UV Curing has come a long way
UV curing and drying was introduced in the printing industry in the 1960’s and whilst it is used most widely in many commercial print operations it is also closely associated with high quality production of luxury products.
UV Curing Benefits?
It is widely used in the luxury market because of the high-quality benefits introduced by UV curing of specialised inks. In addition there is no need to laminate a UV printed surface and even for absorbent surfaces the instant drying technique will not sink the ink into the materials. This helps enhance the colours, making them much sharper, brighter and more vivid to provide the best visual presentation. Some of the major benefits of UV cured surfaces includes:
- Fade resistant
- Weather Resistant
- Scratch Proof
- High resolution – perfect for photographic content
- High Quality Finish
What materials can you print on using UV Curing Systems?
Rather than answer what can be printed on it is easier to identify what can’t be printed on. Waterproofed or oil-surfaced material, doesn’t accept UV due to the water resistance treatment or plasticisers or protective films. As you would expect UV curing is used widely in the paper and packaging industry, however there are some more exotic surfaces leading to amazing opportunity to provide a standout finish to many products. Some examples of these many materials includes:
- Paper
- Card
- Plastic
- Metal
- Wood
- Fabric
- Leather
- Rubber
- Ceramic
Benford UV curing systems are currently being used to print high quality collector cards, drink cans and credit cards. The producer of the collector cards is currently manufacturing nearly 10 billion of these cards annually. We include some photographs below of some of the more unusual items that you perhaps had not thought of as having these finishes applied by a curing system. The exciting new era of 3D printing has endless possibilities, just to mention one recent example being a gun made exclusively using one of these printers using uv curing.
