What makes rotary screens so effective for narrow web label printing in 2023?

Today’s high-volume label printing market demands an optimal combination of speed, quality and volume. With margins pressed ever-tighter, how effectively printers can balance these demands can be the difference between winning repeat business and being left behind the market.

As the label printing industry shifts and evolves to meet changing market needs, there is fresh demand for rotary screens, such as the high-performance Kocher & Beck TecScreen™ range, available from Creation.

Narrow web label printing is an ideal market for the rotary screen printing technique, as one of its main advantages is a consistently high level of accuracy and consistency, ensuring printers can deliver quality over even the longest of runs. As scalability of jobs becomes ever more important to printing success, this translates to a powerful, reliable, and value-adding print technique.

Rotary screen printing is a familiar process for many successful printers due to its many advantages. The process involves a cylindrical screen that is tightly stretched over a frame. Ink is then forced through the stencil on the screen with a doctor blade, which creates the desired image or text on the label in a continuous motion, and at high speed.

One of the key benefits of using rotary screen printing is its ability to print fine details and small text with high resolution and precision. With label designs across board becoming more intricate and detailed, this quality makes it ideal for printing barcodes, QR codes, and other small, detailed information on labels.

Additionally, rotary screen printing allows for printing on a wide range of materials including paper, film, foil, and more. This flexibility gives printers greater agility and makes it a versatile option for many different types of narrow web label printing applications.

Another advantage of rotary screen printing is its efficiency and speed, which helps to create a slicker and more sustainable printing process. The rotary motion of the screen allows for continuous printing, which increases productivity, optimises energy use and reduces downtime. Rotary screen printing also requires less ink and energy compared to other printing techniques, which can lead to significant cost and resource savings in the long term.

At Creation, our customers rely on us to provide label and packaging prepress solutions that deliver quality at every turn. With extensive experience as a specialist in sustainable packaging and label reprographics, we offer the outstanding Kocher & Beck TecScreen rotary screens as part of our range.

Exemplifying what makes rotary screens such a strong choice for narrow web label printing,  TecScreen can replicate designs in outstanding detail, providing high-definition imaging of resolutions up to 4000dpi. For added versatility, they can also be retrofitted to existing flexographic print presses.

The symmetrical and durable substrate used to produce TecScreen ensures high-speed printing without losing quality, precision, or fidelity. In turn, this maintains accurate registration over long runs, making them a fantastic investment for extended production jobs.

Efficiency matters, and while previously mechanising print through a rotary screen press came with a drawback of lengthier drying times as a result of thicker ink layers, many contemporary inks can be cured by ultraviolet light. This dramatically cuts the production time, and creates full, thick coverage without unwieldy drying periods. For added flexibility, the TecScreen range can be provided in different mesh counts and stencil thicknesses to suit different printing needs.

In conclusion, rotary screen printing is a cost-effective and efficient technique for narrow web label printing that offers high resolution, fine detail, and is suitable for a wide range of materials. The use of high-quality rotary screens, such as those provided by Creation, can further enhance run quality and longevity, making them a popular and reliable choice for label and narrow web printers.

As the printing industry continues to move towards more sustainable practices, it’s the ideal time for printers in the label and packaging industry to explore the advantages of rotary screen printing, so why not learn more about what Creation can offer?

Trust the Creation team to deliver, combining expertise, the latest repro technologies and an innovative approach to many of today’s common packaging problems. To find out more about Creation and its packaging and label prepress expertise, click here to contact our team today.