Tyler, we satisfaction ourselves on the quality and versatility of our stainless steel woven wire mesh. As an organization that has been weaving and working with stainless steel wire for over 50 years, coustic mesh we’ve seen an endless quantity of uses and industries use our mesh.
Some of these uses are more current, or new, and a few of these industries have been around eternally.
One of those industries which were around for a very long time the screen printing trade. There are a lot of sorts of media that can be used for the screen printing business, but stainless steel mesh has proven to be one of the most efficient and cost effective choices.
In this text, we are going to dive into what makes stainless steel wire mesh such an awesome solution for the display screen printing world in phrases of advantages, value and discovering the perfect fit in your needs.
We’re also going to cowl the situations the place stainless steel mesh is probably not the precise fit on your display screen printing needs.
What is Screen Printing?
Screen printing is a printing approach that makes use of mesh to switch ink onto a substrate. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the openings within the mesh with ink/paste. A stencil will block parts of the openings in the mesh to create a design on the floor being printed on.
When display printing originated, back within the 1600’s, silk screens have been used to switch the designs. If you cherished this post and you would like to obtain a lot more info with regards to coustic mesh; https://cults3d.com, kindly take a look at our own webpage. The problem with utilizing silk as a screening media is that over time, it doesn’t hold up because it should swell up and tear.
Today, the most typical media for display printing are polyester, nylon, and stainless steel.
At W.S. Tyler, we supply stainless steel woven wire mesh as screening media for this trade.
Benefits of Stainless Steel Wire for Screen Printing
In the case of display printing there are fairly a number of explanation why stainless steel wire mesh is good.
Those benefits are:
Tension
Tension is essential to the display screen printing trade. The media serving as the screen is stretched tightly earlier than the squeegee with ink is run over the display screen.
Stainless steel has less than 1% elongation, whereas different supplies, like nylon or polyester, industrial filter mesh have greater than 5%.
Should you were to attempt to stretch nylon or different artificial materials at certain tension levels, it is going to create rectangular openings which could tear and trigger inconsistencies in your printing. Which means stainless steel woven wire is ready to be tensioned, or stretched, at very excessive charges without changing the shape of every particular person opening.
Stability and Durability
Stainless steel wires are additionally extra 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 restrict to how positive or thin, you may get your particular person threads to be because they can’t withstand the tension and stretch that is required.
Stainless steel woven wire can get right down to a really small diameter of every wire and nonetheless have the ability to be stretched and tensioned with out suffering any alterations to the mesh itself or your process.
Cost Savings
There are two principal ways we have now seen stainless steel wire mesh reduce value on this business.
The primary is the obtainable choices with wire mesh in terms of weaves. These totally different patterns and weaves can
permit for more ink to be deposited in one move, eliminating the necessity for a number of passes for every print.
Each time a pass is required, you risk not having it line up precisely with the final pass and are additionally spending more in time and ink/paste.
The second price saving benefit to stainless steel wire is in case you are utilizing very expensive ink or pastes.
The wire diameter is crucial to reducing costs by way of paste or ink needed. Stainless steel wire mesh is in a position to make use of a very limited quantity of paste to transfer.
Stainless steel might be made with very thin individual wires that nonetheless supply a really high connectivity.
When the quantity of paste wanted might be diminished to a such an exact quantity, this will save corporations using costly paste, like silver in the solar industry, vital cash.
Calendaring for Accuracy
Certainly one of the most important challenges with the display printing process is motion throughout the screen.
When the squeegee passes over the mesh during the display screen printing course of, it may push the wires ahead. This could create discrepancies in every print. For those who were to match print no 1 to print number 1000, you will see that they do not line up.
Calendaring the wire mesh earlier than it goes into manufacturing, will help reduce this motion that happens during the printing process. Calendaring is the process of putting the wire mesh between rollers. Reduced to a predetermined thickness. This course of stabilizes the mesh and in addition creates a smooth and uniform surface.
Calendaring crushes the knuckles together on the wire mesh which eliminates the quantity of motion you get from the wires during your course of.
By calendaring the mesh earlier than using it, you possibly can see a serious improvement in repeatability in your prints by eliminating that movement during every go.
Cost
When it comes to purchasing stainless steel wire mesh for industrial filter mesh display printing, cost will differ depending on your precise wants, however you can expect to pay wherever from $3 -$15 sq/ft.
Listed here are a number of the questions you need to ask your self when fascinated by cost:
– What mesh rely do I need?
– Do I need my mesh calendared?
– Do I want it minimize to a sure size or on a roll?
If you recognize the answers to those questions you should have no issues getting a precise quote to your woven wire.
When Is a Stainless Steel Screen Not the best choice?
When it comes to selecting the best media on your display printing wants, it’s always dependent in your specific wants and your application.
Although stainless steel woven wire can be an ideal answer for thus many display printing functions, there are situations where different forms of media may be a better match.
1. If you are 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 flexibility to form to gentle surfaces.
2. Woven Wire mesh is often costlier than nylon or polyester. In the event you want the sturdiness and precise features of stainless steel woven wire, this makes it a terrific fit for you. Should you don’t want these options for your application, perhaps a synthetic material will be just right for you.
3. In case you are printing on very fragile materials like ceramics, wire mesh may damage the floor. That is another state of affairs where it may be better to go with a artificial materials.
Optimize Your Screen Printing Operation
Woven wire mesh supplies the tensioning capabilities, durability, value effectiveness, and accuracy wanted to thrive within the display printing. The benefits are what enable woven wire screen printing mesh to precisely disperse inks of all varieties.
From logos on product packaging to precise solder masks on circuit boards, woven wire screen printing mesh can be utilized to precisely depict the desired design. That said, the effectiveness of display printing operation relies on using the appropriate mesh count for the job.
With over 140 year of woven wire mesh expertise, W.S. Tyler has the expertise needed that will help you pinpoint the suitable mesh specifications and implement excessive-high quality mesh solutions.