Manufacturing and Printing Techniques

Pen manufacturing and personalisation is a complex process involving many manufacturing and printing techniques.
 
Injection Moulding 

Fully robotic moulding machines avoid the quality defects normally associated with manual handling whilst at the same time providing the greatest manufacturing efficiency and associated lower costs.
 

Writing Test

Refills are automatically checked using accelerated testing techniques. Samples are taken from every batch manufactured and tested to exhaustion and results logged to ensure that the standard of writing quality and longevity is maintained.

 
Pen Assembly

There can be as many as fifteen components in an inexpensive retractable plastic pen and to avoid high assembly costs, fully automatic assembly lines are used for most models. The assembly process can be very flexible allowing small quantities of special colour assemblies for that bespoke corporate look.

 

Screen Process Printing

Most regular pen barrels are printed using traditional screen process printing at rates of up to 3,500 units per hour. In most cases, close-registration multi-colour printing is possible.
 
Pad Printing

The pad printing process is probably the most versatile of all printing processes due to its ability to print on three dimensional objects and compound angles. Curved clips and images diametrically opposed to the clip are common applications for this process. The process is ideally suited to close registration multi-colour printing.
 

Laser Engraving

This is the preferred technique for personalising metal pens as the image becomes a more permanent feature of the product and cannot be removed easily.

It is equally suitable for producing multiple images or individual images or names.