Fabric post processing: Post treatments are associated with the printing operationl; examples are baking, steaming, and washing.
These processes are similar to conventional textile prints, except that the process is undertaken with a much smaller batch size, typically a few tens of meters or even a single sample length.
One barrier to new entrants is the need to finish after printing, in order to develop and fix the colors to the acceptable industry standards of wash, rub and light fastness, handle and appearance. Often there is a need for soil, stain and crease resistant finishes. Such processes call for the use of specialized capital equipment such as steamers, washers, driers, bakers and stenters. Apart from the cost and space requirements, many new potential users of inkjet technology have neither the know-how nor inclination to embark upon conventional textile processing in this way. Some suppliers of inkjet equipment or suppliers of pretreated fabrics now offer smal desk top steamers capable of handling short sample lengths of printed fabric. However, these are far from ideal even for small scale production and still leave many aspects of fabric finish and performance uncontrolled, for example shrinkage amd final width.
|
