Textile Manufacturer Uses Inkjet Printer to Test Coatings

To see how well new coatings formulated for shop-window decorations will hold up, German textile manufacturer Pongs-Textil is using a 10.5-ft. wide VUTEk UltraVu 3360 EC solvent-system inkjet to produce test samples. Pongs-Textil Director Bernd Lautenbach notes that by being able to test new coatings in-house, the firm's R&D team “can immediately make judgments on necessary action. This product feedback then passes quickly from one department to another, and products can come to market much quicker.”

In addition to manufacturing textiles, Pongs-Textil has also been producing large-format graphics on textiles. In 1999, the company purchased a 300-dpi, four-color, 16-ft. Vutek Ultra Vu 5300 solvent-system inkjet. Vutek printers can image on a variety of fabrics, ranging from 40 to 400 grams per square meter (gsm).

“We are currently developing an impermeable Teflon-coated fabric to be used for outdoor shop-front sun canopies,” states Lautenbach. “We plan to use our UltraVu 5300 to not only test the substrate, but also to decorate the sun canopies with anything from company logos to high-quality images. We believe this to be an ideal advertising medium.” He notes that for, “Having streamlined our workflow, we are now able to expand into new markets for both textile and large-format work and continuously grow our business.” (Pongs-Textil: www.pongs.de)