Printing is a new painting process that reduces costs and keeps the aesthetics of the final product.
Appliances consume a lot of stainless materials; how can we keep the aesthetic of them without reducing functionality and while also lowering their production costs? The answer is the Printing finish. Thanks to technology advancing at incredible speeds, there are new techniques such as this for new products and better processes. In this case, with the metallic finish, printing offers great quality options at a lower cost.
And because when doing the finish, regular paints can be used into it, it is characterized by the type of resin used for coating, but the real distinguishing aspect is the type of finish you choose. All these processes are done in different facilities from Ternium’s plants.
The best known and common is the metallic finish, which has a wide variety of colors applied as an external layer as well as transparent paint on it. This finish gives us variety and versatility with the aesthetics of our products.
Another, more complex, finish system is texture, which offers an improved sturdiness and resistance to marks left by use. It also hides fingerprints well.
The third system, the wrinkle, is a finish that has a deeper matte texture.
And finally, we have the printing, an evolution that allows us to make patterns on steel sheets. The result is a finish that resembles wood or stainless steel.
With the Printing system, you can get wood-type finishes.
A complex process, with a fantastic result
To obtain these results (i.e., get the appearance of a stainless steel finish), we need to take a sheet, paint it with a very light gray tone, and immediately afterward, we have to pass it through a roller that barely touches the steel sheet. This roller has a pattern that creates marks with a darker color over a light background, which afterward gets a transparent layer applied to it.
Then, the result is a surface that looks like a stainless-steel sheet. But with the resistance and durability of Ternium’s steel. The significant advantage is that it can be used in markets that did not previously need stainless steel’s functionality, but that asks for its aesthetic, technology, and high quality for a third of the cost. Besides, it is easier to work with a material that is more malleable than stainless steel.
Ternium keeps the same process when doing wood-type finishes, with the bonus that with them you can simulate materials such as mahogany or ebony, there are a lot of options. In both cases, due to the big size of the roller that marks the second layer, the pattern is also vast and that prevents repeated “drawings” in a solo piece to happen as often.
The result is a piece that can substitute the stainless steel door of a fridge or sockets with a mahogany imitation finish that avoids “noise” in the designed environment of an internal courtyard.
Possibilities are infinite.