Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Two dimensionally sectional layer – Next to unitary web or sheet of equal or greater extent
Patent
1997-03-04
1998-11-24
Evans, Elizabeth
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Two dimensionally sectional layer
Next to unitary web or sheet of equal or greater extent
428143, 428195, 428404, 428426, 428452, 156212, B32B 314
Patent
active
058403930
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
THIS INVENTION relates to a printable flexible sheet and particularly to a sheet containing components to provide it with sufficient paper-like qualities such as flexibility and printability but which sheet can be subsequently heated to fuse it to a substrate, such as glass or ceramic.
BACKGROUND ART
Printing or otherwise applying decorative and/or functional designs to a glass or ceramic substrate finds innumerable practical applications. The applications include preparation of coloured sheet glass, artificial stained glass, tableware, framed glass pictures and tinted glass. The print to be applied to the glass can be purely decorative but can also have functional properties such as reflectivity and opacity.
It is known to apply prints directly to rigid glass panes using screen printing, or even by hand painting. If ceramic-type pigments are used, the painted or printed glass pane can be subject to heat treatment to fuse the pigments to the glass. There are many disadvantages with the above techniques. Firstly, hand painting is time-consuming, requires a great deal of skill and does not lend itself to mass production. Also, hand painting does not allow identical patterns to be reproduced. Screen printing allows some degree of reproducability, but requires the glass plate to be held in a horizontal position as the print is applied. For large sheets, this requires expensive manufacturing equipment. Another disadvantage with the direct application of inks to glass is that fine resolution is not available for a number of reasons, including spreading of the ink on the glass surface. Glass and ceramic substrates do not absorb inks into their structure so any application of ink is purely a surface effect rather due to absorption of the ink into the substrate itself. Thus, this type of printing or painting does not lend itself to high quality decorative or functional designs. Another disadvantage is that the painted or printed glass pane must be more of less immediately fired to fuse the ink to the sheet, and cannot be stored or stacked without damage or smudging of the print.
It is also known to use sputtering principles, vacuum vapour evaporation, dip and spray coating techniques to coat glass panes with reflective or colouring elements. Each of these requires complicated and costly equipment, large floor areas to accommodate the equipment and does not generally lend itself to applying prints to only certain areas of the glass. The above techniques provide a layer of the desired product on the surface of the glass or ceramic substrate. Penetration of the coating into the substrate is negligible (eg. about 0.01-0.005 .mu.m).
Some of the abovementioned disadvantages have been overcome by using a printed plastic film. The film can be pre-printed using known printing techniques and can be stuck onto the glass or other substrate. A disadvantage with plastic films is that they cannot be fired to fuse the ink onto the glass or other substrate. Instead, the ink remains within the film. As the plastic film is relatively soft, it is susceptible to scratching or dulling. Application of the film requires care to avoid formation of air bubbles. Many plastic films are not resistant to UV degradation, are not heat resistant, and do not have optical properties making them suitable for window glass. Thus, plastic films attached to glass panes only find limited uses.
It is known to apply a plastic print or decal to a glass or ceramic surface and to subsequently coat it with a glaze prior to firing. The glaze hardens and provides a scratch-resistant surface over the plastic print. While this overcomes some of the disadvantages of an exposed plastic film, there are additional steps required to provide a glaze, and the plastic print can yellow, curl or carbonise during the firing step.
The present invention is directed to a flexible sheet which can be printed on with high definition, which can have desirable paper qualities of flexibility, ability to be stored on a roll, and which when applied to a substr
REFERENCES:
patent: 2970076 (1961-01-01), Porth
patent: 3007825 (1961-11-01), Cubberley
patent: 3894167 (1975-07-01), Kluge et al.
patent: 4383890 (1983-05-01), Oshima et al.
Evans Elizabeth
The University of Queensland
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