decal
A decal is a multi-layered picture or motif made of paints, varnishes and glue. Stickers, on the other hand, are made of plastic or paper and are thicker.
Manufacturing
A decal is thinner than a human hair. It is produced in different printing processes, e.g. B. screen printing or offset printing . Different types of transmission are used depending on the task:
- manual transfer with water and a soft rubber squeegee to press on
- Transfer using heat and pressure with a thermal transfer press
- Transfer with an automatic roll transfer machine
history
Possibly invented as early as 1780 for decors in the manufacture of ceramics , the technique of making decals developed in parallel with the boom and spread of lithography . A patent "for lithographic prints in color and black and white on sheet metal, wood, wax, canvas ..." was submitted in 1826 by the princely Esterházy gallery director Rothmüller. Leipzig (Buchdrucker Kramer), Fürth (Johann Hesse 1825 and G. Löwensohn 1844) and Nuremberg (Pocher 1858, Brunner 1862, Huber, Jordan & Koerner 1862 and Schimpf 1868) are named as early production centers . Typical uses for decals were decorations on porcelain tableware , lacquered trays, candles and mechanical devices such as bicycles and sewing machines . Technically speaking, it was mostly lithographs printed in mirror image on glued paper , which were transferred from the paper carrier to the new base after moistening.
Advantages in business
Decals, especially dry decals, are used wherever an in-house printing department would produce too much costs, downtime, rejects, etc., or simply cannot follow the market conditions in terms of production technology; or if you want to reduce downtimes and rejects. In terms of application technology, they can be easily integrated into production lines of manufacturing companies. The advantage is that the manufacturer does not need its own printing line and still uses a perfectly printed decoration material. The goods do not have to be laboriously delivered to a print shop. The decal is cured after a very short time and bonds with the substrate material in such a way that the substrate is also damaged in subsequent attempts to remove it.
Forms of decals
There are different types of decals for different demands and materials.
- Dry decals : The modern dry decals can be washable , highly elastic , wear-resistant , dry- cleanable , food-safe or fluorescent .
A distinction is made between dry decals for leather , plastics, rubber and neoprene and dry decals for smooth surfaces such as glass, wood, metal, ceramics, etc.
- Wet decals : Wet transfers are used wherever it cannot be handled otherwise due to the quality or the substrate material. In most cases, however, wet transfers are not protected against UV radiation with clear lacquers. Thus, they are not quite as high quality as dry transfers.
Other uses
Decals are also known and loved by children. For example, individually packaged chewing gum is often included with peel-off tattoos that can be applied to the skin with water, giving the appearance of a tattoo . These decals are legally classified as objects “which are not only intended to come into contact with the human body temporarily, they must not give off any harmful substances when they come into contact with the skin” and are subject to the provisions of the Food, Consumer Goods and Feed Code .
Decals are also used to decorate porcelain , earthenware, and glass . These images are usually screen-printed with ceramic inks on paper coated with dextrin or wax . By soaking in water (with dextrin coating) the decal is detached from the backing paper and pushed onto the part to be decorated and thus transferred. With the help of a rubber squeegee , the excess water is squeezed out.
For the machine transfer, decals printed on wax paper are transferred with a heated silicone pad (similar to pad printing ) (“heat release process”). With both processes, the decor must then be burned in.
Application examples
Dry decals have been in decorative use on numerous industrially manufactured products for decades.
Decal
Decal (diːkæl, diːkəl, a short form of English. Decalcomania from French. Decalcomania of décalquer "transferred") is a derived from English, but also in the German name used for certain applications of wet decals. This includes model making , when inscriptions are to be applied to miniature replicas of, for example, aircraft, ships or road vehicles that are too fine for drawing or painting. The term decal is also used for the labeling of the manufacturer on bicycles, especially racing bikes .
Decals must be moistened before being applied to the model in order to activate the adhesive layer on which they are printed. There are only two methods of making decals:
- High quality screen printing
- Thermal transfer printing
Screen prints are usually of higher quality and easier to process, but most manufacturers only print large quantities. There are also special decal sheets that can be printed on with standard printers . Since most printers, with the exception of thermal transfer printers , are not able to print the color white, this leads to limitations in the application, instead printing is made on pretreated, white decal paper.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ J. Peter Lemcke: Decals. In: Christa Pieske: ABC of luxury paper, production, distribution and use 1860-1930. Museum for German Folklore, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-88609-123-6 , pp. 73/74.