Here is a Detailed Project Report on the Screen Printing Ink & Water Based Ink, its process, market position, demands, investment opportunity and project financials. It comprises a comprehensive analysis of the industry. The report also includes plant capacity, requirement of land and building, raw material detail with supplier list, plant & machinery, flow sheet diagram, total Capital investment along with detailed calculation on rate of return, break-even analysis and profitability analysis. We all wear clothes, obviously! Many of our clothes have prints on them. Some of them have animals, scenery, your favorite bands, superheroes, super villains, iconic dialogues from a movie and tv series, etc. Now these are printed using ink. Now there are two types of ink available in the market, Water based ink and Plastisol based ink. And there are two ways to print, Screen Printing & digital Printing.
In this report, we shall talk about their differences, the market of Water based ink and Screen Printing, also the process of screen printing and how it is different from digital printing and how water based ink is different from Plastisol based ink.
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What is Screen Printing?
Screen Printing is a technique used to print designs on clothes using a mesh. Screen Printing has a lot of names such as silk screen printing, as they originally used silk in the process. It was also called Serigraphy or Serigraph printing because Sericum is Latin for Silk and graphein means to draw, hence Serigraphy literally means to draw with silk. It was originally used by the Chinese under the Song Dynasty, which reigned from 960 AD to 1279 AD. It was also adopted by other Asian countries around China, such as Japan and they updated the techniques. It was introduced to the West during the 18th century but it wasn’t until the 20th century that Screen Printing got popular among white people. It was due to the accessibility to silk in Europe that made it so unpopular in 18th century Europe. But when the trade began after the Industrial revolution the west was able to access the exclusive Asian material, i.e silk.
How to Screen Printing on a fabric?
Screen Printing is Process where a design is pressed on the fabric using a wooden frame with a mesh attached to it. But here’s how to screen print on fabric. But before that let’s gather the components needed for Screen Printing.
- A Wooden Frame: The wooden frame is actually called Screen Printing frame. It is a wooden frame with a woven mesh attached to it. It comes in different sizes. The standard size is 12.5 inch wide and 14 inch tall. But it is up to you.
- A Squeegee: Now when you put ink on the mesh, it doesn’t just flow through the mesh. For that we use squeegee. It helps with spreading the paint evenly, through the mesh onto the fabric. It also keeps the work station from getting messy.
- Paint: The last component is paint, now there are three types of paints, plastisol, water based and discharged. But we will get into them later and understand them better.
Now that we have all our components, let’s start with designing our clothes with screen printing.
Now to print the design on a fabric using Screen printing you need to design and print it on a sticky film then stick it to the backside of the Screen printing frame, or the screen. When you stick the Film and the Screen together, put some weight on it and keep it overnight or at least a few hours before you start, so that the film sticks to the screen firmly and it doesn’t fall mid production.
Now we put the ink on the screen that has the design stuck on it and the fabric below. Now the amount of ink depends on the production size and design. But you can always refill and reload. Use the ink you want your fabric to have, but the original colour of your fabric must be the one you plan for your design. And once the ink is on the Screen printing frame, comes the last step.
To print the colour and design on your fabric, you need a squeegee and spread the colour all over the screen printing frame until it’s covered, edge to edge. It is important to move the squeegee in the same direction for even spread of colour and minimum leakage. As you move your squeegee the colour or paint start to pour on the fabric through these tiny holes in the mesh. Now these holes are extremely tiny, so you need to push a lot harder for the paint to go through it.
Now once you’re done with printing the colour on your fabric, you can take it off your screen printing frame. But you have to do it delicately and try not to pull it apart. As at this moment, the fabric is tightly sticking to the screen printing frame and needs to be kept closely and pulled not away from the screen printing frame but downward from it. Once you pull it away, you can dry the fabric and heat it to dry the paint.
And that is how clothes are screen printed.
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What is Digital Printing?
Digital Printing is computerized printing. Unlike screen printing, which is a manual printing device, digital printing is automatic and used for large productions in many industries. To digitally print on fabric, the manufacturers use a huge machine, in which the design is uploaded and fabric is inserted. Then this machine starts rolling the device and pouring colours in the uploaded design shape.
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Difference between Digital Printing and Screen Printing.
- Screen Printing takes a lot of time.
The major difference between Screen Printing and digital printing is the time consumption. Digital printing is time friendly and fast, whereas Screen printing consumes loads and loads of hours. As a business, time is an extremely vital asset, you cannot waste it. And that is why many entrepreneurs prefer digital printing over screen printing.
- Digital Printing isn’t customisation friendly.
Unlike Screen printing, digital printing is programmed to produce certain designs. Which means it cannot customise as per the wishes of the customer. That is exactly why small clothes manufacturers who are into the custom clothes business, prefer screen printing over digital printing.
- Screen Printing costs a lot per fabric.
Digital printing can mass produce a design, unlike screen printing, where you need to wash the screen print frame and need different frames for design and a lot of films. Digital printing doesn’t need any of it, all it needs is the design and ink refills with different colors.
- Digital Printing isn’t versatile.
You can’t just digital print on any type of fabric, it only works on cotton and cotton blend. But unlike digital printing, Screen printing works on all types of fabrics and other materials.
So these are some major differences between Screen Printing and Digital Printing. Now that we have learned about the inks that are used.
What is Water based Ink?
As the name might suggest, water based ink is an ink that is made out of water. Now even though it’s called Water based ink, it isn’t completely made out of water. There are two main components in water based ink, one is obviously the water the second is pigment. Now Pigment based ink doesn’t sound that good, does it?
Water based ink is a great alternative to Plastic based ink. Not only is water based ink cheaper, it is also eco-friendly and nontoxic. And unlike plastisol ink, water based ink seeps in the clothes rather than sticking to it.
What is Plastisol Ink?
Plastisol is a polyvinyl chloride, also famously known as PVC based ink, used mainly in garment printing because of its long life and thickness. It is one of the most used ink in screen printing.
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Difference between Plastisol Ink and Water based ink.
- Water based ink is lighter and softer than Plastisol Ink.
Water based ink is lighter and softer than plastisol ink. When you see a T-shirt with plastisol ink print, you can touch and feel it has a rough and heavy hand to it. In printing language, hand means feel. Whereas Water based ink prints have a lighter and softer hand to it.
- Plastisol Inks are more accurate in colour.
Plastisol is extremely accurate with colours. If you ask for maroon colour, that’s exactly the colour you’ll find in Plastisol inks, but sadly the same can’t be said for the water based ink. The colour accuracy is low in water ink and you don’t get many colour options.
- Water based inks are Eco-friendly.
Now let’s start with pointing out, water based inks are not 100% eco-friendly. The goal is not to completely stop pollution and climate change but to reduce it. It is partially because, it can’t be done, and you can’t completely save the planet. Nothing on this planet is 100 % eco-friendly. But Water based ink is less toxic than PVC based inks. Many companies are promoting Water based inks to reduce the impact plastisol inks have on the environment.
- Plastisol Inks are cheaper than water based ink.
Plastisol is way cheaper than water based ink. When thinking of a business as important as it is to think about the planet, it is also important to think about finance. Because not only does expensive ink hurt the manufacturer’s pocket, it also hurts the consumer’s pocket. Using expensive ink means it will charge more money to print and it will raise the cost of the final product.
And these are some of the differences between Plastisol ink and water based ink.
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Durability & Quality of both inks.
As a consumer you want your clothes to be long lasting and their design to not just wear off after two weeks. The quality of the ink used is an important part of this problem. Now when it comes to durability of the inks and their lifespan, both inks are comparable. They both have an equally long lifespan. As the water based colour seeps right into the fabric, it stays as long as the t-shirt stays. The plastisol ink on the other hand is bonded to the clothes as well, so they have a long life span that equals to the lifespan of the clothes. Now the important thing to remember here is that the quality of the ink and printing differs and that will definitely affect the durability of the print. The fabric quality and type also plays a major role in defining the durability of the ink and the print. Aside from that, another reason for bad durability is how the owner of the fabric takes care of it. If you wash it with hot water or put a lot of bleach every week. No matter which ink is used in the print both will fade out.
Indian Market Analysis.
Now Screen printing, Plastisol Ink and Water based inks have a huge business potential but it will cost a lot. One can set up a unit of Screen printing Clothes, with enough screen printing frames and colours and workers and start their own clothing brand. The other option with the inks is opening a B2B business, where a manufacturer could manufacture the inks and sell them to clothing brands in a pre-agreed contract deal.
The last option is obviously the B2C business. Selling customized clothes to the customers directly. We at Entrepreneur India provide exhaustive information on the sector/business you plan to pursue, we ensure your startup meets all the rules and regulations. Our market research reports as well as our project counselling provides you with new insights which not only gives you a humongous head start, but also helps accelerate growth.
The Project report presented by Entrepreneur India for new businesses includes a broad commercial centre investigation. The report covers region wise patterns trending in the sector, overseas trade, and the regulatory framework with complete SWOT analysis of the business.
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