Countryside Art is achieving higher colour yield and reducing its lead times after investing in a new Mimaki TR300-1850C textile coating machine.
Based in Spilsby in Lincolnshire, the company bought the machine to enhance the performance of its cotton printing across its range of textile products from aprons to tote bags and tea towels.
Simple to use, the TR300 roll-to-roll unit applies a coating to the fabric to improve print results, and once inserted into the coater, the fabric passes through a padder, where it is saturated with the necessary chemicals before passing through squeeze rollers and a dryer, and finally being rewound onto a roll.
Countryside Art director Lawrence Chapman chose the TR300 because of its small footprint and on-demand operational benefits for pre- and post-treating textiles for printing with pigment inks.
It has enabled the company to achieve higher colour yield and reduce its lead times. “We are now able to coat textiles as and when we need them,” he said.
“The ability to enhance our colour yield has made a significant difference to colour matching, which for our corporate customers is especially critical.
“The Mimaki TR300 can be left coating with minimal supervision. It’s easy to clean and very well built, and I expect it to provide service for years to come.”
Countryside Art has five Mimaki TX300-1800 wide-format printers, running Mimaki water-based pigment inks and printing direct to a variety of cotton base cloths, all woven specially for the company to ensure the highest quality and an ethical and sustainable supply chain.
“We’re able to offer small minimum runs, short lead times, competitive pricing and superb quality,” Lawrence added. “We work with clients to turn their design ideas into reality across a multitude of products that represent our core ethos of delivering high-quality, bespoke giftware with an expert, personal approach.”
The new TR300 was bought through authorised Mimaki partner, RA Smart (CAD & Machinery), owned by Magnus Mighall. He said: “The versatility of the Mimaki coating machine means Countryside Art can offer their customers the opportunity to use specific fabrics, which up until this point would not have been cost-effective to coat using an external supplier.
“From a technical perspective, it’s also possible to enhance the finished product with a range of treatments, be it pre- or post-print – aiding the wash and rub fastness and even adding fire-retardant or waterproof coatings.
“We’re proud to have Countryside Art as a long-standing customer, with their first investment in a Mimaki textile printer some five years ago, and we continue to enjoy seeing the amazing work they produce.”
The launch of the TR Series has enabled Mimaki to offer an end-to-end solution for textile printers, with pre-treatment, printing, steaming and washing all provided by the one supplier, delivering a powerful textile printing eco-system capable of meeting all the requirements for direct printing to almost any natural fabric. It is distributed in the UK through Hybrid Services.
The new Mimaki TR300-1850C at Countryside Art has improved the colour yield on its cotton fabrics
