There are dozens of steps between the moment we start a screen printing job and the moment we finish it. One of the most important is the opening of screens / screen printing frames.
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In fact, there are several ways and technologies to open screen printing frames, but today we're going to tell you about the investment we've made at Maudlin Merchandise to not only automate the process but also considerably improve the quality of our frames compared to any other company in Portugal.
A good painting starts with the canvas. To ensure we have the best frames, we use aluminium hoops and stretch our own canvases in-house. In this way, we can guarantee that the newtons are at the right point (the more newtons = the tighter the canvas is in the frame and the better the alignment between colours and the better the printing of your work).
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When we're satisfied with the canvas, it's time to apply emulsion to the painting. The emulsion will cover the entire canvas, plugging all the "holes" through which the paint passes. It usually has a green or purple colour. This is essential for the following steps and we use different emulsions depending on the image we are going to print, thus ensuring that the emulsion used allows for greater detail, greater durability or a print with more or less ink deposit.
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This is where the interesting part begins and where we stand out from any other textile printing company.
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Usually you need to print a photolitho (a transparent sheet) with the image you want to print. This photolitho is then applied to the frame and aligned so that the image is in the right place for printing. For every colour the image has, you have to do this process all over again, with all the human error that exists in the alignment phase.
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We have a different and innovative process. Using a CTS (Computer to Screen) machine, the only one of its kind in Portugal, we print the image directly onto the board, without the need for sheets, extra prints and with the alignment done automatically on all the boards.
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This allows us to reduce the time it takes to open boards, completely eliminate human error and speed up the whole process. It also becomes faster during the washing phase (see below). Not only is this process quicker, but it's also more environmentally friendly as we don't use hundreds of kilos of (non-recyclable) plastic every year by abandoning transparencies.
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Once the image has been engraved on the frame (or canvas), it goes to a light press. The job of this machine is - through vacuum and intense light - to permanently engrave the image that we have printed on the board. Here, once again, we are ahead of the game and use the best technology on the market.
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Here, once again, we are ahead of the game and use the best technology on the market. Some of the options include dozens of bulbs (fluorescent, not economical), one large bulb or hundreds of small LED lights. Although we started with fluorescents, we ended up opting for LEDs for various reasons.
- Faster image recording;
- It allows for much greater detail than the other options;
- More economical to operate (instead of 5/10 minutes to expose an image, it takes 1 minute with reduced electricity costs).
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Since we acquired our CTS, this minute has turned into around 30 seconds per frame. There's no technology that comes close to it at the moment.
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After this step it's time to wash the frame. It is necessary to take the silk-screen frames to a tank where we pass water over the image to remove the emulsion. Thanks to the intense light, the image location will melt on contact with the water. This specific spot is then exposed and will allow paint to pass through.
Once again, thanks to the combination of the CTS (where we print the image) and the LED press (where we engrave it permanently), we are able to wash it much more quickly, saving water and the environment.
Still on the subject of ecology, all the water we use is filtered.
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Once the board has dried, it is ready to be used to print T-shirts
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