Dry release transfers
AssigneeE. T. Marler Limited
InventorsKenneth J. Reed, Alan L. Lythgoe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A dry release transfer is disclosed in which the design layer is formed by printing one or more inks onto a carrier sheet, at least one of the inks being a photopolymerizable composition, and subjecting the design layer to ultra-violet radiation or an electron beam discharge in order to polymerize the photopolymerizable ink. By suitable selection of polymerizable components of the ink so that the photopolymerized ink has a high Young's modulus, a stress-resisting design layer is produced which will release readily from the carrier on mechanically stressing the carrier, e.g. by rubbing lightly with a ball-point pen.
Claims21
A dry release transfer which comprises:
- (a) a flexible light-transmitting carrier sheet,
- (b) a design layer releasably adhered thereto, said design layer comprising a flexible solid cross-linked polymer produced by photopolymerisation of a viscous liquid ink containing not more than 20% of volatile solvent printed on the carrier sheet,
- (c) said ink prior to photopolymerisation consisting essentially of one or more ethylenically unsaturated monomers and prepolymers containing pendant or terminal acryloyl or methacryloyl groups,
- (d) said photopolymerisation having been effected by exposure of the entire liquid ink layer to actinic radiation, whereby the liquid layer is rapidly converted to a flexible cross-linked solid design layer, said design layer possessing stress-resisting properties which resist deformation by a mechanical disrupting force, such as a stylus, applied to the carrier sheet and enables the design layer to be released from the carrier sheet and enables the design layer to be released from the carrier sheet without fracturing the design layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.