IE60145B1 - Method of printing a material - Google Patents

Description

This invention relates to a process for printing a material. More specifically, the invention enables any material to be decorated with * a multicoloured pattern produced in advance and constituted of an association of elementary shapes.

V The process of the present invention will be intended, notably, for the production of flexible pieces, such as flags or furnishing curtains.

Nevertheless, it could be envisaged to use this process for decorating other pieces, such as semirigid and rigid sheets, for example sheets of cardboard or metal.

At the present day, various processes are known for decorating materials, which make it possible for any multicolour decoration to be reproduced on the material^ In fact, printing processes are known such as, notably, screen printing or, again, other processes known as sublistatic processes, by which a multicoloured pattern previously produced on a temporary support'from inks that can be transferred by sublimation is transferred to a material by heat and pressure (see, for example, FR-A-2 401 781).

It should be commented that, in this latter case, the multicoloured patterns are produced in advance by various known printing processes.

Generally, these prints are produced in large numbers according to criteria, colours and patterns that are well determined and fixed.

There are, therefore, processes which are either very cumbersome to perform, which is the case notably for screen-printing which requires different screen-printing frames forming the masks for each colour to be deposited and the dimensions of which are dependent upon the patterns to be produced, or are adapted to printing of very very large series in order to pay for the initial costs and to make the preliminary prints of the patterns from sublimable inks economical.

In certain fields it is of advantage to have a printing process for a material which shall be flexible in use and capable of being adapted to the series to be produced. This is the case, especially, in the printing of certain furnishing fabrics and the production of flags, banners or the like. Experience shows that the traditional techniques applied to these fields are not very advantageous because they are ill-adapted to them.

Furthermore, in the field of producing flags or the like, certain qualities are required; these include faultless aesthetics, lightness so that they fly well and considerable strength, both with regard to the material itself and during printing. r i -2Furthermore, other problems become grafted onto the quality criteria, which are due on the one hand to the large number of different patterns and on the other hand to production in small series or runs. Moreover, they are generally produced in shapes and dimensions which can vary enormously.

These specific criteria show that the known processes do not allow an advantageous compromise for their production to be found. In fact, in the case of silk screen printing, it is therefore necessary to have a very large number of frames proper to each type of flag and to each of its dimensions, which presents problems in regard to capital investment and the storage of the frames.

On the other hand, although the sublistatic printing process has certain advantages, it does not at present provide an appreciable modularity and flexibility in use for the production of different, multicoloured patterns according to demand.

This is why flags produced by assembling together pieces of textile by sewing and embroidery are still commonly found. This type of faultless conventional manufacture in addition suffers from the disadvantage of increasing quite substantially the initial cost. Now in the present-day market, there is an increasing demand for the production of flags or the like for carrying a publicity message, and for this reason it is imperative to facilitate the production of flags and substantially to reduce their cost.

The objective of the present invention is to propose a process for printing a material, by which it is decorated with a multicoloured pattern, notably intended for the production of supple pieces, such as flags or furnishing curtains, which shall provide a solution to the difficulties and alleviate the disadvantages referred to above.

One objective of the present invention is to propose a process for printing a material, which shall make it possible to decorate a material with a multicoloured pattern produced previously by composition, thus making possible the creation of all types of patterns.

Another objective of the present invention is to propose a process for printing a material, which shall make it possible to keep the advantages of so-called sublistatic printing while at the same time enabling the shapes, colours and arrangements of the pattern to be modulated at will.

In fact, the process of the present invention makes possible printing productions which are completely different and permits, as desired, any creations and any dimensions to be obtained without an obligation to keep available stencils or models for each print to be produced. -3Another objective of tbe present invention is to propose a printing process for a material which shall make possible the production of supple pieces, either singly or in limited series. a Another objective of the present invention is to propose a process for printing a material which shall make possible the production of decorated pieces which have a faultless aesthetic quality and high mechanical Q strength.

Other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, which is, however, given solely by way of indication and without intention of limiting the invention.

The present invention accordingly provides a process for printing a material, intended notably for making supple pieces such as flags or furnishing curtains, a process whereby a material is decorated with a multicoloured pattern constituted of an association of primary elementary shapes, such as any geometrical shapes, or letters or figures, each having a primary colour, the said multicoloured pattern being produced in advance on a temporary support from inks capable of being transferred to said material through heat and pressure, wherein: - a basic bundle of coloured sheets is formed by stacking one or more sheets covered on one face with a flat tint of sublimable ink, the said bundle comprising at least one sheet of each primary colour necessary for the final multicoloured pattern, - the contours of the elementary shapes of the. decorative pattern in relation to the outer contour of the material to be decorated are formed by simultaneous cutting-out, on each sheet of the said bundle, each and every sheet, then identically having pre-cut out areas corresponding to the elementary shapes of the final pattern, - the multicoloured decorative pattern is composed on a temporary support by superposing and/or juxtaposing the precut primary elementary shapes, the said primary elementary shapes being taken from the sheet with the corresponding primary colour, - the said multicoloured pattern thus composed is transferred from the temporary support onto the material to be decorated by maintaining intimate contact between the said temporary support and the said material by means of pressure and by heating in such a way that sublimation of the inks occurs and the inks are precisely diffused into the material.

The present invention will be better understood from reading the following description accompanied by the attached drawings, which form an integral part thereof. -4Figure 1 shows a front view of a finished material decorated according to the process of the present invention.

Figure 2 shows, in section, a basic bundle of coloured sheets necessary for carrying out the process of the present invention for obtaining the decorated material shown in Figure 1.

Figures 3a to 3d show, in detail, the composition of the bundle shown in Figure 2.

Figure 4 shows a sectional view of another phase of the printing process of the present invention, showing the composition of the pattern on the decoration according to Figure 1 before its transfer onto the material to be decorated.

Figure 5 shows another configuration of finished material decorated according to the printing process of the present invention.

Figures'6a to 6c show the composition of the bundle necessary for carrying out the printing process of this invention for obtaining the material shown in Figure 5.

Figure 7 shows a phase of the process of the present invention, showing the composition of the multicoloured pattern before its transfer onto the material for obtaining the representation of Figure 5.

The present invention has as its objective a process for printing a material, by which the material is decorated with a multicoloured pattern in a single printing. Before this printing, the multicoloured pattern is created on a temporary support from inks capable of being transferred onto said material by heat and pressure, the technique most generally known to the person skilled in the art under the name of printing process by sublimation or sublistatic printing process.

Thus, by using the printing process of the present invention, it will be possible, especially, to decorate supple pieces such as furnishing curtains or flags. Figures 1 and 5 show two non-limiting realizations of such flags produced according to this invention. However, other types of application could be envisaged, without thereby departing from the scope of the present invention.

Figure 1 shows, for example, the appearance of a flag constituted of a flexible textile material, and the multicoloured pattern of which is composed of an association of primary elementary shapes, such as any geometric shapes, letters or figures, each having a primary colour. -5In particular, Figure 1 shows a flag, the background 1 of which is coloured and which carries, at two we11-determined positions, primary elementary shapes such as a coloured star 2, a coloured pastille 3 and a coloured letter 4. Naturally, the background 1, star 2, pastille 3 and letter 4 will have different colours so that they can be distinguished from one another according to the criteria desired by the designer or the user.

The various colours constituting the decorated material will be called primary colours, and there will be as many primary colours as colours or tones in the final multicoloured pattern.

In Figures 1 to 4 illustrating the printing process for a material according to this invention which will be described, four different colours are used, referenced on the drawings by hatching, but this is in no way limiting and it is possible to envisage either a smaller or a larger number of colours·.

According to the printing process of the present invention, the following four essential phases are performed in succession: a) Ai basic bundle 5 of coloured sheets is prepared by stacking one or more sheets 6 to 9, covered on one face with a flat tint of sublimable ink; said bundle 5 comprising at least one sheet of each primary colour necessary for the final multicoloured pattern.

In the case of Figures 1 to 4, the bundle 5 is constituted of four sheets, respectively 6 to 9, each covered in flat tint with four sublimable inks of different colours, these colours being respectively that of the background 1, the star 2, the letter 4 and the pastille 3. It should be noted that at this stage of the process the respective position of the colours is not important, but it is nevertheless necessary to take it into account because of certain requirements described below. b) Next, the contours 10 to 13 of the elementary shapes 1 to 4 constituting the final decorative pattern in relation to the outer contour 14 of the material to be decorated are formed by simultaneous cutting-out from each sheet 6 to 9 of said bundle 5; each sheet 6 to 9 then identically having pre-cut out areas corresponding to the elementary shapes 1 to 4 of the final pattern.

In the case shown, it is possible clearly to see the different precut zones corresponding to the elementary shapes 1 to 4 of the final pattern, all superimposed in the bundle 5 in Figure 2. In contrast, the developed bundle in Figures 3a to 3d shows, respectively, the different coloured sheets 6 to 9, onto which the cut-outs 10 to 13 have simultaneously been formed, each sheet having all the contours 10 to 13 of the elementary shapes 1 to 4. -6c) Then, on a temporary support of dimensions greater than those of the material to be decorated, the final multicoloured decorative pattern is composed, as shown notably in Figure 1, by superposition and/or juxtaposition of the primary elementary shapes 1 to 4 already cut-out, 3 said primary elementary shapes 1 to 4 being taken from the sheets of corresponding primary colours, referenced respectively 7, 9 and 8.

This composition is particularly shown in one form of embodiment in Figure 4. d) Finally, the multicoloured pattern 16 thus composed is transferred from the temporary support 15 onto the material 17 to be decorated. To do this, the conventional technique known as sublistatic technique is used, that is to say intimate contact is maintained between the said temporary support 15 and the said material 17 by pressure and by heating in such a manner that sublimation of the inks occurs and the inks are precisely diffused into the material 17, in order to form the final decorative pattern, such as that notably shown in Figure 1.

In addifion, according to the present invention, for maintaining the relative positioning of the sheets 6 to 9 to one another during the cuttingout of the contours 10 to 13 of the elementary shapes 1 to 4, means for 2q maintaining this positioning are provided on one face of each coloured sheet 6 to 9.

More specifically, in one preferred form of embodiment, for constituting these means for maintaining the relative positioning of the sheets 6 to 9, use is made of a surface adhesive coating compatible with the sublimable inks, resistant to pressure and heat and of the removable type.

Thus, these adhesive coatings will not have any adverse effect during the transfer and, more specifically, on the migration of the colourants from the temporary support sheet 15 to the material 14. On the other hand, these coatings will also facilitate the separation of the coloured sheets 6 to 9 which is necessary during the composition phase on the temporary support 15 of the multicoloured decorative pattern by superposition and juxtaposition of the precut primary elementary shapes 1 to 4.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, on each sheet 6 to 9 of said bundle 5, the contours 10 to 13 of the elementary shapes 1 to 4 of the decorative pattern relative to the external contour 14 of the material to be decorated are simultaneously formed by laser cutting-out of the bundle 5.

Nevertheless, it could also be envisaged to use a different cutting technique, such as cutting by ultrasonics. These two techniques are generally well known to the person skilled in the art and for that reason lie outside the scope of the present invention. -7However, it is advantageous co use a numerically controlled cutting-out apparatus, which will make possible, on the one hand, memorizing of all the contours of the decorative pattern to be produced according to a predetermined model and, thereafter, the reproducing of these cut-outs indefinitely and when desired by che operator.

Accepting the use of cutting-out by laser which, in its operating mode, '/ should be cooled and ventilated and furthermore gives rise to a certain turbulence at the cutting location, it will be important for proper execution of the process of this invention to hold the coloured sheets 6 to 9 correctly, in order to avoid any relative slip during the cutting-outs as described above.

Furthermore, it should be noted that good results have been obtained when cutting out the bundle by laser device, by presenting the bundle 5 in such a way that- the laser beam attacks the face of the coloured sheets 6 to 9 opposite to the face covered with sublimable ink. Furthermore, this will have the advantage of reproducing the image of the flag and the difficulties of reproducing its inverted image will be avoided.

In addition, depending upon the power of the cutting system, notably in the case of the laser, it will be possible to superimpose several bundles of basic coloured sheets 5, each of the bundles being adapted for forming the multicoloured pattern of a single type of final pattern of the material to be decorated, and thus the entirety of the superimposed sheets will be simultaneously cut out by the laser beam. For this reason, it will advantageously be noted that it will be possible to assemble several sets of bundles for making up series of decorated material according to the process of this invention.

With a laser cutting apparatus, well known commercially, it will be possible to cut up to substantially 250 sheets in one single operation, which would serve as a basis, for instance, for 50 identical flags, each having a decorative pattern of five colours.

According to the technique described above, it should be noted that it is possible, depending upon the colours and qualities of the inks, to proceed to the making-up of the multicoloured decorative pattern 16 in different ways.

Generally speaking, according to the present invention, the multicoloured decorative pattern 16 is composed on the temporary support 15 by taking, from a bundle 5, the pre-cut elementary shapes 1 to 4 of the final pattern from each coloured sheet 6 to 9 of the corresponding primary colour, to constitute and make up, by juxtaposition and/or superposition of the i-8precut elementary shapes I to 4, the different coloured zones of the final pattern. By reason of the simultaneous precutting of the bundle 5, it should be noted that the elementary shapes will be accurately in register and perfect mutual positioning; thus the operator responsible for the composition does not need to have recourse to other separate reference marks, as is the case, for example, in screen printing.

In addition, according to this invention, for holding in place respectively the different shapes 1 to 4 thus positioned, these are fixed on the temporary support 15 through the intermediary of adhesive means, which advantageously will be present in the form of an adhesive coating of the same constitution and properties as that used earlier for holding the relative positions of the sheets in the bundle.

Depending upon the characteristics of the pigments forming the coloured sublistatic inks and depending upon the various tones and colours, it should be noted that certain superposition rules should be observed so that certain colours known as stronger shall not pass through colours known as weaker.

For example, the colour yellow is easily traversed and masked by darker colours such as black, blue, red; in these cases, it will be necessary to avoid superposing yellow elementary shapes on other darker shapes. In contrast, the elementary shapes of darker colours can be superposed upon shapes of lighter colours without prejudice.

An example of composition showing the juxtaposition and superposition is illustrated in Figure 4. Let us assume that the elementary shape 2 is of light colour, such as notably yellow, it will not be superposed upon an elementary shape 1 which would be of a darker colour such as, for example, red, and thus the zone pre-cut from the red sheet 6 constituting the background of the flag will be removed and it will be replaced by the elementary shape 2 of the yellow colour corresponding to the final pattern.

In contrast, in the case of darker colours, it is not necessary to make the substitution of the shapes; it is possible, for example, to superpose them as Figure 4 shows, where the elementary shape 4 is superposed upon the elementary shape 1, and similarly for the shape 3 in relation to the shape 2.

Nevertheless, other combinations could be envisaged and, in certain cases, it would be possible to make use of this obliteration of colour to produce inscriptions.

Figure 5 shows a material decorated with another multicoloured pattern.

This material shows, notably, on a light self-coloured background, 4q inscriptions in dark colours. -9Depending upon the quality of the colour of the inks and upon the characteristics of the pattern to be reproduced, it will be possible to decorate the material or to create primary shapes by intercalating one or more neutral sheets 18 into the bundle 5, these said neutral sheets 18 not having any r sublimable inks and constituting a barrier for the inks between the primary coloured sheets, such as 7 and 9 in the case of the figure, to prevent mixing of said inks. (/ In Figure 6 there is shown a bundle 5 constituted for this example of two sheets of primary colours, the one light sheet referenced 7 and the other dark sheet referenced 9, and of an intermediate neutral sheet 18.

The objective of the operation is, therefore, to obtain, on a light background 19, dark inscriptions 20. It has been seen that certain dark colours passed through the light colours, and this characteristic will be used to- advantage for providing the inscriptions 20.

Nevertheless, in order to prevent the darker inks from completely masking the ligfrt background, a neutral sheet 18 will be inserted, serving as a mask, and from which the inscriptions 20 will be cut out.

For the production of a flag showing these inscriptions, as shown in Figure 5, the procedure will follow identically the method described above, and during the transfer of the inks, the dark inks of the primary sheet 9 will pass through the screen 18 at the position of the cut-outs 20 and will then dominate the colours of the lighter coloured sheet 7 and finally will constitute the desired inscriptions on the material 17 to be decorated.

It should be noted that the cut-outs can be produced simultaneously throughout the entire bundle, into which one or more neutral sheets 18 will have been sandwiched. Nevertheless, in the case of inscriptions having very large cut-outs, it will be advantageous to avoid the need to make these cut-outs in some of the sheets 6 to 9 constituting the bundle 5 and they will be made only in the neutral sheets 18. This possibility being chosen, notably, by the operator at the time of production in accordance with the criteria required for the decorative pattern.

Once the decorative pattern has been made up according to the process of the present invention, as Figure 7 shows, the known conventional technique known as sublistatic technique is then used.

In fact, the multicoloured decorative pattern 16 previously established on the temporary support 15 is transferred ( -10- by applying the temporary support 15 onto the material 17 to be decorated, - by causing the migration of the inks from the temporary support 15 to the material 17 by heating and pressure in a sublimation press of the plate or roller type, - and then by substituting the temporary support 15 after the phase of transfer of the inks.

It should be noted that good results have been obtained by using pressures of the order of 1 to 5 kg/m^ at a temperature from 170 to 220°C for several seconds to several minutes.

In the case of producing flags, the material 17 to be decorated is constituted of a light, supple material of very high strength, such as a neutral or coloured, natural or synthetic fabric, for example a polyester fabric of 50 to 200.g/ra^.

Nevertheless, the material could more generally be constituted of any support capable of fixing sublimable inks. In particular, it could even be composed of sheets of cardboard or metal sheets.

Claims (11)

CLAIMS:

1. A process for printing a material, intended in particular for making supple pieces such as flags or furnishing curtains, a process whereby a material is (/ decorated with a multicoloured pattern, the material being constituted by an association of primary elementary shapes, such as any geometrical shapes, or letters or figures, each having a primary colour, the said multicoloured pattern being produced in advance on a temporary support from inks capable of transferring to the said material through heat and pressure, wherein a basic bundle of coloured sheets is formed by stacking one or more sheets covered on one face with a flat tint of sublimable ink, the said bundle comprising at least one sheet of each primary colour necessary for the final multicoloured pattern, the contours of the elementary shapes of the decorative pattern in relation to the outer contour of the material to be decorated are formed simultaneously, by cutting out, on each sheet of the said bundle, each and every sheet then identically having pre-cut out areas corresponding to the elementary shapes of the final pattern, the multicoloured decorative pattern is composed on a temporary support by superposing and/or juxtaposing the pre-cut primary elementary shapes, the said primary elementary shapes being taken from the sheet with the corresponding primary colour, I -12the said multicoloured pattern thus composed is transferred from the temporary support onto the material to be decorated by maintaining intimate contact between the said temporary support and the said material by 5 means of pressure, and by heating in such a way that sublimation of the inks occurs and the inks are precisely diffused in the material.

2. Ά printing process according to claim 1, wherein means for maintaining the mutual relative positioning of the 10 sheets at the time of cutting are provided on one face of each coloured sheet constituting the bundle.

3. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein all the contours of the decorative pattern and of the material to be decorated are formed simultaneously on each sheet of the 15 said bundle by laser cutting the bundle.

4. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein all the contours of the decorative pattern and of the material to be decorated are formed simultaneously on each sheet of the bundle by ultrasonically cutting the bundle. 20 5. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein several bundles of basic coloured sheets are superposed, each of the bundles being suitable for forming the multicoloured decorative pattern of one and the same type of final pattern of the material, and all of the sheets of the superposed 25 bundles are cut out simultaneously.* 6. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein the multicoloured decorative pattern is composed on a temporary support by taking from a bundle the primary elementary -13shapes pre-cut out from each primary coloured sheet to constitute and form, by juxtaposing and/or superposing the said shapes, the different coloured areas of the final pattern, each elementary shape being perfectly located and

5. Positioned owing to the simultaneous cutting out of the bundle.

6. 7. A printing process according to claim 6, wherein the pre-cut different primary elementary shapes are fixed on the temporary support with the use of adhesive means.

7. 8. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein according to the quality, the colour of the inks and the characteristics of the pattern to be reproduced, one or more neutral sheets are intercalated in the bundle, these said neutral sheets not having any sublimable inks and 15 constituting a barrier for the inks of the primary coloured sheets thus separated to prevent the said inks from mixing during transfer.

8. 9. A printing process according to claim 1, wherein the material to be decorated is formed by any support capable of 20 fixing sublimable inks, such as a natural or synthetic fabric.

9. 10. A printing process according to claim 2, wherein the means for maintaining the relative positioning of the sheets take the form of adhesive coatings compatible with 25 sublimable inks, pressure and heat resisting and of the removable type.

10.

11. A process for printing a material according to claim 1, substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.