Printing – Stenciling – Processes
Patent
1997-12-01
2000-06-06
Hilten, John S.
Printing
Stenciling
Processes
101126, 101 401, B41F 1714
Patent
active
060705248
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For the decorating of glass articles with paint, such as bottles, jars and similar articles, it is necessary to take them to the loading station of a decorating machine where these articles are clamped and transferred to one or two decorating stations and finally, once these articles have been decorated, are transported to an lehr, so the paint, by means of heat, will adhere to the recently decorated articles.
One of the better known techniques for bottle or jar decoration is the screen process. In this process, the bottles or jars are transported by their ends to a decorating machine that includes a paint reservoir with a screen or stencil in the lower section. Each screen includes a decorating pattern in accordance to the design that one desires to print on the container.
By means of this process, once the bottle is set up in horizontal position in the first printing station of the decorating machine, it is rotated on supporting members located on the top and bottom ends of the bottle, it is moved towards a printing frame that has a decorating screen. The support members are arranged opposite one to the other leaving a space between them to receive the bottle. A squeegee or applicator on the upper part of the printing frame presses the decorating screen assuring that the paint is applied correctly on the profile or section desired on the bottle when this is rotated over the screen.
One of the main decorating machines of the previous art, is generally made up of a support structure, a driving shaft set horizontally between the supporting structure, the shaft having integrated a series of transporting stations which receive only a bottle to be decorated and pass this intermittently toward decorating stations. One decorating screen set horizontally over one of the transporting stations makes contact with the surface of the bottle during the decorating stage. Such screen has a sliding movement from front to back while the bottle rotates over its own axis, thus decorating by means of such movements the desired section of the bottle.
In case of decorating two bottles, the machine has two screens, set parallel with respect to the surface of the container, such screens being separated a certain distance one in front of the other. Because the decorating machine has at least six transporting stations, each station moves one single article to be decorated. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the transportation stations have a rotating movement on their own axis, in the sequence of movement of the stations, the first article is decorated by the front screen (second screen) while the second article makes contact with the back screen (first screen). Such movement allows two stations to decorate simultaneously two bottles with the same decorating pattern.
Notwithstanding the previous description, one of the main disadvantages of the type of decorating machines described above, is that the articles are only decorated with a single color. Thus, in case the bottle or article requires two or more colors, it is necessary to pass the recently decorated bottles again to the decorating machine to print the next or several decorating colors.
In order to avoid the disadvantages of the previous art, the U.S. Pat. No. 3,735,699 issued to Albert Koelschbach, describes a multicolor offset screen printing apparatus for producing a multi-color image on an object, by means of the known silk screen process, wherein there are a number of silk screens each with its own decorating pattern, the number of screens being equal to the number of colors to be employed. The decorative print is applied by a contact blade to an associated silk screen. An intermediate color carrier such as a belt or a plurality of rollers receives a colored image from each screen and applies the colored image in sequence to an article by rolling contact between the article and the intermediate belt or rollers.
Nevertheless, even if the Koelschbach machine has the capacity of decorating two or more colors in one sequence, one of the disadva
REFERENCES:
patent: 3180252 (1965-04-01), Fuerst
patent: 3277816 (1966-10-01), Olsen
patent: 3783777 (1974-01-01), Killen et al.
patent: 3842733 (1974-10-01), Dubuit
patent: 4380955 (1983-04-01), Okura
patent: 5317967 (1994-06-01), Heidenreich
Guerra-Garza Carlos
Marroquin-Garza Elio
Hilten John S.
Sandusky Amanda B.
Vidriera Monterrey, S.A. De C.V.
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