| After considering all the benefits and thoroughly | | | | to high energy consumption." |
| testing the end product – imprinted coffee mugs | | | | Hot color inks are popular in the promotional product |
| – a factory in Canada has recently eliminated | | | | industry; their primary use is for the decoration of |
| their high temperature conveyors (lehrs) and | | | | ceramic glassware. To have the ink cured, the |
| switched to screen printing with Sapphire CG series | | | | products are placed into long conveyors at a very |
| screen printing ink. | | | | slow speed, where they are heated to over 200°C |
| Ray Murphy, the manager of Inkcups Now-Canada | | | | and then gradually cooled down. The main advantage |
| was at the factory to help with the transition. Ray | | | | of this method is that the ink melts into the ceramic, |
| reports: "By the time the decision to remove the | | | | making prints durable. However, there are many |
| lehrs was made, Sapphire CG screen printing ink had | | | | disadvantages of using hot melt inks: |
| already proven itself to the customer. In a different | | | | - Curing process takes more than an hour |
| division, which involves printing on varied metal | | | | - The lehrs occupy lot of production space |
| products, CG successfully replaced three (!) other ink | | | | - Fuel for the lehrs is a major expense |
| lines. This single series worked for all their applications, | | | | - The lehrs heat up the work area, creating difficult |
| completely satisfying the requirements for adhesion, | | | | conditions for the personnel and demanding heavy |
| opacity and gloss. | | | | conditioning |
| On the coffee mugs, previously decorated with hot | | | | - Pantone color matching is tricky as one cannot see |
| melt inks (also known as hot color inks as well as | | | | the resulting color till the ink is cured |
| fired inks or glass frit inks), the CG series screen | | | | - Until recently, the majority of hot melt inks have |
| printing ink worked great. The prints passed the | | | | been lead-based. Per recent revision of Proposition |
| scratch test and dishwashing test with ease. After | | | | 65, this is declared unsafe so ink manufacturers are |
| passing the test, convincing the production people | | | | developing lead-free formulas, which have worse |
| was simple. The lehrs occupied a lot of production | | | | adhesion characteristics. |
| space and drove energy costs through the roof due | | | | |