Universitas Gadjah Mada’s (UGM) lecturer has made a batik tulis (by hand) printing machine that can produce batik cloth in a shorter period of time.
The machine, Butimo, is an innovation made by Mechanical Engineering and Industry lecturer, Andi Sudiarso, Ph.D. It can save the time from the initial 6 hours through manual making to just 3 hours.
“Using this tool can produce as many as 8 – 10 sheets of batik tulis,” said Andi on Wednesday (29/8) during Ritech Expo 2019 in Bali.
The tool can also save the use of wax in the printing, or from 88 grams in manual labour to 57 grams. The wax can also be absorbed better in the fabric.
Butimo has 3 axes of 3 – 4 meter in length and 1.5 meter in width. It is also equipped with automatic replacement mechanism of the canting (pen-like tool). The canting comes in different sizes and number of nozzles to be used as required in the design. There are single nozzle, dual nozzle, and multi nozzle that come in different nozzle diameters.
Andi explained the canting machinery was connected to that of the batik tulis controlled by CNC. This can do batik processing on a 1.15 m x 2.5 m size fabric or bigger depending on the machine table size.
“During the process, a cloth is mounted on a frame to secure the position and quality,” he added.
Andi said this was the first machine he made and a second generation would follow by integrating colouring and third generation by integrating wax removing process.