Printed carpet: flat-screen (1962) and rotary-screen (1968) printing of pile carpet, then jet dyeing
Research finding · not yet checked at the source
- Made by
- Zimmer (Austria) among others; Milliken Millitron 1973 (already in repo)
- Date
- 1962 (flat-screen carpet printer); 1968 (large rotary screen); 1970s jet printing
- Materials
- dyes, tufted nylon carpet
- Themes
- Rug-making techniques, Tools & equipment
Cite this source
Research notes
How it works: colour is applied to plain (usually tufted) carpet after it is made. Dye is forced through a stencilled screen, flat or rotary, one screen per colour, and must reach the full depth of the pile. Later jet machines inject dye from computer-controlled jets with no screens. A US patent on rotary screens for carpet notes that deep and shag piles were hard to print, because higher squeegee pressure caused leaks (US 4030411). History (mostly self-reported by Zimmer): rotary screen machine 1955. Carpet printing from 1962 on a flat-bed machine. Large rotary-screen carpet printing in 1968 with repeats up to 3 m. Its first digital carpet system is put at 1976 by other sources, and its Chromojet later replaced screen printers. An industry article says flat-screen carpet printers used screens about 12 ft wide with about eight colours, and makers like Durkan held big screen stocks. The Milliken Millitron (1973) is already in the repo. No independent history of the first printed carpet was found. Sources: https://zimmer-austria.com/en/node/6296 · https://www.fsw.cc/the-evolution-of-jet-printing-in-carpet-manufacturing/ · https://patents.google.com/patent/US4030411 Research note (Oct 2026): from search results; pages not opened. Link note (Oct 2026): Zimmer Austria removed this newsletter page. The link is now the Internet Archive's copy of 16 Jun 2023; the original address was https://zimmer-austria.com/en/node/6296.