Industry Advice
Getting to grips with white ink A
s manufacturers respond to the demands of their client base, the facility
to introduce white ink to your next printer has steadily become more affordable and less pain-staking, leading to more print departments looking to bring the service in-house. If you’re looking to invest in a large
format printer capable of printing white ink, you’ve most likely come across a wide range of different technologies, brands and variations. In this article I aim to compare three
of the most recognised technologies in the signage industry – solvent, latex and UV – in order to better understand what benefits each ink can bring to the table.
Why introduce it? So, let’s get stuck in… first off, why would you consider introducing white ink into your printer? White ink is useful because it’s opaque,
whereas the standard colours that make up a printer are transparent. By printing an opaque white ink onto a clear or even
| 44 | July/August 2024
By adding white ink a solid foundation is created for standard colours to stand out
a pre-coloured substrate, it creates a solid foundation for standard colours to stand out.
White ink is useful because it’s opaque
In this article, Jamie Reader, sales consultant at Granthams GT, discusses how you can introduce white ink to your working day and why you should.
Solvent printers configured with white ink Solvent still remains extremely popular in the sign making and vehicle graphics industry, and for good reason. Solvent printers are renowned for their wide colour gamut. As a result, solvent is still a go-to solution for clients who need to achieve specific pantones. A high percentage of pantones can still
be accomplished with latex and UV ink, but high contrast colours (reds, oranges, greens for example) are harder to match. While solvent technology continues to
grow and improve, solvent white ink still suffers from being: • More expensive to run due to a higher cost per millilitre and due to more frequent cleaning cycles.
• The white ink also requires more agitation than other inks, and as a result demands more maintenance to reduce the risk of clogs and blocked nozzles.
For these reasons, white ink is typically
favoured by sign makers for producing window graphics applied to the inside of a window.
• Running white ink is a slow printing process due to the nature of the ink and the time needed to cure properly. • Ignoring the print speed, users would
www.signupdate.co.uk
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