Engraved roller printing is a continuous printing process developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Until the development of rotary screen printing, it was the only continuous fabric printing technique available. In this method, a heavy copper cylinder is engraved with the print design. Copper is soft, so once the design is engraved the roller is electroplated with chrome for durability. The print design process and color separation are identical to that used for screen printing. Once each roller is engraved, it’s loaded on the printing machine. There is one roller per color in the design. Each roller is fed print paste by a furnish roller rotating in a color box full of print paste.
As print paste is applied to the print roller a stationary doctor blade scrapes away excess surface print paste leaving only that which is embedded in the design etchings. The print cloth is fed into the machine backed by a greige fabric to absorb print paste flow through. A cushioning print blanket backs the greige fabric. The greige fabric and the print blanket are washed, dried, and reused. Printing occurs as the fabric swipes print paste from the print roller as it passes through the pinch point between the roller and the main cylinder. The high fixed cost of copper rollers, the expense of the engraving process, and the possible distortion of fabric during printing have led to its reduced use, now being less than 5 % of the worldwide textile printing market. The primary advantage of this technique is the fine design detail.
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