Soft enamel is a type of resin (ink or paint) specially used for hand color filling. It require a little heat (baking at around 60e Celsius) to stabilize and harden into it’s final stage.
Process:
Soft enamel is applied into the recess (debossed) of material (iron, brass, zamac) created by either stamping, photo etch or injection. Liquid enamel resin is hand color filled, usually with a syringe.
After soft enamel is applied, we use a cloth with alcohol mounted on a pad to erase over filling and enamel that may have spilled. Soft enamel is applied at the end of the production process, after stamping ( photo etch or injection ), after polish and after plating process.
Depending the design ( color on metal, or color on color ) the baking is made after each different color and in the end, after the enamel color filling process is finished.
Design notice:
A particularity of enamel process is that some designs are much easier than others to handfill.
–> An easy design can be made at the rate of 500 or 800 pcs a day per worker. Easy designs are usually color on metal.For example enamel lettering on metal bottom or metal lettering on enamel bottom.
–> Difficult design can be down to 300, 150 or even less per worker per day. A difficult design will be a design with colors on colors. For example enamel lettering on enamel bottom.
Color on color design are to be avoided in every possible case, especially in nowadays with great labor shortage. Especially if the quantity is large, like 100,000 pcs. It will not only increase the cost, slow the delivery and increase defect, but the result will certainly not match your expectations and will create useless strain on the design.
When you have a color on color, we must use separation walls ( hence the initial French term “ cloisonne “ which mean “walls” ) between each color so that they don’t mix. Those walls are made of embossed (relief) metal created depending the process (stamping, photo etching or injection )
In the case of a lettering, those metal walls all around the lettering, will clog together to make a full metal background, they will get thicker than the lettering itself and the result is at best, ugly.
Soft enamel, being “soft” it is advised to avoid large surface of enamel, thus suggested way is to make a colored logo or design onto a metal bottom. Epoxy enamel is similar with soft enamel, the color is just more oily.
