Tyler, we delight ourselves on the standard 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, we now have seen an countless amount of uses and industries use our mesh.
Some of those uses are extra present, or new, and some of these industries have been round without end.
One of those industries that have been around for a very long time the screen printing industry. There are a lot of sorts of media that can be utilized for the screen printing trade, but stainless steel mesh has proven to be one of the most efficient and cost efficient choices.
In this text, we’re going to dive into what makes stainless steel wire mesh such an excellent resolution for the display printing world in phrases of benefits, value and discovering the very best fit in your needs.
We are additionally going to cowl the conditions the place stainless steel mesh will not be the suitable match on your screen printing wants.
What is Screen Printing?
Screen printing is a printing method that makes use of mesh to transfer 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 components of the openings within the mesh to create a design on the floor being printed on.
When display screen printing originated, again in the 1600’s, silk screens had been used to switch the designs. The problem with utilizing silk as a screening media is that over time, it doesn’t hold up because it’s going to swell up and tear.
Today, the most typical media for display screen printing are polyester, nylon, and stainless steel.
At W.S. Tyler, we supply stainless steel woven wire mesh as screening media for this industry.
Benefits of Stainless Steel Wire for Screen Printing
In relation to display screen printing there are fairly a few reasons why stainless steel wire mesh is right.
Those advantages are:
Tension
Tension is very important to the display screen printing business. The media serving because the display screen is stretched tightly earlier than the squeegee with ink is run over the display screen.
Stainless steel has less than 1% elongation, while other materials, like nylon or polyester, have greater than 5%.
When you were to try to stretch nylon or different artificial supplies at certain tension levels, it can create rectangular openings which could tear and cause inconsistencies in your printing. Which means that stainless steel woven wire is able to be tensioned, or stretched, at very high rates with out altering the form of each individual opening.
Stability and Durability
Stainless steel wires are additionally extra stable than polyester or nylon.
Stainless steel woven wire can withstand arduous circumstances, even on the smaller opening sizes and thinner wire diameters.
With nylon or polyester, there is a restrict to how fantastic or skinny, you can get your particular person threads to be as a result of they can’t withstand the tension and stretch that is needed.
Stainless steel woven wire can get all the way down to a very small diameter of every wire and still have the ability to be stretched and tensioned without suffering any alterations to the mesh itself or your process.
Cost Savings
There are two predominant ways we have now seen stainless steel wire mesh scale back value in this trade.
The first is the accessible options with wire mesh in terms of weaves. These totally different patterns and weaves can
allow for more ink to be deposited in one cross, eliminating the need for a number of passes for every print.
Each time a cross is required, you risk not having it line up precisely with the final go and are additionally spending more in time and ink/paste.
The second price saving profit to stainless steel wire is if you’re using very expensive ink or pastes.
The wire diameter is critical to reducing prices in terms of paste or ink needed. Stainless steel wire mesh is ready to use a really restricted amount of paste to transfer.
Stainless steel could be made with very skinny particular person wires that nonetheless provide a really excessive connectivity.
When the quantity of paste needed might be lowered to a such an actual quantity, this will save firms utilizing costly paste, like silver within the solar industry, significant money.
Calendaring for Accuracy
One among the most important challenges with the screen printing process is motion inside the screen.
When the squeegee passes over the mesh throughout the display printing course of, it may possibly push the wires ahead. This will create discrepancies in each print. In case you had been to compare print number 1 to print number 1000, you will notice that they do not line up.
Calendaring the wire coustic mesh before it goes into production, can help scale back this motion that happens in the course of the printing process. Calendaring is the means of placing the wire mesh between rollers. Reduced to a predetermined thickness. This process stabilizes the mesh and likewise creates a smooth and uniform surface.
Calendaring crushes the knuckles collectively on the wire mesh which eliminates the quantity of motion you get from the wires throughout your process.
By calendaring the mesh before using it, you’ll be able to see a major enchancment in repeatability in your prints by eliminating that movement throughout every go.
Cost
When it comes to buying stainless steel wire mesh for display screen printing, value will differ relying on your precise needs, but you possibly can anticipate to pay wherever from $3 -$15 sq/ft.
Here are some of the questions it’s best to ask your self when desirous about price:
– What mesh rely do I want?
– Do I need my mesh calendared?
– Do I need it cut to a sure dimension or on a roll?
If you know the answers to those questions you should have no points getting an exact quote for your woven wire.
When Is a Stainless Steel Screen Not the only option?
When it comes to choosing the right media to your display screen printing wants, it is all the time dependent in your specific needs and your utility.
Although stainless steel woven wire may be an awesome solution for thus many screen printing functions, there are situations where other forms of media may be a better fit.
1. In case 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 mushy surfaces.
2. Woven Wire mesh is often dearer than nylon or polyester. In case you need the durability and industrial filter mesh precise features of stainless steel woven wire, coustic mesh review this makes it an excellent fit for you. When you don’t need those features in your utility, perhaps a artificial materials will give you the results you want.
3. If you’re printing on very fragile supplies like ceramics, wire mesh might injury the floor. Here’s more information about coustic mesh review review our own web-site. This is another scenario where it may be better to go with a synthetic materials.
Optimize Your Screen Printing Operation
Woven wire mesh provides the tensioning capabilities, sturdiness, cost effectiveness, and accuracy wanted to thrive within the display screen printing. The advantages are what allow woven wire screen printing mesh to accurately disperse inks of all varieties.
From logos on product packaging to exact solder masks on circuit boards, woven wire screen printing mesh can be used to precisely depict the desired design. That stated, the effectiveness of display printing operation relies on the usage of the best mesh rely for the job.
With over 140 yr of woven wire mesh experience, W.S. Tyler has the expertise wanted that can assist you pinpoint the precise mesh specs and implement high-high quality mesh solutions.