First exclusive workshop on direct-to-garment textile printing at DMI

DMI’s first exclusive, comprehensive workshop on direct-to-garment textile screen printing process with live demo was successfully conducted by Bhargav Mistry, director of DMI, an industry initiative of Grafica Flextronica, a manufacturer and exporter of screen printing machines and allied products. Over 40 participants from India’s textile and garment industry attended the Workshop.

As a part of workshop practical, T-shirts with different designs were screen printed using nano-prinTex. The objective of live demo was to demonstrate printing techniques of CMYK process colour, spot separation, high density, special effects (glitter and silver effects), using water based and Plastisol inks. There was also live demo of textile heat transfer printing. In the theory sessions, Bhargav had covered the entire gamut of screen printing, such as file handling, designing, pre press, right method of screen making techniques needed to achieve higher quality in printing, techniques of direct-to-garment printing using advanced machines, drying/curing process, etc, use of high quality inks and chemicals, etc.

The participants found right solutions and tips at DMI for some of their major problems such as pre press, management, screen exposing, half-tone printing, lower productivity and poor quality, screen choke up, dot gain, problem in registration, moiré problem, 4 colour printing, colour separation, spot colour printing, mesh selection, lack of technical knowledge of inks, chemicals and consumables, rejections, wastage, labour issues, environment, and drying/curing methods. “These numerous problems reflect how direct-to-garment screen printers (both manual and machine users) have faced so far in the absence of proper guidance and knowledge. I think knowledge in textile screen printing technique is much needed to take Indian garment export to a greater height,” said Bhargav during his presentation.