A strike-off is a short printed length of your actual base fabric, usually one to three metres, made so you can approve the colours, repeat and hand feel of a print before the mill runs bulk. It is the printed-fabric equivalent of a lab dip, and no serious printer in Ahmedabad or Surat will run bulk without one. Expect the first strike-off typically 10 to 20 days after the mill receives your artwork, depending on whether the print needs new screens or engraved rollers.
The strike-off shows what artwork on a screen cannot: how the ink sits on the cloth, how fine lines hold, how the colours meet at the edges, and how the fabric feels after printing and curing.
What a strike-off should show you
- Colour: each printed colour against your standard, under agreed light, with the number of colours matching the artwork separations.
- Repeat: at least one full repeat in both directions so you can check registration and the join across the width.
- Scale: the print at the size specified, measured with a ruler against the artwork, not judged by eye.
- Hand feel: pigment prints stiffen the cloth, reactive prints usually do not, so the strike-off tells you which effect you are buying.
- Ground: the shade of the unprinted areas, which often differs from the lab dip of the ground colour.
- Fastness: a strike-off is large enough to cut for a wash test and a rub test before bulk.
Methods and what they change
Rotary screen printing is the workhorse for volume in India; it needs one screen per colour, so a design with eight colours costs more to set up than one with three. Flat-bed screens suit shorter runs and larger repeats. Digital printing needs no screens, so strike-offs are fast and cheap, but the per-metre cost for bulk is usually higher and the colour behaviour differs from screen printing.
Ask which method the mill will use for bulk and insist that the strike-off is made the same way. A digital strike-off approved for a rotary bulk run is a common source of disputes, because the two processes do not give the same colour.
Approving it properly
Compare the strike-off with the artwork and with each colour standard, in a light booth, and write down every deviation. Sign and date two pieces, one for you and one for the mill, and note the screen or file numbers. If a colour needs to move, say by how much and in which direction, and ask for a second strike-off only on the colours that changed.
Keep the signed piece sealed. When bulk arrives, cut a piece from the start, middle and end of the run and lay them beside the signed strike-off. Drift between the start and end of a run is more common than a miss on the first metre.
Where we come in
We attend strike-off approvals at the printer, photograph each piece against the standard and courier the signed strike-off to you with a written record of the comments. During bulk we pull sealed samples for an NABL-accredited lab and supervise loading. If you would like us to look over an artwork pack before it goes to the mill, ask for our free 20-minute sourcing review.