Ink jet textile printing apparatus and method

Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Medium and processing means

Reexamination Certificate

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

C347S101000, C347S103000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06460992

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to textile printing, and more particularly to textile printing with an inkjet printer.
BACKGROUND
Textile printing generally requires a substantial investment in time and resources to set up printing screens for a single production run of material. Switching printing machinery to production of a different design requires similar investments, and revising a design also entails the cost to produce new screens.
To permit short production runs and prototyping of designs without major investment, printing systems have been developed that employ computer printers to generate a pattern of thermally-activated dye-bearing ink on a transfer surface, which is later applied to textile material in conjunction with high temperatures to activate the dye. This permits nearly instantaneous creation and revision of designs in the form of printable multicolor transfer sheets, with out the preparation of conventional printing screens. When the printer is a thermal ink jet printer, printing occurs at temperatures below that which would activate the dye. Thermally-activated dyes are suitable only for printing synthetic fabrics, and are unsuitable for natural fibers such as cotton, which do not absorb the dyes fully, and which therefore produce an unacceptably faded print.
Cotton and other natural fiber or cellulosic fiber textiles are normally printed with reactive dyes by screening the reactive ink pastes directly onto dry fabric, which typically will have been pretreated with an alkali solution or comparable pretreatment. The fabric is then typically heat treated with steam to cause the dyes to bond with the fabric.
SUMMARY
A method of printing includes coating a transfer sheet with a first ink component that has an ink thickener; and operating an ink jet printing apparatus to emit a second ink component onto the transfer sheet to form a thickened resulting ink in a selected pattern. The second ink component has a selected dye and a selected solvent in which the thickener is soluble.
Many of the attendant features of this invention will be more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description and considered in connection with the accompanying drawings in which like reference symbols designate like parts throughout.


REFERENCES:
patent: 3952131 (1976-04-01), Sideman
patent: 4040779 (1977-08-01), Loew et al.
patent: 4058644 (1977-11-01), DeVries et al.
patent: 4132833 (1979-01-01), Sandhu
patent: 4294641 (1981-10-01), Reed et al.
patent: 4395263 (1983-07-01), Davis
patent: 4664670 (1987-05-01), Mehl et al.
patent: 4758952 (1988-07-01), Harris, Jr. et al.
patent: 4767420 (1988-08-01), Mehl et al.
patent: 4773953 (1988-09-01), Hare
patent: 4844770 (1989-07-01), Shiraishi et al.
patent: 4966815 (1990-10-01), Hare
patent: 5006502 (1991-04-01), Fujimura
patent: 5196030 (1993-03-01), Akerblom et al.
patent: 5270507 (1993-12-01), Nakamura et al.
patent: 5296444 (1994-03-01), Saiki et al.
patent: 5431501 (1995-07-01), Hale et al.
patent: 5488907 (1996-02-01), Xu et al.
patent: 5568173 (1996-10-01), Leenders et al.
patent: 5635969 (1997-06-01), Allen
patent: 5764261 (1998-06-01), Koike et al.
patent: 5981045 (1999-11-01), Kuwabara
patent: 2521489 (1983-08-01), None
patent: 2095855 (1982-10-01), None
patent: 2189436 (1987-10-01), None
patent: 54-33110 (1979-03-01), None
patent: 8-2688 (1986-01-01), None
patent: 07145576 (1995-06-01), None
“Kusters Transfer Printing Machine” Brochure, By: Kusters of Milano-Itma '95—Milano-Halle 7/1, Oct. 1995.
“Cotton Art—Dansk Reactive Transfer Printing On Natural Fibers” Brochure, By: Cotton Art-Dansk of Denmark, MarsveJ 7-9, DK-7430 Ikast, Denmark.
Jeffries, Walter V., Serendipity -How To Stay Busy Without Even Trying, Flash Magazine, Sep. 1995, pp. 8-9.

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for the USA inventors and patents. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Ink jet textile printing apparatus and method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Ink jet textile printing apparatus and method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ink jet textile printing apparatus and method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2979547

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.