Decoration techniques

SCREEN PRINTING:

Screen printing as a printing technique was used in the Far East hundreds of years ago. The pioneers of this art are considered to be Japanese, who used this technique to decorate kimonos in the 17th century. The pattern cut out of paper was applied on a specially prepared mesh. The first real screen stretched on a frame was patented in Great Britain in 1906, under the name of silk-screen. The 20th century was a turbulent development of screen printing technology. Initially, the main application was printing, but years later it also returned to its roots, i.e. to the decoration of fabrics.

How does it work?

A very fine polyester mesh is stretched onto an aluminium rectangular frame (e.g. 60 cm x 85 cm). The main parameter that characterises a screen printing screen is the number of interlaced mesh fibres per square centimetre (SEMA-PRINT uses meshes between 24 and 120 fibres per square centimetre), which in practice means the number of holes through which the ink will be pressed at a later stage. The screen prepared in this way is completely covered with a photosensitive emulsion, which tightly clogs all the holes in the screen.

The next stage is to prepare a film. The film is nothing else but a print on a transparent negative film of the pattern we will be printing - each colour of our project is a separate film.

The set prepared in such a way goes to an illuminator (a large, strong lamp), which emits light and fixes the photosensitive emulsion only in places it has access to. Everything covered with printed film is not fixed, which after thorough rinsing with water under high pressure causes complete removal of the not fixed emulsion (the one that was covered with printed film). As a result, holes remain on the screen only in the places indicated by us. The above process is repeated for each colour of the printed pattern.

The next step is to make a print. The screen placed on the screen printing machine is covered with paint, which is pressed through the holes in the screen with the help of appropriate squeezers, and thus it reaches the material in the right place.

Finally, the material on which the print is made is heat treated to fix the ink. This is done in specially adapted belt furnaces at temperatures of 120 to 170 degrees.

In screen printing on textiles we use three types of paints: water-based, solvent-based and plastisol inks. By using a wide range of different types of silk-screen printing inks, apart from regular, flat prints, we can also achieve special effects in the form of: gel prints, HD, puff, glitter, reflective or fluorescent prints, metallic effects, metallic foil.

SEMA-PRINT is a fourteen-colour automatic ROQ and M&R printing machines

COMPUTER EMBROIDERY:

Embroidery is one of the oldest techniques of decorating clothes. The oldest, documented examples of embroidery date back to the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. and were discovered by archaeologists in the area of present-day Greece. This technique consists of manual embroidery of patterns on the material with a needle and thread. Milestones for embroidery were the invention of tambour (early 18th century) and the construction of the first embroidery machine in 1828.

Maszyna do automatycznego haftowania skonstruowana przez Josue Heilmanna w latach 1827/28 - Zdjęcie pochodzi z serwisu Wikipedia

The embroidery technique can be divided into four basic groups:

Flat embroidery		Convex embroidery
Embroidery applied - applications		Openwork embroidery

The first three groups are successfully used in SEMA-PRINT. For years, we have been operating on the market proven Japanese machines from BARUDAN.

A very important element of computer embroidery, which proves its quality, is the use of the highest quality embroidery threads and accessories such as interlining or hydrofoil.

The world leader in thread production is German MADEIRA. The offer includes, apart from standard embroidery threads such as: POLYNEON (polyester thread with characteristic gloss - most often used) and CLASSIC (viscose thread) more specialized products:

• BURMILIANA – wool/acrylic mixture, matt yarn-like thread.
  
  
• FS, CR i SUPERTWIST -  metallic threads.
  
  
• LUNA – threads "glowing" in the dark.
  
  
• FIRE FIGHTER -  fire resistant threads.
  
  

An embroidery machine and good threads are not the end. To make our embroidered pattern look really spectacular, the most important element is to prepare an embroidery program. Such programs are performed in advanced graphic environments, by qualified specialists. The final effect depends mainly on the skills of the programmer. Writing an embroidery program is nothing more than designing each stitch on a computer. The arrangement of individual points of an embroidery needle punch is fundamental in this case.

Computerized embroidery is one of the most popular methods of decorating clothes. Main applications are harder and thicker materials such as fleece, softshell or cordura. However, embroidery has its limitations. Very small details (e.g. small inscriptions - despite the use of thin 60 or 75 threads) or tonal transitions (easily achievable in screen printing or sublimation) are very difficult or even impossible.

The technique is dedicated to medium and large runs. Therefore, artificial productions are not fully profitable. Very large outlays are limited by the time of making a single embroidery, which is much longer than e.g. screen printing or even sublimation printing.

SUBLIMATION:

Following Wikipedia is nothing more than a transition from the solid state to the gaseous state with direct omission of the liquid state. In practice, it is the transfer of a printed pattern on sublimation paper to the material, under the influence of high temperature. The dried ink on the sublimation paper under the influence of temperature is now in a volatile state and permanently stains the material to which it is applied. The pattern applied to the fabric in this way is practically indestructible. For example, when we "paint" the top side of the fabric with silkscreen printing, the sublimation colours the fabric fibres as a whole.

The whole process can be divided into:

I. Preparing a pattern on the computer.
II. Printing a pattern on a printer. Sublimation printers are nothing more than the inkjet printers everyone knows. However, they are much bigger and faster devices, powered by special sublimation inks.
III. Heat up the pattern on the material. The machine used for this purpose is a so-called calender working at 200o

SEMA-PRINT uses EPSON and MIMAKI sublimation printers, sublimation inks, also from these manufacturers and a 160 cm wide MONTI ANTONIO calender.

TRANSFER:

Transfer printing is, in simple terms, nothing more than classic ironing. The difference, of course, lies in the parameters of the materials and transfer machines used. Preparation of the print for transfer to the material can be carried out using various printing or printing techniques. Depending on the choice of the above, transfer prints can be divided into several types:

silkscreen printing – Preparation of the overprint is done using the classic screen printing method (detailed description in the SITODRUK tab). This method is used for patterns without tonal transitions (not raster) in colours available in PANTONE scale.

transfer cut on a plain or flock film - in this case the preparation of the print is nothing more than cutting the pattern with a cutter on a specially designed film. The possible effect is uniform colours (without tonal transitions). We have at our disposal a wide range of transfer films in rich colours such as: flat or matt film, HD films (convex effect), metallic, reflective films and many others.

Digital transfer - a print prepared with the use of technology similar to that used on paper. In this case we have unlimited colours and tonal transitions available.

After pouring our pattern onto the foil or transfer paper, it is heated into the material. This is done with the help of transfer presses, which work in the temperature range from 150oC to 180oC (temperature depends on the type of transfer print) and a time of 5 to 25 seconds heat the pattern permanently into the material.