The Screen Print Man

Continuing its commitment to promote automation in screen printing in smaller cities and towns, Screen Printers’ Association of India (SPAI) in alliance with UK-based Fespa, had organised  two Cross Country Table Top Exhibitions (CCTTE) at Raipur and Nagpur, on 13th and 14th March 2015, respectively.

 

It may be recalled that SPAI-Fespa had jointly organised Table Top exhibitions during April-December 2011 across various cities such as Ahmedabad, Morbi, Rajkot, Surat, Vapi and Baroda (in Gujarat), Noida (UP), Ludhiana and Jalandhar (Punjab) and Mumbai, Thane, Aurangabad, Pune, Nashik (in Maharashtra). Each of these Table Top exhibitions had attracted over 100 printers.

 

Most of them were new to advanced technologies in screen printing since manual screen printing is rampant in the tier II and III cities. These exhibitions were conducted to spread knowledge and create awareness rather than sell machines and materials.

 

Most probably, SPAI-Fespa had originally planned over 60 such Table Top exhibitions to create awareness about advanced screen printing technology and its diverse applications.

 

So, this short blog is all about the recent two such Table Top exhibitions. Screen Printing machine and materials suppliers such as Grafica, Prism, Photokina, Crown, Inssta 3D, Domex, AND, PaperNfilms, Ratan, VividChem, KMI, UniTech were the knowledge partners of the events.

 

According to a SPAI official the Table Top exhibitions were successful. While the Raipur exhibition attracted over 100 printers, in Nagpur there were around 250 printers. I was told that the Raipur expo was supported by Printers’ Guild, Chattisgarh.

 

Given the tremendous response it is clear that in small towns and cities printers want to explore screen printing technology but they are lacking in knowledge and exposure to new technologies – be it in terms of machine or materials. Imagine screen printers still not aware of the use of aluminium frames instead of wooden frame, screen printing machines instead of manual tables, polyester yellow mesh instead of nylon white mesh, UV ink instead of solvent ink, high quality world class PU squeegee rubber instead of low quality locally made black rubber squeegee.

 

I feel such exhibitions are a tailor-made exposure programme for printers in remote print markets. These printers do not venture in to big cities to attend mega print exhibitions and are thus confined to petty screen printing business.

 

Grafica had a catalogue display at the show in addition to its set of DMI's creative samples treated with various UV special effects. Visitors spent as much time as possible; trying to grasp the techniques of various UV special effects.