Printing process of fabric

Basic concepts of printing

Printing: The process of printing flower patterns with certain color fastness on textile fabrics with dyes or pigments.

Classification of printed matter
The objects of printing are mainly fabrics and yarns. The former attaches the pattern directly to the fabric, so the pattern is clear. The latter is to print the pattern on the parallel arranged yarn assembly, and make the fabric produce a hazy pattern effect after weaving.

Difference between printing and dyeing
1. Dyeing is to evenly dye the fabric to obtain a single color. Printing is to print one or more color patterns on the same textile, which is actually local dyeing.
2. Dyeing is to mix the dye into a dye solution and dye the fabric with water as the medium. However, printing uses the size as the dyeing medium to match the dye or pigment into the printing paste and print it on the fabric. After drying, steaming, color rendering and other subsequent processing are carried out according to the nature of the dye or color to dye or fix it on the fiber, and finally soaping and washing are carried out to remove the floating color and the paint and chemical agent in the paste.

Printing pretreatment
Similar to the dyeing process, the fabric must be pretreated before printing to obtain good wettability so that the color paste can enter the fiber evenly. Plastic fabrics such as polyester sometimes need to undergo heat setting to reduce shrinkage deformation during printing.

Printing method
According to the printing process, there are direct printing, anti-dyeing printing and discharge printing; According to printing equipment, there are mainly roller printing, screen printing and transfer printing. From the perspective of printing methods, there are manual printing and mechanical printing. Mechanical printing mainly includes screen printing, roller printing, transfer printing and jet printing. The first two types of printing are more common

Printing methods and characteristics
According to printing equipment, fabric printing can be divided into: screen printing, roller printing, heat transfer printing, wood template printing, hollow stencil printing, tie printing, batik printing, splash printing, hand-painted printing, etc. There are two commercially important printing methods: screen printing and roller printing. The third method is heat transfer printing, which is of relatively low importance. Other printing methods rarely used in textile production, such as traditional wood template printing, wax vale (i.e. wax proofing) printing, yarn tie-dyed fabric printing and anti-dyeing printing. Many textile printing factories mostly use screen printing and roller printing to print fabrics. Most heat transfer printing carried out by the printing factory is also printed in this way.

Traditional printing technology
1. Wood template printing: the method of printing embossed wood on the fabric.
2. Hollow version printing: It is mainly divided into three categories: hollow version white paste anti-dyeing indigo printing, hollow version white paste anti-dyeing paste printing and hollow version color paste direct printing.
3. Tie-dyeing printing: bind the embryo cloth with thread rope, sew it into a certain fold, and then bind it firmly, and get the pattern after dyeing.
4. Wax printing: paint the parts of cotton cloth, silk and other fabrics that need to show the pattern, and then dip or brush dyeing to make the wax-free parts of the fabric dyed into color, and then remove the wax stains in boiling water or specific solvents to make the fabric show the pattern.
5. Splash printing: use acid dyes to splash or brush the color on the silk fabric at will, and then sprinkle salt on the screen when it is not dry. With the neutralization of salt and acid dyes, form a naturally flowing abstract pattern on the silk. Commonly used in silk.
6. Hand-painted printing: A printing method that directly uses a pen to dip the dye solution to draw patterns on the fabric.