Today, screen printing is at the heart of many high-volume print jobs. Screen printing is the process of transferring a stencil design to a flat surface using ink, a screen, and a squeegee. The most common surfaces used in screen printing are paper and fabric, but you can also do screen printing on plastic, metal, glass, and wood. Let’s take a look at everything related to screen printing.
- How does screen printing on plastic work?
The simplest screen printing on the plastic process is to create a stencil on a mesh screen. Next, press paint or ink into this stencil to create an imprint of your design on the surface of your chosen material. If you apply a layer of framed ink, it can be dried before it can be used for another application. Despite the craftsmanship of recent years, screen printing has become more modern and we now have inks and machines that can achieve the highest quality results.
- Types of Screen Printing
- Spot Color Screen Printing
Spot Color Screen Printing is the most common method of printing T-shirts. Use standard colors of ink by printing through a screen template. Produces vibrant solid dots and thick ink layers, depending on the ink and number of meshes used.
- Raster Printing
Halftone printing prints individual colors in gradients. Use a single color of ink throughout the process and then half-tone that color, the colors appear different when viewed from a distance. This technique is amazing for giving the appearance of multicolor printing without actually doing multicolor printing.
- Grayscale printing
Grayscale printing is a great way to print full-color images as monochrome grayscale or halftones. You can print full-color photos in monotone half-tones. Full-color drawings with a full palette of different colors can also be created using monochrome halftones.
- Benefits of screen printing
- Bulk Order Friendly: One of the main advantages of screen printing on plastic is that it is an order-friendly process. It means that this method is ideal for large or bulk orders. Cloth manufacturing companies use this method to print a range of clothing quickly.
- Resistant to optical performance: With strong optical performance, You can print with the same gloss. (not affected by temperature or sunlight). It allows some stickers to be printed without an additional coating process.
- Screen Printing Applications
Screen printing is unique to other printing techniques as designs can be applied to materials of all shapes, sizes, and thicknesses. As a result, screen printing is utilized in many different ways, including:
- Designs on clothing
- Medical devices
- Decals and stickers
- Balloon
- Products labels
- Signage
- Displays
- Merchandise
- Textile fabric designs
- Sports products
The Final Takeaway
In summary, screen printing on plastic is a great way to create great prints. You can easily make the perfect printing for school projects or business items. It is one of the best techniques used by artists and printers.