Continuing the general theme of the last seminar of adding value to nonwoven products, two of the eight papers concerned printing and further processing of nonwovens.

The first of these was presented by Mike Ingram, managing director of Sharps Fabric Printers, Leeds, UK.

Mr Ingram has just led a management buy-out of this operation from Leeds Group, which it became part of in 1987.

The company’s flexible and pro-active approach to rotary and transfer printing has allowed it to find many niche markets, Mr Ingram told the conference, in the fields of casual wear, pram linings, children’s wear and leisure wear, among others.

“Flexibility has been the key element in our success over the past couple of decades,” he said. “We are looking to change things all the time to find new opportunites and to add value to products.”

It is one of the few textile printing companies with extensive knowledge of printing on nonwovens, and Mr Ingram displayed samples of a range of spunbond and needlepunch materials which carried added-value designs.

The development areas he urged nonwovens manufacturers to consider included anti-fungal and anti-bacterial treatments, brushing, coating, embossing and waterproofing products for a range of markets including nursery, garden furniture, industrial, footwear and wallcoverings.

For reflective safety products Sharps has also developed a special technique of printing specific designs on reflective beads and also provides both conventional and laser engraving to produce special printing effects.

Another company with wide experience of printing nonwovens is Castle Industries, part of the Cha Technologies group.

This operation has two plants at Ballasalla on the Isle of Man and in Greenville, South Carolina. Its technology includes three wide rotary machines (up to 330cm) and three narrow rotary machines. In addition, it already has six digital ink-jet printers, with plans to install another two more such machines in the near future. Print technologies employed are mainly transfer paper and direct pigment printing.

By far the biggest disadvantage for rotary screen printing was the cost of the screens, said Brian Stamper, formerly with Cosmopolitan, now with Cha Technologies and speaking on behalf of Castle.

“Setting up a screen is very time consuming and for a wide width, 10-colour design can cost up to £3,000,” he said. This makes it very expensive to design a full collection, without knowing which of thge designs will sell.”

Other disadvantages he said, were the colour limitations, the length of the whole printing cycle and the need to utilise the machine to make it profitable, when run lengths were reducing all the time, and in Europe were on average below 1,000 metres. “It is difficult to get over 40% utilisation of these machines,” he said.

Advantages, however, were that the equipment was already in place, and many designs were in existence, and on long runs the process was relatively inexpensive.

By contrast, digital printing eliminates the need for screens, allows unlimited colours, makes short runs and rapid response possible as well as permitting the scale and size of printing to be changed.

The disadvantage up until now has been th espeed of these machines, but this is now increasing and up to 30 square metres an hour is possible, which Mr Stamper viewed as highly significant.

“Now it will be possible to achieve a much higher degree of machine utilisation,” he said, “but at the same time, this is a rapidly changing technology so investments could very quickly become outdated and uncompetitive.

Markets for digital printing that are developing include banners and posters, sampling (both paper and fabric), room sets and short run specialist products.

“It is very likelt that in the next decade there will be an explosion of small operations running these machines solely for short-run production, ”he said.

Mr Stamper went on to discuss the characteristics of nonwovens in relation to printing. Stitchbonded materials acted like woven fabrics, so were easy to process, while hydroentangled materials were too flexible and difficult to control, as were needlepunched materials, while spunbonds exhibited no flexibility at all.

Examples of specialist products from Castle Printing included table covers for casinos, both in the US and Europe, which were given personalised colours and logos.

Chemically-bonded pan scrubs were also given the logo of their manufacturer via transfer paper to their polyester surfaces. Amazingly, this was said to have increased their sales by around 40%. “Any differentiation is an advantage in the marketplace,” Mr Stamper observed.

A range of banners could be produced by the digital route on polyester spunbonds and hydroentangled materials were being pigment printed for window blinds.

Castle is also supplying transfer paper camouflage prints for use in automotive parts and packaging, and most significantly, has been working with PGI and one of its customers on Miratec materials which will replace woven materials on the top of beds, which “if successful will mean millions of metres.”

June-July 2001

April-May 2001

January-March 2001

January 2000