Images Magazine Digital Edition February 2019

www.images-magazine.com FEBRUARY 2019 images 41 KB INDUSTRY EVENT before they happen. The printer is twice as fast as the Avalanche and can crank out about 160 full-size garments an hour. As with all Kornits, the beauty of this printer is the pre-treatment system that is built into the process. Best display of technical mastery There is a tiny player in the gigantic ink industry that is making some noise, and that is the Italian water-based ink manufacturer Virus. Using an automobile garage theme for its booth, the company built the Virus Garage Custom to demo its line of inks. On the show floor, which by the way isn’t the best environmental conditions to be printing water-based inks, Virus set up 11 different designs, all with a different ink set, using the same press. They ran all of them in one day. This is because the clothing industry today is increasingly oriented towards fast fashion, a trend that accelerates the consumption time of textile garments, thus encouraging production models aimed at the ability to produce quickly small batches with multiple variations of style. Sustainability, versatility, production speed and continuous experimentation can be sustained only through a great mastery of the screen printing technique and the use of performing water-based inks. What makes Virus different is that it has wet-on-wet technology built into its inks so you can have fantastic production results without a lot of the hassle normally associated with water-based printing. Virus is also making the process easier with its new Water-Based Mastery Course, which teaches shops that are unfamiliar with the intricacies of water- based ink printing, how to perfect printing techniques in their shop. Best surprise Walking to meet someone, I stumbled upon the Smake system. It was so intriguing that I had to text my colleague to let them know I would be a few minutes late so I could fully understand what this company has developed. Have you ever wanted to integrate a fully developed, lean manufacturing workflow into your shop? Do you even know that means? Either way, it doesn’t matter because the Smake Value Production Workflow (VPM) is set up to organise your production and keep you on track. Especially if you are producing decorated apparel for an online store. For starters, the system can project a perfectly sized image onto a loaded garment for DTG or embroidery. This means that quality placement is much easier with its system. Not sure where to hoop that left chest for embroidery? Load the shirt and the HoopMaster board moves around in any direction until you are satisfied with the placement. Then, clamp it down and you are ready to sew. This works in a similar way to DTG placement. The folks at Smake have long experience in textile finishing and, coupled with their IT knowledge, have built a solid workflow- tracking system. Each step along the way, Smake tracks and controls the process. Mistakes are prevented and the process is highly interactive. Smake is available in ten languages and supports twenty-four currencies. Best upgrade Last year SAATI turned some heads with its high-resolution direct laser image and exposure unit, the LTS 6080. What made that extremely interesting is the one-piece flow system where the laser images and exposes the screen simultaneously. Zero consumables. So, what do you do when you had the mic drop from last year? You improve it and make it larger, and give it some more features. While the previous version could handle screens up to 25” x 36”, the new LTS 1015 has a maximum image size of 53” x 65”. The laser power has also been increased, from 96 laser arrays to 160. The speed is based on which one of the five resolutions you want to use: 2540, 1693, 1270, 1016, or 847dpi. The higher the resolution, the longer it will take to complete the process. But here’s the real kicker: now you can image and expose two 25” x 36” screens simultaneously. And it has enough power for high-density capillary film too. For high volume shops that churn through a massive amount of screens each day, this might be just the right tool. Best new garment While everywhere you looked there was a different apparel manufacturer showing their new line up, Fruit of the Loom came in strong for me with this piece. Why? It’s the details. More emphasis these days is being placed on heathers and I think it is because that type of look isn’t a solid Kornit‘s unveiling of the Atlas was witnessed by a large crowd at ISS