A Day in the Life of a Digital Printer - by Robbie Gardner

My name is Robbie and I'm in charge of digital printing at Beckford Silk

About a year ago Beckford Silk invested in a 'New' digital printer... I say new but it was a demonstration model. It is named TX 5 and is a hybrid of a printer and belt roller, the roller is to secure the fabric down for printing. Although this technology has been around for some time, and I'm sure most of you have a paper printer somewhere around the house. This is (only) slightly different: the main difference is that it weighs and is about the size of a car, although the printing heads are almost the same as for ordinary paper printers, the 8 colour process uses Acid dyes (the same type that we use for our hand printing, only more refined). And the fabric is fed on with this large self-cleaning belt system. Basically, it is a printer and you press buttons to make it work.

Our digital printer

So why would a traditional Hand-printing business invest in such outlandish tech? Well, it’s because we have almost 40 years of hand-printing experience, so the time seemed right. Not to mention that digital printers have now got to a level where the quality is good enough to compete with flat colour pushed through a screen.

But where is the skill? True, all I do all day is stand and watch 'printer-head tennis', while pulling out tiny creases from meters upon meters of silk. But, to get to this point has been a real battle! You see, you can't just get a roll of fabric and flatten it paper thin and print on it. The material must be treated first, with the exact same recipe that we use to mix our dye for hand printing. I must coat the silk with a mixture of starch-gum, urea and Ammonium-sulphate... basically, it stops the ink from bleeding out as soon as it touches the fabric, and then helps the colours to 'pop' and connect with the silk in the steaming process. So once I have coated it... and if anyone reading this has ever done this process: I coat using a winch, and a centrifugal spinner (which you will know can't be done and I must be mad for trying it, how could you possibly...etc) True my methods maybe old-fashioned and unusual, but you know what... it works. So once it has been coated it must be dried and straightened. This is done with our pre-war machine that is called a stenter (I'm not going to go into what a stenter is, but basically a big machine that dries and stretches fabric) and carefully we batch the silk off as straight as we can onto a roll for printing. Now straightness is important. When I say straightness, I am referring to the weft (the strand across fabric when it is woven) if it’s not straight, then when I put it through the printer, the scarves will come off looking like a Salvador Dali painting! Now other printers out there will know that this straightness is the key, although many will not print scarf panels so will not be as affected as we are. And so affected are we by this, that my father and I have created a special top-secret straightening machine... ok so it's not so top, and we are not much for secrets. But explaining it in this format would put my head in to knots (not that it’s technical), so maybe just come to Beckford silk and I’ll show you how it works.

Rolling machine

So once we have our perfect roll of fabric, and our amazing designer has created a masterpiece of a design, and we have printed it. Then it goes through the same process as the hand printing does, steaming, washing, drying, and finally finishing, which for us is either hand-rolling or machine hemming.

So that is it from our digital printer for the moment, not much of a ‘day in the life of’, more of a ‘how-does-it-work’, but nonetheless (and hopefully?) 'captivating stuff.' Please feel free to come and see our printing, hand and digital and also visit our website at www.beckfordsilk.co.uk

Our first big commercial order

 As James developed his printing skills he started to get small orders for bespoke silk scarves from local shops, hotels and golf clubs. His first big commercial order however came in 1978 and was to a large extent thanks to his wife’s personality and home cooking.

Mother was managing the Wheatsheaf restaurant in Tewkesbury at the time and through her hard work, excellent food and extrovert personality had built up a good regular clientele. James had by now converted the skittle alley at the rear of her restaurant into a print room and mother was in the habit of occasionally inviting some of her regulars back to see him at work. One of these honoured diners, a lady called Ruth Segar, happened to work at the local headquarters of The National Trust and having recently commissioned a scarf design for The Trust, suggested that James might print it for them.

The National Trust was at the forefront of what we now call ‘Heritage Retailing’. They, along with institutions such as The Royal Academy of Arts and The National Gallery in London, were starting to develop the whole idea of museum shops and the development of ranges of gift products inspired by their collections.

Ruth arranged for the scarf designer Pat Albeck to come down from London to discuss the project and so James and Marthe suggested that the meeting should be held over lunch in their own kitchen at home. Mother put on a wonderful spread, several glasses of wine were consumed and the meeting apparently went very well indeed!

Over the years many museum and gallery buyers, designers and artists were invited down from London to discuss business, always over a home cooked lunch around the kitchen table at Beckford. It seems that word of their hospitality spread around the museum community and invitations were always eagerly accepted!

That first ‘landscape’ scarf design was the start of a long association with both Pat Albeck and The National Trust and set us on the path of printing and later designing for many prestigious museums and institutions. It is of particular significance to us therefore that it is this design that features on page 78 of Albrechtsen & Solanke’s SCARVES (published by Thames & Hudson) and described as “the definitive work on scarves in the 20th century…”



Pat Albeck's Landscape design for The National Trust



New Digital Printer Arrives

Yesterday was quite a momentus day for us all at Beckford Silk. It saw the arrival of our new digital textile printing machine.

We have always printed silk using screens, one for each colour in the design. This new machine will enable us, when appropriate, to print directly from a computer onto specially coated silk. This print method is suited particularly to multi-coloured and photographic type designs.

This T5 textile belt machine finally arrived by ship from Hong Kong a couple of days ago and by 2pm yesterday was being unloaded at Beckford.

We start to unpack the crate and then try and work out which way round it is!

Steve our builder has already taken down a couple of internal walls, removed two double doors and had to cut into the brick work so that we can get the machine in.

The machine weighs about 900kg so it takes a few of the guys to start manoeuvring it into the building

After quite a struggle they get it into the building

And there it is! It's taken three hours to get it into place but the new technology HAS LANDED!!

Now it's down to my brother Robbie to get it to work!

How Beckford Silk began

So how did it all start? …. Well back in the early 1970s my father James, a trained chef, had taken over the running of his own fathers business being a number of small restaurants and cafes in the local towns of Tewkesbury and Evesham. He and my mother ran them together and when we were old enough, my brothers and I were drafted in to help with things like washing up and laying tables.

James however was also a keen and accomplished artist with a passion for colour and in his spare time he would often take a walk up Bredon Hill with his oil paints and easel and paint the Cotswold landscape around him.

He had an idea that he wanted to start up a business from home that used colour in some way but at first wasn’t sure what he could do. An original idea was to do hand painted ceramics but he wasn’t convinced that he would be able to compete in the market place with so many others in the area doing a similar thing.

James was in Evesham one day, dashing from one restaurant to another, when he spotted a gentleman walking towards him sporting a very colourful silk tie. It grabbed his attention and it got him thinking!

James started to make some enquiries. He read up about printing silk, got in touch with dye manufacturers and talked to printers in the north of England who were prepared to offer him some consultancy.

He started off experimenting on the kitchen table with hand made screens and his first steamer was a stock pot on the kitchen stove.

Mother however was not impressed with this arrangement and so my father soon set about converting an old building at the bottom of the garden into a workshop. My parents still live at the Old Vicarage in Beckford and this out-building had, in a previous incarnation, housed the vicar’s pony and trap. When they moved in however it was very run down and full of junk. One of their discoveries on clearing it out was a long horse drawn carriage base, which they later learnt had been used to transport coffins! Dad used it as the base of a miniature gypsy caravan that he designed, built and decorated for us to play in.

At this point James was still working full time in the restaurants but devoting as much of his spare time as possible to experimenting with silk printing.

Next time I’ll tell you more about those early years and how he got his business off the ground.