Screen Printing - February/March 2013 - (Page 30)
sh o p ta l k
How I ATE MY HoMEwork
Andy MacDougall
N
othing says specialty substrates like a piece of bread
with a thick layer of Nutella printed on it. My friend Guido
Lengwiler, a professor of screen printing in Switzerland and
the author of A History of Screenprinting, to be published
later this year, sent me pictures of a little test he has his
students run.
The point of the experiment is to show the versatility
of the screen-printing process, how it can print almost anything in a semi-liquid state onto any type of surface. This has
far-reaching significance, not necessarily as a way to provide
snacks for hungry students—although I hear it tastes really
good after a pass through a tunnel dryer—but in the world of
manufacturing, where the ability to print one material onto
another has revolutionized how things are made.
The very concept of printing has evolved all around the
world. For 500 years, imprinting paper was about as exotic as
it got, and the primary purpose of printing was putting words,
and then illustrations, on paper. Wallpaper and fabric printing
stretched the uses of the printing processes, but it wasn’t
until the late 1800s and early 1900s that printers ventured
into specialty materials, ceramics and metal being the main
recipients of ink. The main purpose was decorative, again
with words and images. Ink on paper is still big, five centuries
after Gutenberg, with digital and offset or combinations of
the two processes dominating. And that’s how the general
public, a lot of the print trades, and the education system
for the most part still see print.
What is printing?
Let’s face it—once we walk out of the screen shop, factory,
or material-science lab, if you ask 1000 people to look up
from their smartphones for a second and touch or point to
the print nearest to them, none will hold up the phone. Yet,
the backside of the touchscreen has conductive and luminescent material printed all over it. That’s how it works: One
non-traditional ink is printed on a non-traditional material.
Modern manufacturing using a printing process—who’d have
thunk it? Put the two together and pretty soon you have a
new product—in this case, $63 billion worth of iPhones and
iPads or their clones this year in the USA alone.
In the past, offset, flexo, and gravure offered the ability
to print a narrow range of inks on some substrates other than
paper. The main restriction, if the ink could be formulated to
adhere, was that the material had to be thin and come in rolls.
When screen printing stuck its pointed, little head through
the first bolt of silk, it started a print revolution that continues to this day.
Glass, metal, wood, and cloth were the original specialty substrates, and screen printing was uniquely capable of
decorating them. They required specific inks able to durably
bond to the material and, of course, to be printable. The flexibility of screen printing allowed for this. You had a screen,
mesh, and stencil combination that you could adjust easily to
30
screenprinting
accept any ink, along with a press setup that could adapt
to any size, shape, or thickness. Along comes plastic in all
its types, and a whole new set of problems—and ink solutions. The advent of printed electronics demanded not only
durability, adhesion, and printability, but it also threw in a
fourth curve: functionality. No longer just a pretty picture,
the printed images and their substrates were now circuits
that would conduct electricity and perform a job.
Screen printing has been a leader through all of this,
although inkjet inks have evolved since the mid 1990s to
print an ever-broadening range of material. The problem of
imaging rigid, dimensional material was solved with flatbed
digital printers, and there is no question that when it comes
to short-run, full-color graphics printing, digital is here to
stay—even when the material is a sheet of plastic or metal.
What’s ahead?
Functional printing is driving our sector into, or should
I say onto, even more exotic materials. The combination
of specially formulated inks and substrates has given us an
amazing array of new products and new ways to manufacture
old ones. As a screen printer, I’m proud of the old squeegee
and what it continues to produce: a dermal patch, a solar
panel, a fuel cell, a flat battery.
Where do we go next? That’s hard to say. There were
no iPhones ten years ago. Far fewer people used the Internet
15 years ago, when ecommerce was only an idea. Wide-format digital was just a rumor 20 years ago. But as long as there
are creative people with ideas who are willing to test out a
concept, then expect to see more printing on an expanding
range of materials. If it is done by screen printing, or digital,
or one of the other print processes, I’m sure the method will
be decided by what works best.
Over the years, I’ve printed on a lot of challenging
materials: 3D parts, metal, plastics, carbon fiber, even drums
made of deer hide. But the weirdest one by far was edible
dog chews. A retired dentist had this concept—gift cards for
dogs. But instead of cardstock, he wanted it to be something
a good dog could truly enjoy. He tracked down some edible
ink and some sheets of rawhide—Not the greatest material,
but with some experiments with mesh and squeegee hardness, we got it to work. I never did taste them. The Nutella
on bread? I may have to give that a try.
Andy MacDougall is a screen-printing trainer and consultant based on Vancouver Island in Canada and a member of the Academy of Screen Printing Technology. If you have production problems you’d like to see him address in “Shop
Talk,” e-mail your comments and questions to andy@squeegeeville.com.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Screen Printing - February/March 2013
Screen Printing - February/march 2013
Contents
Editorial Insights
New Products
Increasing Your Profit
Image Enhancement: Better Files, Cost Savings
Prime Prints
P-O-P Primer
Making the Cut
Shoptalk
Industry Update
Distributor/Dealer Directory
Opportunity Exchange
Advertising Index
Screen Printing - February/March 2013
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