silk-screen, screen, serigraphy, and serigraph printing

Pad printing and silk printing are different in many ways such as the use of technology.

Firstly, the structures of these two kinds of machines are very different.

Secondly, the ink transferring processes are also different.

Finally, the applications of these two machines vary a lot.

Objectively speaking, the differences between pad printing and silk printing are far more than their similarities.

In general, the features of pad printing are as follows:

(1) With the limber silicon pad, pad printer can print on many complicated irregular cylinder shape items. The more complicated the shapes of products are (such as Bobby doll and toy car model) , the more advantages this machine will display.

(2) Pad printer can print on the elaborate image-text with thickness of 0.05mm.

(3) With the pneumatic process and stable machine body, the festo cylinder drives the long-time on-going printing. The pad is moved by the festo cylinder from forward and backward, up and down, which makes the operation easy to control and stable.

(4) It can print continuously in multi-colors without any drying process.

(5) It is widely used in various products such as plastics, mental, glasses, ceramics, leather and Bakelite for single-color, 2-color and colorful image-texts printing. It can also be printed on soft material products (such as fruits, cakes and eggs) and fragile products (such as ceramics, glass goods).

(6) The pad printing technology is easy to learn and stable in operation.

There are three types of screen printing presses. The 'flat-bed' (probably the most widely used), 'cylinder', and 'rotary'.

Textile items are printed in multi-color designs using a wet on wet technique, while graphic items are allowed to dry between colors that are then printed with another screen and often in a different color.

The screen can be re-used after cleaning. However if the design is no longer needed, then the screen can be "reclaimed", that is cleared of all emulsion and used again. The reclaiming process involves removing the ink from the screen then spraying on stencil remover to remove all emulsion. Stencil removers come in the form of liquids, gels, or powders.

The powdered types have to be mixed with water before use, and so can be considered to belong to the liquid category. After applying the stencil remover the emulsion must be washed out using a pressure washer.

Most screens are ready for recoating at this stage, but sometimes screens will have to undergo a further step in the reclaiming process called dehazing. This additional step removes haze or "ghost images" left behind in the screen once the emulsion has been removed. Ghost images tend to faintly outline the open areas of previous stencils, hence the name. They are the result of ink residue trapped in the mesh, often in the knuckles of the mesh, those points where threads overlap.

While the public thinks of garments in conjunction with screenprinting, the technique is used on tens of thousands of items, decals, clock and watch faces, balloons and many more products. The technique has even been adapted for more advanced uses, such as laying down conductors and resistors in multi-layer circuits using thin ceramic layers as the substrate

Photographic screens can reproduce images with a high level of detail, and can be reused for tens of thousands. The ease of producing transparent overlays from any black-and-white image makes this the most convenient method for artists who are not familiar with other printmaking techniques. Artists can obtain screens, frames, emulsion, and lights separately; there are also preassembled kits, which are especially popular for printing small items such as greeting cards.

Another advantage of screenprinting is that large quantities can be produced rapidly with new automatic presses (up to 1200 shirts in 1 hour.

Screen Printer Tech