Company Info
Jiangyin Tianyu Nickel Screen Co., LtdAdd:No.121 Yongan Road, Changshou, Jiangyin City, Jiangsu Province, P.R.China
Tel: 86-510-86360099
Fax: 86-510-86966716
Email:barry@tynickelscreen.com
www.tynickelscreen.com
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Textile Printing Properties-Fabric Constructions ---TIANYU Rotary Screen Printing Solutions
Edit time: 2009-11-02
Fabric Constructions Fabric construction properties also impact the properties of the final printed fabric as well as the printing process itself. For example, wovens are normally easier to print than knits. The main reason for this statement is because typically woven fabrics are much more dimensionally stable than knits. Fabric distortion or “shift” is a major contributor to out-of-registration prints or misprinting in multicolor textile prints. Because wovens are an interlacing of yarns while knits are interlacing loops of yarn, there is a wide variety of knit fabric structures with varying dimensional stability properties. However, woven fabrics are generally stable.
Also, fabrics with a flat surface print more easily than fabrics with pile surface. A good example of this difference is to compare the typical printing process for sheets with that of bath towels. Sheets are normally printed on flat or rotary screen-printing machines and typically require a single squeegee stroke for the printing process. In contrast, bath towels are usually printed on flat screen-printing machines and may require as many as four squeegee strokes to force the print color down into the fabric pile. The extra squeegee strokes severely limit the printing production
speed for towel fabric. Any fabric with surface texture will present more printing issues than a comparable flat surface fabric. Additionally, thin or sheer fabric constructions may present printing problems compared to thicker fabric constructions of the same fiber content.
The golden rule in the dyeing of textiles is that “a well-prepared fabric is a fabric half-dyed.” This simply indicates the importance good fabric preparation plays in producing high quality final products. For textile printing, especially for cotton fabrics, quality fabric preparation is crucial for quality printing. It has been reported that as many as 60% of textile printing defects can be traced to fabric preparation problems. Often, the company that prints the fabric is not the one that prepares the fabric. When textile goods are prepared for printing, they are normally referred to as PFP goods (prepare for printing). Preparation processes vary widely depending on the fiber content, yarn type, and fabric construction. In the case of cotton, the minimum PFP sequence would include scouring and bleaching. Scouring removes all dirt, oil, and grease from the fabric and is necessary for uniform water absorption and dye penetration. Bleaching destroys all the naturally occurring color in the fabric and is necessary to provide a uniform white fabric
base to allow for optimum print color brightness and reproducibility. It is essential after either one of these processes is completed that adequate rinsing be done to wash away the trash that was removed or chemistry that was used. A clean fabric will ensure that the next wet process can be done without interference from unwanted residual components.
For woven fabrics, the size applied to the warp yarns during weaving can interfere with the penetration and fixation of print color. Therefore, desizing – the removal of warp size – becomes an additional necessary preparation process. For very high-quality printed cotton goods, either knits or wovens, mercerization may be an additional preparation process. Mercerization improves the smoothness, dimensional stability, strength, dye uptake, and luster of cotton
fabrics. Mercerized cotton prints normally exhibit maximum color brightness and improved colorfastness for a given dye. For extremely hairy or fuzzy yarns or fabrics, singeing or the burning off of the surface, may be an additional step required in the preparation process. Regardless of what the preparation sequence for a particular fiber content and fabric construction may be, it is crucial that preparation processing be consistent, uniform, and repeatable. Any
variability in the prepared fabric leads directly to poor print quality or printing defects. The importance of high-quality fabric preparation for printing cannot be overstated.
