The Netherlands-based textile and graphics printing equipment supplier Stork Prints BV has developed a new hybrid screen for the textile printing market. The new NovaScreen® 195-19% is a combination of the existing open area NovaScreen 165 (mesh) screen and the high-resolution NovaScreen 195 (mesh) screen. The hybrid screen offers printers that require voluminous paste supply a high-resolution option with improved paste flow and printability.
Stork reports primary benefits of the new screen include: high screen volume and high printing resolution; improved surface printing; and benefits in geometric printing.
A unique electroforming process allows Stork to control nickel growth during screen production and push the ratio between hole size, mesh count and thickness of the screen beyond conventional boundaries. By keeping the nickel growth mostly toward the top of the screen, the dam shape stays thin and streamlined. A comparison of thickness, open area and hole size for the 4 NovaScreen types are shown in Table 1.
Stork reports that a smaller, more streamlined dam shape increases the chance of paste flowing beneath the dam with lower squeegee pressure, thus creating a more even spread of paste on the textile substrate. This even paste flow makes the screen suitable for pigment printing and penetrative printing; the look and straightness of geometric and engraved prints is improved; and improved rasterisations with dot definition generate quality halftone impressions.
