Tyler, we satisfaction ourselves on the quality and versatility of our stainless steel woven wire mesh. As a company that has been weaving and dealing with stainless steel wire for over 50 years, we now have seen an limitless amount of makes use of and industries use our mesh.
A few of these makes use of are extra current, or new, and some of these industries have been round eternally.
A kind of industries which were around for a long time the display printing trade. There are many sorts of media that can be used for the screen printing business, but stainless steel mesh has proven to be one of the most effective and cost efficient choices.
In this article, we are going to dive into what makes stainless steel wire mesh such a fantastic resolution for the screen printing world in phrases of benefits, cost and finding the most effective match to your needs.
We’re additionally going to cover the conditions the place stainless steel mesh may not be the suitable fit in your screen printing wants.
What is Screen Printing?
Screen printing is a printing technique 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 elements 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 have been used to switch the designs. The issue with utilizing silk as a screening media is that over time, it doesn’t hold up as a result of it should swell up and tear.
Today, the commonest media for display screen printing are polyester, nylon, and stainless steel.
At W.S. Tyler, we provide stainless steel woven wire mesh as screening media for this industry.
Benefits of Stainless Steel Wire for Screen Printing
Relating to screen printing there are quite a couple of explanation why stainless steel wire mesh is good.
Those benefits 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 display screen.
Stainless steel has less than 1% elongation, while different supplies, like nylon or polyester, coustic mesh have more than 5%.
When you have been to attempt to stretch nylon or different synthetic materials at certain tension levels, it can create rectangular openings which could tear and cause inconsistencies in your printing. Which means stainless steel woven wire is able to be tensioned, or stretched, at very excessive charges with out changing the shape of each individual opening.
Stability and Durability
Stainless steel wires are additionally more stable than polyester or nylon.
Stainless steel woven wire can withstand exhausting situations, even at the smaller opening sizes and thinner wire diameters.
With nylon or polyester, there is a restrict to how fine or thin, you can get your individual threads to be as a result of they cannot withstand the tension and stretch that is required.
Stainless steel woven wire can get down to a really small diameter of each wire and nonetheless be capable of be stretched and tensioned with out suffering any alterations to the mesh itself or your course of.
Cost Savings
There are two important methods we’ve seen stainless steel wire mesh scale back value in this trade.
The primary is the accessible options with wire mesh when it comes to weaves. These totally different patterns and weaves can
enable for extra ink to be deposited in a single cross, eliminating the necessity for a number of passes for each print.
Each time a go is needed, you danger not having it line up exactly with the last pass and are also spending more in time and ink/paste.
The second value saving benefit to stainless steel wire is if you are utilizing very costly ink or pastes.
The wire diameter is essential to decreasing prices by way of paste or ink wanted. Stainless steel wire mesh is ready to use a really restricted amount of paste to transfer.
Stainless steel can be made with very thin individual wires that still offer a really high connectivity.
When the amount of paste needed can be reduced to a such an actual quantity, this could save companies using expensive paste, like silver within the photo voltaic business, important money.
Calendaring for Accuracy
One among the most important challenges with the display printing process is motion within the screen.
When the squeegee passes over the mesh throughout the display screen printing process, it might push the wires ahead. This can create discrepancies in each print. If you were to match print #1 to print quantity 1000, you will note that they do not line up.
Calendaring the wire mesh before it goes into manufacturing, will help reduce this motion that happens during the printing course of. Calendaring is the technique of placing the wire mesh between rollers. Reduced to a predetermined thickness. This course of stabilizes the mesh and also creates a clean 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 course of.
By calendaring the mesh earlier than using it, you possibly can see a serious enchancment in repeatability in your prints by eliminating that movement throughout each pass.
Cost
When it comes to buying stainless steel wire mesh for screen printing, value will differ depending on your exact wants, but you can anticipate to pay anywhere from $three -$15 sq/ft.
Here are a few of the questions you must ask your self when eager about value:
– What mesh depend do I need?
– Do I want my mesh calendared?
– Do I want it lower to a sure measurement or on a roll?
If you realize the solutions to those questions you shouldn’t have any points getting an actual quote for your woven wire.
When Is a Stainless Steel Screen Not the only option?
In relation to choosing the proper media to your screen printing wants, it’s all the time dependent on your specific wants and your software.
Although stainless steel woven wire may be a great resolution for so many display printing applications, there are situations where different sorts of media could also be a greater 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 power to type to delicate surfaces.
2. Woven Wire mesh is usually costlier than nylon or polyester. In the event you need the sturdiness and exact options of stainless steel woven wire, this makes it a fantastic match for you. In case you don’t need those features for your utility, maybe a artificial material will work for you.
3. If you are printing on very fragile materials like ceramics, wire mesh might harm the surface. This is one other situation the place it could also be higher to go with a artificial materials.
Optimize Your Screen Printing Operation
Woven wire mesh offers the tensioning capabilities, durability, cost effectiveness, and accuracy wanted to thrive in the display screen printing. The advantages are what allow woven wire screen Printing Mesh – 4Mark.net, 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 used to precisely depict the desired design. That said, the effectiveness of display printing operation relies on the use of the proper mesh rely for the job.
With over 140 12 months of woven wire mesh experience, W.S. Tyler has the expertise needed to help you pinpoint the precise mesh specs and implement excessive-quality mesh solutions.