Focus on Consumables
What is a screen printer without their large array of squeegees?!
There are three main types of squeegee edge
Believe it or not, there is more to a squeege than you think. It’s not just a piece of metal (or wood) and a bit of rubber. The rubber is an important part of the squeegee which is critical to the quality of the print.
There are three main types of edge to a squeegee; square, round and bevelled. Square edge is the most common squeegee, and are mainly used for textile printing and on both manual presses and automatic presses. SPW sells a whole bunch of square edged squeegees in various sizes and designs (manual, auto, metal, wood and ergonomic).
Screen Print World
The durometer of a squeegee is also super important. This is the measurement of hardness of a squeegee blade. The hardness of the squeegee determines how much ink is pushed through the mesh. If the design has fi ne detail you will need a durometer between 80-90, which will push less ink through the mesh. If a higher ink deposit is needed, a durometer of 50 or 60 should be used. Therefore, SPW sell rolls of squeegee rubber for you to purchase when you need to change the blade. The most common shore hardness for textile printing squeegee blades are 55 shore (soft), 65 shore (med) and 75 shore (hard), SPW also supplies laminated squeegee blades which offers a softer standard edge with a harder rigid centre – these are typically useful on auto presses or printing thicker inks where a rigid blade is needed. It’s also important to clean your squeegee to make sure you get the maximum use out of the item. The blade edges also need to remain sharp for optimal print quality. If you notice the square edge rounding off it will be time to change your blade.
www.screenprintworld.co.uk
Putting your best foot forward
In the growing world of personalisation TheMagicTouch has again created another great opportunity for customers to benefi t from the massive potential of personalised shoes and footwear. This unique and easy method to personalise and decorate all kinds of shoes and footwear is using the new DTF transfer and toner-based processes.
Jim Nicol, managing director, explains: “25 years ago we were very fortunate to engage with many leading established shoe and fashion footwear brands that wanted to create limited edition designs and incorporate full colour images. The pioneers then and still today are Dr Martens, originally in Northamptonshire, where limited edition full colour designs could be produced within the normal production facility. However, at the time the entry level cost of the digital transfer printers and equipment was very high plus having to construct the fi nished footwear after the design had been printed to the specifi c leather panel eliminated this to many potential users.”
Today, TheMagicTouch confi rms it offers various full colour transfer options for the decoration of all types of footwear. Using a combination of both toner-based and DTF transfers full colour images can be applied directly to almost any type of trainers, sliders, sports boots, safety shoes and sandals for example within a minute using one of the many hand-held irons designed for intricate transfer applications and used extensively within the craft market. The printed and cured DTF transfers are easily applied to almost any part of the footwear with minimal risk of damage or rejects. In fact, transfers applied can be easily and quickly removed using traditional fl ex and HTV removal sprays.
The fi nished transfer is vibrant and more importantly durable. The advantages of the DTF transfer technology includes no cutting, no weeding, and no pre-treatment. Plus, full colour digital transfers at the lowest cost ever.
TheMagicTouch
Jim adds: “At the moment, globally the choice of personalisation to footwear is limited and also very expensive. The offerings from some of world leading sports shoe brands is restricted to simple single colour names with a limited choice of positioning. Customers can now create custom footwear easily, quickly and profi tably.”
www.themagictouch.co.uk | 30 | August 2022
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
Use a DTF transfer to personalise footwear
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