Wide format supplies company Starleaton has brought Dutch dye sub expert Gert-Jan Breukink from paper manufacturer Neenah Coldenhove out to Australia for a two week tour.
Starleaton is now supplying the Neenah Coldenhove range of dye sub papers, following its acquisition of Uniscreen earlier in the year. Breukink is visiting customers to highlight the benefits of the Neenah Coldenhove dye sub papers, and to understand the Aussie working practices.
Breukink says, “Digital textile printing offers tremendous opportunity, and for printers there are multiple applications to work with from the same machine, with the Neenah Coldenhove dye sub papers.
“The five main sectors we have identified are soft signage, sportswear, hard substrates, home furnishings and fashion. As we have assessed the Australian market it is clear the first three are ready for digital printers to enter the market.”
John Buitenkamp, product manager at Starleaton says, “Dye sub papers were the missing link in our range, and one we wanted to address, as digital textile printing is going to be a growth area. Our recent purchase of distributor Uniscreen is enabling us to supply the world's best dye sub papers to the Australian market.
“Among the many benefits of Neenah Coldenhove is the fact that they come in widths up to 3.2 metres, which means they can be supplied for the EFI FabriVu for instance.”
Bruekink says, “There are three key benefits to the Neenah Coldenhove dye sub papers. First their inherent strength means their run ability is as high as it gets, with no breakages stopping the printer. Second is the reproducibility of the image, its fidelity to the original and its consistency over the run. And third is the ink transfer yield, which is the highest in the industry, currently 97 per cent and getting higher, compared with an average of 70-80 per cent. This means lower ink usage, as it take less ink to get the same coverage.”
Proponents believe dye sub textile printing offers a higher quality than direct to garment digital printing, and point out that direct-to-garment is actually itself a two stage process and still needs calendering post-printing.
John Buitenkamp says, “There is no doubt digital printing on textiles is going to surge, it is a market in its infancy, but the arguments in its favour are compelling. With Neenah Coldenhove Starleaton is able to supply local printers with the best in class solution.”