High technology

The technology of silk screen UV printing has been mastered

anuary, 2010 our company was the first in Ukraine to announce the start of taking orders for commercial glassware decoration using silk screen printing with UV-curable enamels (paints).

The popularity of this kind of printing is growing all over the world. The world leader in terms of the rate of implementation of the UV technology is the USA, where it already takes about 70% of the silk screen printing market. In Europe – 30%, but the proportion is constantly changing in favour of UV-curable paints.

The technology received its name because the paint poling (curing) process on the print occurs under the influence of UV radiation. Special irradiators (UV cure systems) are used for this purpose. For glassware decoration, they are placed between the printing stations of automatic lines. Poling takes place instantly, which favourably distinguishes the process from use of ceramic paints, where hard firing in a kiln in used. Apart from a shorter duration of the production process, this also widens the potential of application of this method of printing. It can be done on the surface of coated products, which cannot be subjected to hard firing. And this in not the only advantage. The minimum thickness of the coating film and its instant polymerization enable complete elimination of graphic distortion of screen dots on the print, that is more accurate tonal and colour rendering. On the other hand, when solvent based paints are used for screen printing, they manage to run during the time when the paint is on the surface of a print in the liquid state, so the area of the dotted elements on the print increases and, therefore, the tonal rendering is distorted.

Thus, UV-curable paints are perfect for printing of screen images, use of which allows to obtain maximum resolution and, therefore, high design quality. The drawbacks of the technique include the absence of paints with precious metals in the palette.

The performance capabilities of UV-curable paints can be seen of the display sample of Egoist vodka. The printing was performed on a precoated bottle.