America garment label printing ink - Sapphire SB series

SB Series pad / screen printing ink is a specialized, excellent-adhesion 1- or 2-component flexible ink for rubber, rubber-like or soft-touch surfaces. This series’ unique elasticity, high gloss and opacity make it the ideal choice for printing on items such as stress balls, rubberized pens, Crocs, soft-touch travel mugs, koozies, can coolers, simulated leather and vinyl items as well as other flexible or coated products. Like all Sapphire series, SB complies with European EN 71 Toy Safety standard and California Proposition 65.

Another popular application for SB series ink is tag printing. This textile ink is perfect for pad or screen tag printing on tagless t-shirts, sweatshirts and other tagless garments.

Benefits of tag printing over heat transfer:

• While heat transfer just puts markings on the garment’s surface, SB ink penetrates and saturates textile thus extending the life of the tag. SB ink is very durable even when used as a 1 component ink; with hardener, it will withstand copious industrial washings.
  
• With heat transfer, labels have to be purchased by thousands; with screen or pad tag printing, the image can be easily modified in-house, enabling cost-effective short-run production.

Mixing Preparation

(2 component usage optional)

Hardeners: SB Series ink for rubber items and tag printing cures by air drying and cross-linking. Add 1000H Hardener at a ratio of one part hardener to ten parts ink (10:1) by weight. SB Series ink (when using hardener) has a 7/8 hour working pot life.

Solvent: Immediately after adding the hardener the mixture should be thinned to printing viscosity with 10% - 30% SB-M or SB-MS by weight. Adding solvent will make the ink less viscous and dry slower.

Drying: SB Series flexible ink for rubber items and tag printing cures by air drying or chemical cross-linking. It will be ready for overprinting in less than 60 seconds and will be dust dry in 20 minutes at room temperatures. Complete cross-linking (full cure) of the inks is realized in 6-8 days at room temperatures. Dust dry and full cure conditions can be significantly accelerated by the application of heat.

Retarder: For fine prints, add SB-MS retarder in proportions not to exceed 50% by weight of solvent. Adding too much retarder may inhibit ink transfer from pad to substrate.

Main Benefits of Pad Printing (Inkcup Printing) of Tags:

• Flexibility - easily change graphics on garments based on need, reduce inventory costs and eliminate label stock
• Cost savings - pad printed labels are less expensive than thermal transfer
• Better durability - no cracking of the label
• Tags air-dry almost instantly - so the operator can stack and pack right after printing
• High quality image - as small as 4 pt type
• High productivity - from 600 to 1500 pph (prints per hour) depending on the graphic and printing operator's skill
• Does not damage fabric - does not effect garment texture
• Has "soft hand" - does not have a rough texture
  

Compliance

All Sapphire ink series, including SB-Tagless and BLink311, as well as Opal and Candymark inks are non-toxic and compliant with current US regulations such as CPSIA'08 and California Prop 65. Also, depending on ink series' purpose, the inks meet NAFTA standards, medical grade standards, FDA standards, In addition, the Sapphire ink series have European toy safety certification.