The details of decor application have long been kept secret and even today many craftsmen still keep the lid on their methods of decoration. Yet new technologies are bringing fundamental changes to this situation.

Revolutionary Method

For a long time people who had some knowledge of decoration of ceramic, china and glass items, associated the decoration process with caustic solutions, toxic paints, unhealthy glass dust, air exhaust equipment, respirators and even gas-masks. But time passes and old widespread technologies are being replaced with the new ones which still have to earn their place in the sun. Among such inventions are paints and varnished setting under UV-light.

UV-setting of glue is already widely used by the famous and respected Soga Glass Ltd. (Japan) in the production of, for example, footed glass items. Speaking of gluing technology, it is rather simple and accessible. A thin layer of UV-glue (8-15 mm in diameter) is applied to the center of flat glass plate, where the glass foot is glued on then. After that under the UV-rays emit ting lamp the glue hardened so much within 2-3 minutes that the two actually different items solder turning into an elegant standing cake plate.

The setting principle for UV-paints is much the same. After applying paint to the glass or ceramics the item is exposed to short-term UV-light. As a result paints get hard once and for all becoming part of a product.

Almost for Free

Decorators may use UV-paints for direct screen printing and thus simplify and reduce the cost of decoration method. The range of such paints is constantly expanding: in the last two years their production volume has increased by 12%. The technology is developing in Europe due to the following three main factors: compliance with environmental protection standards, reduction of decoration cost, simplification of technology.

Unlike thermoplastic (silicate) inks, UV-paint does not require high-temperature (up to 6100) treatment for 1-2 hours in an expensive, bulky and "voracious" lehr. Even a ten-minute drying at 1800°C in a special chamber is not required. All we need is a 2-5-minute exposure to a plain UV-lamp light often used in modern night clubs. And one iamp can treat several dozens of items within 5 minutes and several hundreds of them within an hour. If about ten such lamps are used the figure can grow to thousands. And the electricity bills will be much lower compared to the use of a drying chamber, let alone the cales-cent annealing lehr. Standard equipment can be used for UV-paints and varnishes. And in case of screen printing the cost is lower due to the reduction of stencil manufacturing cost, since due to low viscosity of UV-var-nishes the expensive nichrome screen is replaced with cheaper polyester fabric. Paint consumption in this case also decreases to 30% due to the reduced thickness of paint. The only drawback of UV-method is the necessity to dry each color layer before applying the next one. But this problem will soon be salved; specialists are actively working to improve this technology.

What to Expect?

The prospects of professional use of the new decoration method are evident:

- arrangement of own decoration workshop or section at any factory;

- creation of wholesale company for product lines based on original (exclusive) decoration made using its own force and funds, even in conditions of megalopolis capital, as the described technology does not require any industrial networks and powerful ventilation.

All the above may result in the burst of decor diversity of kitchenware available in the shops.

In the nearest future we can also expect the decals based on UV-paint and varnishes which will considerably expand the application range of such materials allowing to decorate household articles and kitchenware in home conditions almost without any expenses and with quality worthy of best world manufacturers.

Evgeny Kirillov