Marabu will unveil two exciting innovations at this year’s Glasstec trade fair in Düsseldorf.
The Ultra Glass UVGL range of inks creates a silvery sheen that turns drinking glasses, bottles and flat glass into real eye-catchers. The second new development is a highly impressive thick-film or tactile coating. When used to decorate drinking glasses, this special coating turns them into something unique and distinctive, with tactile effects.
Other Marabu highlights at Glasstec will include high-gloss metal effects created by hot stamping in conjunction with Ultra Glass UVGL primers, plus a new basis top coat for in-line foiling.
Until now, the glass industry has obtained high-gloss gold and silver effects using ceramic inks. However, these are expensive, and the baking process often generates high-energy costs. In Düsseldorf, Marabu will present a promising alternative – a high-gloss silver from its Ultra Glass UVGL range. This print-ready product is coated with a high-transparency, silicone-free UVGL-WV base coat. The silver ink further expands the range’s broad color spectrum, and lends an exclusive look and feel to container glass, such as drinking glasses, bottles and flasks, and to flat-glass products such as mirrors or cupboard doors. In addition to applying a higher sheen to glass products, it protects them from abrasion. In a stress test in an industrial dishwasher, the finish sustained no damage after 1,500 wash cycles, and was graded “very good.”
The UVGL ink range’s two-component system is versatile and gives rise to strong tactile effects. Designs are pre-applied to container or flat glass by screenprinting, then exactly overprinted with a thick-film coating and cured with UV light.
Cold-foil transfer, also known as in-line foiling, is a recent innovation and an alternative to traditional finishing processes. Transferring a high-gloss foil to container glass prepares the substrate for the application of Marabu’s decorative top coatings, available in many shades. In the second (in-line) process step, top coatings are applied by UV screenprinting. The result is sparkling metallic finishes in exceptionally vibrant colours. This method makes it possible to realistically mimic gleaming metal, the reflective surface of water or the reflections created by glass. When the standard silver foil is overprinted with the brilliant UVGL-WV basis top coat, virtually any shade can be achieved by adding colored ink.
Hot stamping remains popular. At this year’s Glasstec, Marabu will showcase some of the dazzling effects it can create in combination with UV inks. The required image or text is screenprinted onto the glass surface with Ultra Glass UVGL primer. The foil is transferred onto the pre-printed ink film, either through roll-on stamping or vertical stamping. The result is a high-gloss gold and silver finish.
On many devices, membrane switches are increasingly being replaced by glass touch panels. The combination of electronics with state-of-the-art glass products results in durable surfaces that are easy to keep clean – making them suitable for medical equipment and building-control systems, for example. UV-curable, solvent-based inks such as Marabu’s Ultra Glass UVGL and Mara Glass MGL are ideal for printing on touch panels. These highly adhesive screen printing inks feature high resistance to alcohol, extreme temperatures and chemicals.
The glass industry is trending toward UV inks, but solvent-based inks are often an appealing option, especially for graphics requiring only a single color. At Glasstec, Marabu will present its Mara Glass MGL solvent-based screen printing ink and the new Tampa Glass TPGL pad printing ink. MGL is ideal for high-gloss results on flat glass. Durable TPGL ink is suitable for a variety of tasks, and performs especially well on rounded objects such as small glass jars for cosmetics.
At Glasstec 2016, Marabu will be presenting numerous possible applications of digital direct UV printing – with a clear focus on customizable digital printing on glass. Glass substrates can be prepared for roller-coating of customized designs with the Mara Shield UV-PGL primer. This primer enables standard UV digital printing inks to adhere to glass.
In addition, Mara Shield UV-CGL inks can be used for full coverage of glass surfaces with the help of liquid coatings. A wide variety of finishes and special effects (metallic inks, interference inks) can be achieved.