands of speeds per hour of offset printing. More importantly, the quality of products is unstable. Even with a semi-automatic screen printing machine, the hands-on operation can only reach a production of about 400 sheets per hour. The situation of different quality of printing still exists. Therefore, in recent years, some K-type factories seeking product innovation have begun to purchase high-speed automatic screen printing machines, in order to attach special silk screen elements to traditional offset printing. Fully automatic screen printing machine, such as Japan's "Sakurai" (SAKURAI), and its semi-automatic machine is in the automatic paper-feeding, registering, falling blade, and even feeding to the drying oven without manual. Thereby can greatly increase the production volume. What's more important is that it takes a short time to install and adjust the plate, which is precisely the requirement of “less quantity of printed products but more varieties” in today's market.
However, it should be noted that although the offset film and screen printing film is universal, sometimes it will be fine-tuned for the screen-printing film due to overprinting problems, because many screen printing screens are required to print extra-thick ink. Membrane effect, so in the case of special thickening of the drying net pulp and the fact that the screen is always an elastic body, if the film is not corrected, it is impossible to achieve accurate overprinting.