The Makers: Gx Glass – Ceramic Printing Process
Gx Glass introduces CeramX-Digital
Digitally printed glass has transformed the creative possibilities for designers working with decorative or structural glass panels. CeramX-Digital is Gx Glass’ digitally printed glass solution, offering an incredibly hardwearing, scratch, water and UV-resistant product for uses as diverse as shower screen frits to retail displays.
DI went to visit Gx Glass to see how it all worked:
Whether designing for a one-off or a full façade, digital printing enables photorealistic detail to be achieved, making this approach ideal for replicating textures such as wood grains, metal meshes, marble and stone, as well as intricate vector based designs.
CeramX-Digital is created by printing specialist ceramic inks onto glass and then firing the inks, so that they become fused to the glass surface whilst the glass is toughened.
Now for the technical bit:
The inks available to Gx Glass helps achieve a huge range of colours, from CMYK to RAL, as well as etch and sparkle effects, with varying opacities and Gx Glass can digitally print vector and bitmap artwork on panels of up to 1500 x 3000mm, on glass that is 4 mm to 19 mm thick and toughened to BS EN12150.
CeramX-Digital also works as a complementary process with the rest of the Gx Design range, allowing digitally printed graphics to be used in combination with its back-painted and magnetic glass products, ColourX and MagnX.