It's A Screen Printed World (1960)

[Music] Something is happening to this world. Something is making the world more colorful, safer, easier to understand. What's happening? Screen printing. In the last 10 years, the ancient art of screen printing has been rediscovered, perfected, and polished. Today, it is one of the most modern, efficient, and fastest growing of all printing methods. It has more applications than you can count, and a new one is being developed every day. Like this globe, it's paper and plastic. It's bright, clear, and exact. It's a uh screen printed world. Today's screen printing is a vast and sophisticated industry using some of the most modern equipment and technique in the world. But the basic elements of screen printing have remained unchanged for centuries. There are five basic elements found in every screen printing method. The frame, the screen, the blockout material, the ink, and the squeegee. Early screen printing used silk, a highly porous fabric stretched on wooden frames. Part of the screen was blocked out by paper or [Music] shellac. Ink was poured over the screen and forced through the mesh with a squeegee. The ink passed through only the open portion of the screen mesh. printing the design on the material. Screen printing is the only method that prints through the plate instead of from the plate. This gives screen printing its unique capabilities. Screen printing, like all other forms of printing, came about as the result of a need, the need to communicate. Today, screen printing can mass-roduce a wide variety of images on almost any type of surface. flat or three-dimensional, smooth or rough, large or small. Because the technique is so versatile and its possibilities unlimited, its uses are bounded only by imagination. The requirements may be decoration, information, distinction, extreme precision or fabrication. In almost every case, screen printing can do the job once thought impossible or impractical. The best way to show you how the screen printing industry has grown is to take you through a company. A company responsible for many major developments in inks, supplies, and equipment. The Advanced Process Supply Company is headquartered in Chicago. [Music] While the industry has grown, the basic elements remain the same. You start with a frame rigid enough to keep the screen mesh taut, but light enough to permit easy handling. The materials may be wood, metal, or a combination of the two. The screen mesh is stretched over the frame. [Music] A uniformly stretched screen mesh is most important for sharp, accurate reproduction. While silk is still being used today, the term silk screen process has given way to simply screen printing. [Music] While early frames were limited in size, a modern frame will print a watch dial or a billboard. Today's screen printer can select from a wide variety of screen meshes. Silk, ore, dacron, nylon, polyester, and stainless steel metal mesh. The squeegee can make all the difference between truly professional screen printing and just pushing ink through the screen. Whether it's a modern electronic circuit board, or a common paper sign, a soda pop bottle, or a 55gallon drum, the requirements are the same. Precise registration and sharp well-defined lines. Screen printing is the one technique that can do both. The tools however remain the same. There are many types of squeegees and each type comes in many different shapes and sizes. There are squeegees for hand printing and squeegees for machine printing. Another consideration in selecting the squeegee is its composition and degree of hardness. [Music] The oldest form of screen making is the hand cut stencil. This method is still used today on large posters and banners, but the majority of screen making is now done photographically. In many instances, the art of hand cutting is used in combination with photographic screen making. There are two methods of preparing photo screens, indirect and direct. In the indirect method, a photosensitive film is exposed, developed, and then applied to the screen [Music] mesh. In the direct method, a photosensitive coating is applied to the screen mesh. There are two exposure techniques in photo screen making. One is placing a transparent positive in contact with the screen. The sensitive screen is then exposed and [Music] developed. The screen now becomes the printing plate. [Music] The other technique is projecting the positive onto the photosensitive coating. In both cases, the principle remains the same. Light passes through the clear areas of the positive, exposing or hardening the photosensitive coating on the screen. When the screen is washed out, the unexposed areas wash away, leaving open mesh. During printing, ink will pass through the open mesh, reproducing the image on the material beneath. The photocreen technique is the ultimate in fine reproduction. The most important part of screen printing is choosing the right ink. Ink is not just ink. Today, there are a thousand different jobs to be done, and each one requires the right ink. Different inks are blended for different surfaces. Some inks have to be fast drying, and others have to withstand outdoor weather conditions. They may have to be completely transparent or completely opaque, thick or thin deposit, high gloss or flat. There are inks that stretch and inks that are fused to the surface. Screen printing inks must meet rigid requirements. They must adhere to all types of surfaces, paper, wood, metal, plastics, cloth, glass, and even human skin. The inks must not clog or run through the screen fabric and must not destroy the printing plate. Regardless of the function, each ink must go through a series of quality control checks to guarantee uniformity to meet the specifications. Test samples are run as a final check of the ink's performance on a particular surface. So, you see, screen printing has everything going for it. It uses inks that no other printing method can handle. And in addition to a wide variety of colors, including fluorescent inks, screen printing can recreate a multitude of textured surfaces, imitation canvas and leatherrett, conductive and insulated coatings for printed electronic circuits, special metallic colored inks, glitter, and flocking. Inks have come a long way, and so has the screen printing press. While screen printing is still done by hand, today there are automatic presses that can print 6,000 impressions per hour. There are screen printers for flat surfaces and three-dimensional objects. The presses used in screen printing range in size and complexity from the simple hand press to the completely automatic press. The elements of screen printing have remained the same. You still need a frame, a screen, the blockout material, the ink, and a squeegee. For complete success, however, proper drying is as important as quality printing. The old method of hanging up sheets so they don't touch one another works well for short runs. But industrial screen printing jobs often run into the hundreds of thousands of impressions. Modern drying systems dry efficiently and can keep up with the latest presses. Because space and time is limited, open air drying is inefficient. Other dryers have been designed for three-dimensional and odd-shaped objects. Paper, board, and plastics require low temperature dryers, while glass, textiles, and electronic parts require higher temperature [Music] dryers. The choice of a dryer depends upon the job to be done. The world of screen printing. Starting with a very simple and ancient process, it has expanded into an entire field that encompasses many industries. From the simple frame and silk screen came an array of modern materials, inks, supplies, and equipment to serve the screen printer. [Music] Screen printing can print on almost every conceivable type of surface. Screen printing can print on any kind of shape, flat or spherical, cylindrical or multi-shaped, small or large. Yes, it's truly a screen printed world everywhere you look. And Advanced Process Supply Company is the largest manufacturer of supplies, inks, and equipment to the commercial and industrial screen printers all around the world. Advance has helped solve printing and packaging problems in every industry. From the poster printer to the bottle decorator, from the local screen printer to worldwide companies like General Electric, Ford Motor, and Container Corporation of America, for 20 years, Advance has offered a wide range of exclusive products and services through their branches and distributors located in major cities in the United States and Canada. Whatever your needs, Advance can supply you with everything from a quarter of ink to a completely automatic printing line. From a simple wooden frame to a complete screen making [Music] department. You are always welcome to visit Advance and see their inaction showrooms. Now our world could use a little more color and a little more beauty. And Advance is helping it look a little better. They're helping it become a a screen printed world.