Digital Textile Fabric Sourcing and Preparation

textiles-for-fashion-and-interior-digital-printersWhatever the Ink-Set, whether Reactive, Pigment, or Dye Sublimation, consistent preparation of the fabric is a vital component in ensuring that colour vibrancy, reproducibility and print mark are of the highest possible standard when printing Digital Textiles.

 

Only by ensuring that the fabric supplier has complete control of the supply chain, with absolute transparency in the chemicals being used, alongside an in depth, expert knowledge and control of Textile Sourcing and Processing can exacting Quality control be achieved.

Premier Digital Textiles have been supplying fabrics to the printed textile industry for over 30 years.

Working with mills and partners across the globe to ensure consistency in supply, creating innovative new processes, and new opportunities for textile manufacturing. It’s these connections and a Textile legacy that ensures high quality Digital Textiles.

Certification and Regulation are at the heart of the Premier team’s company strategy.

A platform member in the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) an organisation that secures the future of sustainable cotton farming and protects the environment. Premier Digital also hold GOTS certification, SEDEX, and Soil Association compliance to ensure that all products sold as organic have full traceability from field to fabric.

Traceability is increasingly becoming an important tool to define sustainable supply and a requirement for the consumer. From the field to the store, clarity is required for truly sustainable manufacturing. If not controlled and specified from origin, poor standards and inconsistencies in supply lead to problems further down the print route. Contamination in textile pre-processing for both Polyesters and Natural fabrics can cause colour issues and print faults.

Variations in the fabric construction, bleaching and processing alongside chemical contamination can cause previously untraceable issues and affect the constituents of the PFDP (prepared for digital print) preparation paste to cause excessive divergence when the fabric is printed. This is particularly true of the optical brightening agents (OBA’s) that are used to enhance the whiteness of the fabric ensuring a vivid print mark and sharp print register. An OBA from one manufacturer will have a blue cast, while that from another may have a reddish tinge, so consistency of OBA use is vital when it comes to reproducibility or repeat printing and in choosing your fabric supplier.

The pre-coating of fabric for digital textile printing is a vital component in the quality equation, and consistency of Digital Print. If the chemicals used are not in the correct concentration or composition, then wash fastness, colour vibrancy and rub fastness will all be affected, and a substandard print will be the result.

The only real way to ensure that fabric and print consistency is maintained is to buy print-prepared fabric from a trusted source, a specialist supplier with a rich legacy in Digital Textile Supply and Textile technology.

Premier Digital textiles and their partners control upstream performance, chemistry and application to ensure that you don’t have to!

As specialist suppliers with over 30 years’ experience, they provide reliable and consistent textiles that the Digital Textile Printer can rely on.