What have you printed lately?

[Dottonedan]

This was one that was done last year of course, for Hot markets. Timing was critical. The problem for me was that like Danny said, they flashed every color. That limited the blending ability and it becomes similar to the INDEX printing where the colors don't really blend, they just sit next to each other or in traditional halftone, they sit overlapping each other (without blending). So it leave more of a grainy look. Not fond of it, but a few other printers do that on their own to, like Target Graphics. Looks good and crisp, but crusty.  Target has won awards (on looks alone). If they graded by the soft hand feel, they wouldn't even place.


This print, seemed to have been slapped up in a hurry with no attention to detail. Lost a lot of detail/texture. Again tho, in this case, the quality was not #1 priority but getting it out there was.

[alan802]

This textile screen printing thing would be a breeze if we could all flash after every color.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn down a 16 color press and if we could justify buying one I would, but you should know enough about screen printing to be able to print wet on wet a little bit.  I know all the spot color stuff would be so much easier if we flashed after every color but it's just not feasible and we all can't go out and buy 22 station ovals so we can do an 8 color job in one revolution.  I wouldn't mind getting a 12/14 to alleviate some of the "creativity" we have to implement with all the 6-8 color jobs on a 10 color auto but a 14 color I think would be excessive and with 3 flash units I think we'd get soft and lose some of our ability (only half-joking on that).  I've always thought that a 12/16 would be the perfect configuration for a shop like ours.  I know when we first started we had that 8/12 Centurian with 2 flashes and it was way better than the typical 8/10 press and when I first started looking at new autos, I couldn't believe that 10/14, 12/16 and even 8/12's weren't the norm.  Looking back I see how green I was but in reality, I still believe the 4 station-to-color gap to be optimum.  The argument has always been that you can pay just a little bit more for a 12/14 than you would a 10/14 and get two additional print heads but it always seems like no matter what you end up filling up those extra two heads with screens and you need additional cool down stations.  Oh well, there's a good reason why my idea of the perfect press configuration is rarely ever sold. 

[jvanick]

I could have sworn that I've seen a press that had the capability of a flash after every head.. something like a 10 or 12 / 22

seems like you'd run into trouble with cool down tho if you really were flying?

plus.. i can't even begin to imagine the electricity needs... LOL... you'd practically need a 200+amp 3 phase panel just for the press and flashes (assuming AC motors and indexer) + 10-12 flashes.

[DannyGruninger]

Yeah M&R has a press that can flash between every head. It's called the sportsman DPE if I remember correctly.....

[abchung]

I watched this video so many times.

Sportsman DPE - M&R Screen Printing Equipment - Automatic Textile Press

[tonypep]

We try our best to never flash at all.

[3Deep]

I've had problems with certain colors building up after flashing, black being one of them, so I would prefer to print wet on wet and just get my inks right, one print stroke and roll with it.

Darryl

[DannyGruninger]

Getting a bit slow in this thread, here's one I have up on the press today we are printing. 5 colors on this version, all done on 272's w/ 1 stroke. 55 lpi on this..... I'll see what else we've been printing that I can post up and get this thread going again.

[mimosatexas]

If you can, can you elaborate on how you're separating your art Danny?  All of your stuff looks fantastic when it comes to detail and color balance etc.

I am still hand separating in photoshop, and while it works fine for most jobs, I have started getting some more complex art and want to start pushing the limits of my new press.  I assume a rip is the next logical step, but I tried Accurip a while back and was mostly unimpressed...

[DannyGruninger]

If you can, can you elaborate on how you're separating your art Danny?  All of your stuff looks fantastic when it comes to detail and color balance etc.

I am still hand separating in photoshop, and while it works fine for most jobs, I have started getting some more complex art and want to start pushing the limits of my new press.  I assume a rip is the next logical step, but I tried Accurip a while back and was mostly unimpressed...

All seps are done manually in photoshop 4(not cs4)....... My designer pulls colors using rgd and cmyk channels, and a combination of other ways to pull the correct amount of color. Everything we print though has a manual sep, never do we run through a auto program.  Have you checked out the sep book that Mitch Different has posted on this site? I have not checked it out yet, but he seems to have a lot of knowledge regarding seps and how to do them. I would suggest checking out his book to see if you learn anything that can possibly help you out. Good printing starts with good seps, but I will say 2 years ago if we printed the same seps we are today it would look horrible compared to our printing now. Our seps haven't changed much over the last couple years, just our methods of printing them.

[mimosatexas]

well it sounds like your artist is using the same methods I'm using, but is simply better at it.  I guess I'll have to start reading more

[GraphicDisorder]

Danny is a ass.

By that I mean he is really good at printing and design. 

[Rocfrog]

Here is a couple we printed today....







Nick

[TCT]

This textile screen printing thing would be a breeze if we could all flash after every color.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn down a 16 color press and if we could justify buying one I would, but you should know enough about screen printing to be able to print wet on wet a little bit.  I know all the spot color stuff would be so much easier if we flashed after every color but it's just not feasible and we all can't go out and buy 22 station ovals so we can do an 8 color job in one revolution.  I wouldn't mind getting a 12/14 to alleviate some of the "creativity" we have to implement with all the 6-8 color jobs on a 10 color auto but a 14 color I think would be excessive and with 3 flash units I think we'd get soft and lose some of our ability (only half-joking on that).  I've always thought that a 12/16 would be the perfect configuration for a shop like ours.  I know when we first started we had that 8/12 Centurian with 2 flashes and it was way better than the typical 8/10 press and when I first started looking at new autos, I couldn't believe that 10/14, 12/16 and even 8/12's weren't the norm.  Looking back I see how green I was but in reality, I still believe the 4 station-to-color gap to be optimum.  The argument has always been that you can pay just a little bit more for a 12/14 than you would a 10/14 and get two additional print heads but it always seems like no matter what you end up filling up those extra two heads with screens and you need additional cool down stations.  Oh well, there's a good reason why my idea of the perfect press configuration is rarely ever sold.

I am pretty sure I had mentioned it in the thread about how they were printing in Portugal, but standard press configuration was 3 pallets per print head(like 30 station 10 color). That was probably just as standard as 2 pallets short of your print head count here(like a 10/12) is....

[ZooCity]

I am pretty sure I had mentioned it in the thread about how they were printing in Portugal, but standard press configuration was 3 pallets per print head(like 30 station 10 color). That was probably just as standard as 2 pallets short of your print head count here(like a 10/12) is...

That makes a lot of sense for plastisols or the HSA inks that may need a flash after each color but would actually be problematic for WOW discharge/WB as you would have dry time between the heads, even double indexing.  Makes for the dreaded "zombie skin" buildup issues.

I see a huge market for the digotex ovals for those applications that need a flash+cool after each color.  I believe those free moving platens can index willy nilly and "hang out" or index slower.  They could be set to print - flash - half index/hang for cool down then back onto print.  Could reduce the monster footprint of a 30 station.