PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN AND APPLICATION

Lesson 10: Methods of Producing Designs on Textiles: Printing, Dyeing & Painting

Printing

• Block Printing
  
  
• Roller Printing: Roller printing is superior to other types of printing for fine or precise designs. However, roller printing requires skilled labor and much heavy manual work in the changing of the colour troughs and rollers. The initial investment of time and money in the preparation of rollers for roller printing and in setting up the machine is such that production of small quantities of printed cloth is not economical. Roller printing is used more advantageously for lengthy runs of the same pattern. The rollers are made of copper plated with chromium for durability. The design of each colour is transferred accurately to the roller by one of several processes. Once the rollers have been prepared, they are installed in exact position on the printing machine. The fabric, to be printed, moves over a rotating drum. The printing roller then rotates against the cloth and the design is im­printed. The fabric moves on to the second roller where a second colour is imprinted, and so on, in a continuous printing operation. Rollers must be aligned perfectly to keep the print in registration. If roll­ers are not positioned correctly, the resulting print will have one or more colours that do not fall in quite the correct position, causing the print to be distorted.
  
  

  The advantages of roller printing over other printing techniques are :

  1. Its productivity is high. It can print 10,000 to 12,000 yards in one day of ten hours by a single-colour machine;
  2. Copperplate engravings of rollers can reproduce every style of design ranging from the fine delicate lines to large and bold prints
  3. Elaborate multicolour pattern can be fitted into its proper place without faulty joints at its points of repetition.
     
     
• Screen Printing
  
  
• Resist Printing
  
  
• Warp Printing: In warp printing, a design is printed onto the warp yarns by a roller printing device prior to the interlacing of the fillings. The patterns are clearly visible in the warp threads on the loom even before the plain coloured weft is introduced to produce the fabric. The resulting fabric has a hazy and shadowy design effect.
  
  
• Discharge Printing
  
  
• Heat Transfer Printing
  
  
• Stencil Printing