Wire Mesh For Screen Printing (Benefits, Alternatives, And Cost)

Tyler, we pride ourselves on the standard and versatility of our stainless steel woven wire mesh. As a company that has been weaving and working with stainless steel wire for over 50 years, we now have seen an countless amount of makes use of and industries use our mesh.

Some of those uses are more present, or new, and a few of these industries have been round endlessly.

A kind of industries which have been around for a very long time the display printing business. There are numerous sorts of media that can be utilized for the display printing industry, but stainless steel mesh has proven to be one of many most efficient and price effective options.

In this text, we are going to dive into what makes stainless steel wire mesh such a terrific solution for the display printing world in terms of advantages, price and discovering the perfect fit in your needs.

We are also going to cover the situations where stainless steel mesh is probably not the precise match for your display screen printing wants.

What is Screen Printing?

Screen printing is a printing approach that makes use of mesh to transfer ink onto a substrate. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the openings in the mesh with ink/paste. A stencil will block parts of the openings in the mesh to create a design on the surface being printed on.

When screen printing originated, again within the 1600’s, silk screens had been used to transfer the designs. The problem with using silk as a screening media is that over time, it doesn’t hold up because it will swell up and tear.

Today, the most common media for display screen printing are polyester, nylon, and stainless steel.

At W. If you have any issues with regards to exactly where and how to use coustic mesh – historyhub.history.gov,, you can get hold of us at the web site. S. Tyler, we supply stainless steel woven wire mesh as screening media for this industry.

Benefits of Stainless Steel Wire for Screen Printing

With regards to screen printing there are quite a few the reason why stainless steel wire mesh is good.

Those advantages are:

Tension

Tension is very important to the screen printing industry. The media serving as the screen is stretched tightly before the squeegee with ink is run over the screen.

Stainless steel has less than 1% elongation, industrial filter mesh while other materials, like nylon or polyester, have greater than 5%.

If you happen to have been to attempt to stretch nylon or different artificial supplies at certain tension ranges, it’s going to create rectangular openings which might tear and trigger inconsistencies in your printing. This means that stainless steel woven wire is able to be tensioned, or stretched, at very high charges with out changing the shape of every individual opening.

Stability and Durability

Stainless steel wires are additionally more stable than polyester or nylon.

Stainless steel woven wire can withstand laborious situations, even at the smaller opening sizes and thinner wire diameters.

With nylon or polyester, there is a limit to how high quality or thin, you can get your particular person threads to be as a result of they can not withstand the tension and stretch that is required.

Stainless steel woven wire can get right down to a very small diameter of every wire and still have the ability to be stretched and tensioned with out suffering any alterations to the mesh itself or your course of.

Cost Savings

There are two primary methods we have seen stainless steel wire mesh reduce price in this trade.

The primary is the accessible choices with wire mesh in terms of weaves. These totally different patterns and weaves can

enable for extra ink to be deposited in a single cross, eliminating the need for a number of passes for every print.

Each time a cross is needed, you risk not having it line up exactly with the last pass and are additionally spending extra in time and ink/paste.

The second cost saving profit to stainless steel wire is if you’re using very expensive ink or pastes.

The wire diameter is essential to reducing costs when it comes to paste or ink needed. Stainless steel wire mesh is in a position to make use of a very limited amount of paste to transfer.

Stainless steel can be made with very thin particular person wires that nonetheless provide a very high connectivity.

When the amount of paste needed might be reduced to a such an exact amount, this may save companies using expensive paste, like silver within the photo voltaic business, significant money.

Calendaring for Accuracy

One of the most important challenges with the display screen printing process is movement within the display.

When the squeegee passes over the mesh during the screen printing course of, it might push the wires ahead. This will create discrepancies in each print. In the event you have been to match print number one to print quantity 1000, you will see that they do not line up.

Calendaring the wire mesh before it goes into production, might help reduce this movement that occurs throughout the printing process. Calendaring is the strategy of putting the wire mesh between rollers. Reduced to a predetermined thickness. This course of stabilizes the mesh and also creates a smooth and uniform floor.

Calendaring crushes the knuckles together on the wire mesh which eliminates the amount of motion you get from the wires during your course of.

By calendaring the mesh earlier than utilizing it, you possibly can see a significant enchancment in repeatability in your prints by eliminating that motion during every move.

Cost

When it comes to purchasing stainless steel wire mesh for screen printing, cost will differ relying in your actual wants, but you possibly can count on to pay wherever from $three -$15 sq/ft.

Listed here are some of the questions you must ask yourself when thinking about cost:

– What mesh count do I want?

– Do I need my mesh calendared?

– Do I need it reduce to a certain measurement or on a roll?

If you realize the answers to these questions you should not have any points getting an exact quote to your woven wire.

When Is a Stainless Steel Screen Not your best option?

In relation to choosing the proper media to your display printing wants, it is at all times dependent in your particular wants and your application.

Although stainless steel woven wire will be an excellent solution for thus many display screen printing purposes, there are conditions the place different kinds of media may be a better fit.

1. If you’re working with fabrics or stretchy surfaces, nylon or polyester might be going to be a greater media for you. Unlike stainless steel mesh, Polyester or Nylon have the power to kind to tender surfaces.

2. Woven Wire mesh is usually costlier than nylon or polyester. For those who need the sturdiness and precise options of stainless steel woven wire, this makes it a fantastic fit for you. In case you don’t want those features for your application, perhaps a artificial materials will give you the results you want.

3. If you’re printing on very fragile supplies like ceramics, wire mesh may injury the floor. That is another state of affairs the place it could also be better to go along with a artificial materials.

Optimize Your Screen Printing Operation

Woven wire mesh offers the tensioning capabilities, sturdiness, cost effectiveness, and accuracy wanted to thrive within the display printing. The advantages are what enable woven wire screen printing mesh to precisely disperse inks of all varieties.

From logos on product packaging to exact solder masks on circuit boards, woven wire screen printing mesh can be utilized to accurately depict the desired design. That said, the effectiveness of display screen printing operation depends on the usage of the suitable mesh depend for the job.

With over 140 yr of woven wire mesh experience, W.S. Tyler has the experience needed that will help you pinpoint the suitable mesh specs and implement high-high quality mesh solutions.