Automatic screen printing process and apparatus

Abstract

An automatic screen printing process comprising the steps of continuously driving an endless belt to apply and stick a material to be printed onto the endless belt along a predetermined length smaller than one travelling circle of the endless belt, then driving the endless belt intermittently to feed the material to be printed to a printing operation zone and a drying operation zone, while repeating the cycle of the printing operation during stoppage of the endless belt and the operation of travelling the endless belt along a repeat length during stoppage of the printing operation, thereby to print the entire surface of the material applied to the endless belt and dry the printed material, and repeating said printing step until a pattern of a predetermined number of colors is obtained is disclosed. According to this automatic screen printing process, since a pattern of a predetermined number of colors is printed while turning round an endless belt on which a material to be printed is applied, color pastes are gradually applied to already dried preceding color pastes, bleeding of colors or mingling of color pastes can be prevented, and a printed product having a pattern having sharp contours and very clear colors can always be obtained. Further, since a color paste applied to a material to be printed is immediately dried in drying zone and a subsequent color paste is then applied to the dried color paste, even if a color paste is applied in a considerable thickness or amount, disfiguration of a printed pattern or mingling of colors can be effectively prevented, and as a result, multi-color printing becomes possible with good coloring effects and high printing precision.