Importance

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Abstract

A screen printing and curing apparatus has a shiftable printing head that carries a plurality of screen printing units that are each adapted to print an inked image of a color or texture different than the images printed by the other printing units. After the printing head has been lowered toward a web and each printing unit produces an inked image on respective, successively oriented defined areas of the web, the printing head is raised and a curing device such as an ultraviolet lamp is moved across all of the inked images on the web. Once each image has cured, the web advances one step to bring each of the defined areas of the web into registration with the next adjacent, downstream printing unit and the cycle is then repeated to build up a multicolor or multi-textured composite image. The speed of the curing device moving across the web may be varied in order to accommodate variations in the type, color or quantity of the ink or characteristics of the printing unit, screen or web. The parameters controlling movement of the curing device over the web can be readily reprogrammed, thereby offering flexibility of operation to the user and eliminating the need for separate curing devices or driers disposed downstream of separate printing units.

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First Claim