How would you have printed this?

[DannyGruninger]

Some good suggestions by many and like Dan said it's hard to know exactly without seeing the original art but since you seem to have a handle on that it's a non issue just looking at the print. With that said here's my suggestions which I don't believe has been mentioned. With as much sim process and nice blend work we do in our shop, we still struggle with "must be super opaque, solid color designs" so I feel your pain on this. I recently purchased 150 used newman's and an L2 stretching table that we are currently using to get these into production. The final verdict of static frames vs newmans is still out since we have not work hardened many yet or ran many jobs with a full set of newmans but I will tell you I'm noticing a pretty big difference(very good) in all production stages. The newman's reclaim much nicer, setup quicker on press(less mesh pull),  less squeegee pressure needed, etc etc etc. The benefits I'm seeing so far with nice tensioned newmans vs our statics are really beneficial. We printed a 10 color spot color job on all different color shirts last week in which I printed the base, flash,  and all colors WOW after that. Before newmans and doing a halftone underbase(I feel it's really important so the color has some shirt to adhere to) we would never be able to pull that off. All the colors were bright primary colors so having pickup issues would create a major problem. Proper inks, tension, underbase, and underbase flash time are probably the major things I believe which can make or break a solid spot color print on dark shirts.

I'm a big supporter of whenever I have 2 blues that blend together to put a flash between them. Blues always seem to look muted when printed wow in my opinion, so we always try to flash between blues if the job has 2. Here's how I'd setup that print..... BTW one of our presses is an 8 color diamondback xl which I would be confident printing this on not revolving.



1. Base White - 230 mesh
2. Flash
3. Light Blue - 230 mesh - I'd setup this station with a slow flood stroke, fast and hard print stroke to crush the base into the shirt. If it's a large qty run setup a fan to blow on the shirt.
4. Orange - 230 mesh
5. Flash
6. Cool Station
7. Dark Blue - 230 or 305 mesh
8. Highlight White - 230 mesh

That's how we would setup the job initially to see how it looked and just keep an eye on flash times......... Once we get all these newmans stretched I will let you guys know what my opinion is then. We are getting the new lawson express jet cts direct to screen system within the next two weeks so my goal is to have all our newmans ready for that new addition.

Badass print/design by the way, nice work again!

[GraphicDisorder]

Amateur question - where is the 2nd blue in this print?

The flash blew out the image.  Light blue is th majority of the design.  Teeth and eyes are the only white ink showing. 

[GraphicDisorder]

No you don't, but it will help.  We print all the time wet on wet, you will need statics with good tension though.  the stuff that comes out of your shop is top notch.  Seriously, the only thing you will gain with newmans is better production.  I don't really see your prints improving that much, there isn't much room to move up.

The biggest thing with wet on wet is mesh selection.  also using the perfect amount of pressure on all heads.  that is critical.  a print can go from great to really bad if you crank the pressure down on a wet on wet overprint.

Thanks for the nice comments.  I know we can learn wet on wet it's just a matter of doing it.  We have done some of it but not massive amounts. So we lack confidence there. 

Newmans is something I behave wanted to do for awhile anyway.   So I am considering that any way you shake it.  If it improves set up or makes anything at all easier then it's almost a no brainer for me. Like I said I am at a fork in the road.  Stop using revolver one way or another.  So more wet on wet or bigger press.   One obviously costs more than the other. 

[mk162]

yeah, you should be able to print wet on wet on most designs.  you are killing your production with revolver.  we have a 6 color press and maybe once a week we have to run things around twice.

i see the light blue now, it took a bit.

what meshes are you using for this?

[Sbrem]

it's not an amateur question, i was wondering the same thing.

Me too, looks like the shirt to me. I have White underbase, flash, cool, blue, orange, flash, cool, highlight white as a 4 color, if I had the the dark blue, it would be printed 1st, in front of the underbase white... A very straight ahead job I think, done thousands like it over the years.

Steve

[GraphicDisorder]

yeah, you should be able to print wet on wet on most designs.  you are killing your production with revolver.  we have a 6 color press and maybe once a week we have to run things around twice.

i see the light blue now, it took a bit.

what meshes are you using for this?

I agree, Shelly isn't comfy with it and I need to get her to the point where we only using revolver when its impossible to print otherwise or the job is super small and doesn't make sense to burn 2 whites or something.  But this job Sunday was 144pcs.  Took way longer than it should have and I want to move away from that because we could have avoided it. 

Underbase was 196.  I think top colors where 158's.  It wasn't ideal but we had a huge week and where out of screens for Sunday's Job. 

[mk162]

yeah, your mesh selection is jacked on that.  I would have done what homer and others said, 230's and 305 top or 230's all the way around.

[GraphicDisorder]

it's not an amateur question, i was wondering the same thing.

Me too, looks like the shirt to me. I have White underbase, flash, cool, blue, orange, flash, cool, highlight white as a 4 color, if I had the the dark blue, it would be printed 1st, in front of the underbase white... A very straight ahead job I think, done thousands like it over the years.

Steve

The only white on the shirt is the Teeth and the Sharks eyes.  Everything else you think is white was light blue.  The flash on the pic blew it out.   There are 2 blues.

Attached is the pre-press artwork. 

[GraphicDisorder]

yeah, your mesh selection is jacked on that.  I would have done what homer and others said, 230's and 305 top or 230's all the way around.

Yes I agree, as I said, not normal.  We use a lot of 230's.  Come down to this job and we were simply out of screens and it was a Sunday lol. 

[Homer]

depending on the inks you used and I was really pressed for time and screens - I would possibly entertain the thought of using the light blue as a base

or

 if you discharged it, I would ditch the HW, but not a clear discharge base, maybe a 50/50 mix to achieve some white in there. fifty ways to run it and I bet all would look great.

This brings up a thought I had a long time ago. What if we had Dan the Sep man come up with a design. we as printers go ahead with our method of sep'n (in house, send out, whatever)  print and trade each other our finished product along with all the details. I bet we could all learn a few new tricks...

[GraphicDisorder]

depending on the inks you used and I was really pressed for time and screens - I would possibly entertain the thought of using the light blue as a base

or

 if you discharged it, I would ditch the HW, but not a clear discharge base, maybe a 50/50 mix to achieve some white in there. fifty ways to run it and I bet all would look great.

This brings up a thought I had a long time ago. What if we had Dan the Sep man come up with a design. we as printers go ahead with our method of sep'n (in house, send out, whatever)  print and trade each other our finished product along with all the details. I bet we could all learn a few new tricks...

Still haven't tried discharge.  Really want to. 

Over all I am clearly admitting we didn't print this the most ideal.  What I want to help Shelly see or get comfy with is that we can do more wet and wet.... In other words my main concern here on this one was the extra time spent on a Sunday of all days.  We gotta get away from using revolver unless its just impossible. 

[inkman996]

For that little area of white especially surrounded by other colors you could have possibly ditched the hi lite white altogether, if needed double stroke the white.

[mk162]

especially on a distressed print

[GraphicDisorder]

Ya may have been able to ditch it. 

[Sbrem]

it's not an amateur question, i was wondering the same thing.

Me too, looks like the shirt to me. I have White underbase, flash, cool, blue, orange, flash, cool, highlight white as a 4 color, if I had the the dark blue, it would be printed 1st, in front of the underbase white... A very straight ahead job I think, done thousands like it over the years.

Steve

The only white on the shirt is the Teeth and the Sharks eyes.  Everything else you think is white was light blue.  The flash on the pic blew it out.   There are 2 blues.

Attached is the pre-press artwork.

Well then, white under, flash, cool, dk. blue, lt. blue, orange, flash, highlight white. Still pretty straight ahead.

Steve