Screen Dec 09 P10-11:Page 6 17/12/2009 13:49 Page 10
SCREEN Decorating glass
Don't gamble
with process control
Gambling is good for you if you are a supplier to the fruit machine industry, but
printing on substrates that will be backlit necessitates a clean and accurate
process. Perhaps that's no bad thing at a time when quality is the byword for
survival By Peter Kiddell
M
odern society surrounds us with Why is this important to our industry? Traditionally every part of the printed image
opportunities to gamble including Because the graphics are key to the machine’s on a fruit machine was screen printed but now
lotteries, casinos, scratch cards and success. Just like point of sale, the punter has in many cases there is a happy marriage of
on-line poker. One sector that remains to be persuaded to thrust their hard earned screen printing and digital printing. Solid
prevalent is fruit machines and with an cash into the slot in search of that elusive special colours and white are all screen
increase in jackpot values, their popularity win. printed with some of the full colour elements
continues to grow. digitally printed. Combine this with mirroring
using silver nitrate and ammonia and it
creates a highly compelling graphic that will
attract gamers once mounted onto the
machine.
A key element of all these decorating
processes is cleanliness. The finished image is
always backlit and any flaw will be obvious.
This applies to single layers of colour or
multiple layers, where dust particles,
squeegee marks, or banding will be there
for all to see. Ideally printing should
take place in a clean room, but
certainly lint free wipes are essential
and the glass must be well cleaned
before printing since a solitary
thumbprint can ruin an otherwise perfect
ten colour print.
This is not a process to be taken lightly -
glass processing and subsequent printing is a
challenging activity. Specialist in this area,
Shades Screenprint is able to take
origination from customers or create
the image from start to finish. Two
considerations in image design are
registration accuracy and the effect of
back illumination on the perceived
colour. It may only be a game but
designers, quite rightly, are pedantic about
colour matching and tonal range. This is
where digital printing can produce
graduations that would be difficult with screen
printing.
The techniques used in the printing gaming
10 SCREEN PROCESS AND DIGITAL IMAGING l December 2009 Visit us at www.spdi-online.com
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