Clountryside Art aims to optimise its cotton printing capability by investing in a Mimaki TR300-1850C textile coating machine, designed for pre- and post-treating textiles for printing with pigment inks.
Lincolnshire-based Countryside Art sports substantial direct to textile printing capabilities, with five Mimaki TX300-1800 wide-format printers running water-based pigment inks and printing direct to a variety of cotton-based cloths. Customers range from schools and charities to globally renowned retail clients and visitor attractions.
Director Lawrence Chapman said the new coater is enabling the company to achieve higher colour yield and reduce its lead times, thanks to the improvements that printing to a pre-prepared fabric offers. “We are now able to coat textiles as and when we need them. The ability to enhance our colour yield has made a significant difference to colour matching, which for our corporate customers is especially critical,” he said.
The TR300 roll-to-roll unit applies a coating to the fabric to improve print results, and once inserted into the coater, the fabric passes through a padder, where it is saturated with the necessary chemicals before passing through squeeze rollers and a dryer, and finally being rewound onto a roll.
Countryside Art bought its TR300 from authorised Mimaki partner RA Smart, whose Magnus Mighall said: “The versatility of the Mimaki coating machine means Countryside Art can offer customers the opportunity to use specific fabrics, which up until this point would not have been cost effective to coat using an external supplier.
“From a technical perspective, it’s also possible to enhance the finished product with a range of treatments, be it pre or post print - aiding the wash and rub fastness and even adding fire retardant or waterproof coatings.”