Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Patent
1998-05-29
2000-10-17
Crispino, Richard
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
156233, 156234, 156237, 156240, 156241, 156247, 156289, 428195, 428201, 428204, 428914, 101492, 427147, B44C 1165, B32B 3100, B32B 400, B41M 312, B41M 300
Patent
active
061325473
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a method of transfer printing and to apparatus, including transfers, for use in such a method.
In a transfer printing process, a transfer, carrying a transferable or `transfer` material, is brought into close proximity or contact with the surface of a receptor, and subjected to conditions which cause the transfer material to migrate from the transfer to the receptor. In most such processes, when the transfer material has migrated to the receptor, it becomes permanently bound thereto. Transfers can be prepared by printing or otherwise depositing the chosen transfer material onto a suitable substrate, in a pattern which, when the transfer material migrates to the receptor, is reproduced on the receptor in mirror image.
A particular form of transfer printing, known as sublimation transfer printing, is used to dye textile fabrics, particularly those which include synthetic fibres (such as polyester, polyamide, acrylic, triacetate and acetate fibres), with coloured dyes. In such processes, a textile web is brought into contact with a sublimation transfer, comprising a paper substrate carrying a design printed using an ink loaded with a sublimation dye, at an elevated temperature, typically of between 200 and 220.degree. C., and the dye is caused to sublime and migrate from the paper substrate to the fabric, where it is absorbed and dyes the fabric with a mirror image of the design originally printed onto the transfer. Sublimation transfers can carry substantial blocks of solid colours and, indeed, a single transfer can carry a single colour.
Sublimation transfer printing is particularly suited to dyeing polyesters. Unfortunately, however, the technique suffers from several disadvantages, especially when used to dye large webs of fabric, such as those used to form the surfaces of gaming tables and the like. When large scale sublimation transfers are printed, it is difficult to ensure that the dye carrying inks, which must be individually applied to the transfer substrate, remain in register and that no unwanted areas of overlap or gaps are created between adjacent inked areas. Whenever two differently coloured inks overlap on a transfer, the result is a line of discoloration between adjacent correctly dyed areas on the finished cloth. A gap between inks on a transfer, will result in a white line on the finished fabric.
To prepare sublimation transfers, sublimation dye loaded inks can be printed onto suitable paper substrates using any conventional printing technique, including those which make use of drum or cylinder printing presses. By using such presses, more accurate registration of inked areas can be achieved but, however, the choice of patterns which may be produced in this manner is limited by the cylinder or drum circumference, which rarely exceeds 24 inches. Thus, if it is wished to dye fabric with a pattern having a repeat of greater than 24 inches, using sublimation transfers printed on a cylinder press, a plurality of different such transfers must be printed and joined together in abutment, before the resulting larger sublimation transfer can be used to dye the fabric. Unfortunately, however, each strip of the adhesive tape, which must be employed to join adjacent sublimation transfers, can cause a discoloration in the dyed fabric and any slight gap between adjacent sublimation transfers will result in a white line on the printed fabric.
These difficulties cannot be overcome by deliberately overlapping the edges of adjacent sublimation transfers because the transfers' paper substrates are porous to sublimation dyes and, therefore, a dye from an outer transfer, of a pair of overlapped transfers, will penetrate through to the fabric, during the transfer printing process, mix with the dye from the inner transfer and discolour the fabric. Attempts have been made to resolve this problem by forming sublimation transfers from thicker paper substrates. However, such attempts have met with failure.
The aforementioned difficulties are particularly acute when sublimation printin
REFERENCES:
patent: 4984517 (1991-01-01), Doublet
patent: 5679616 (1997-10-01), Payne
Patent Abstact of Japanese JP 5156598 dated Jun. 22, 1993.
Crispino Richard
Elfglade Limited
Lorengo J. A.
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