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What is ceramic dinnerware printing?

dinnerware printing

There are all kinds of ceramic dinnerware on the market. Some designs are hand-painted, some are affixed with stickers, and some are printed with a machine rubber head.

Decal technology types

Generally, there are two processes for patterns on ceramic tableware, one is manual applique, and the other is machine pad printing.

What are the advantages of patterns printed with a ceramic transfer rubber head?

Factory ceramic printing process (pad printing process) ceramic tableware patterns can increase production volume, reduce labor costs, and can also be applied to product patterns of various types of vessels. Moreover, the printed patterns have bright color differences, clear patterns and textures, good resilience, aging resistance, and many printing times.

Machine pad printing process

How pad printing works

The graphic content of pad printing needs to be engraved on the steel plate first. There are two methods: laser engraving and etching. The transfer head is made of elastic silicone and will be made into various shapes according to the need to transfer the graphics and text on the steel plate to the product. , realized through a silicone head, but the silicone head will deform during the imprinting process, which will cause the printed pattern to also deform, so debugging is a very troublesome process before mass printing.

pad print technique

First, apply the ink on the etching plate, scrape off the excess ink with a telescopic scraper, and the remaining ink will remain in the pits of the etching plate. Press the hard head up to stick the ink in the concave plate to the surface, and then press it onto the surface of the product. Once, the ink on the concave plate remains on the product, the pad printing process is completed.

pad print technique

Most of our common pad printing is single-color pad printing, so how is double-color or multi-color pad printing done? In the past, one color was printed first, the ink was cleaned, and then another ink was changed. This is inefficient and prone to inaccurate color registration. Some machines now can do up to 12 color registrations, with one transfer head for each color. In this way, the product can be printed with all the colors in one go, which not only improves efficiency but also makes color registration more accurate.

Click on the video to understand intuitively what is machine pad printing.

Handmade decals printing

Ceramic decal printing technology is the most widely used modification technique for modern ceramics. It integrates pattern decoration, color, and shape into ceramics to form arts and crafts, which is the perfect combination of practicality and art. We generally see a layer of yellow film on the decal paper. Generally, under the influence of the film, the color of the decal paper looks a little different, which needs to be posted. Handmade stickers generally require workers to soak the floral paper in a clean water tank and soak it for a while. The carton film will be separated, and then the film will be removed and directly pasted on the ceramic product, and then a rubber scraper will be used on the surface. Scrape repeatedly. After drying, it can be placed directly in the flower baking kiln. It needs to be baked at a high temperature of 780-800°C to show its specific color and be closely integrated with the ceramic glaze.

handmade decals