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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Dottonedan on August 25, 2016, 09:11:16 AM
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I've re-separated a job to print with better production
the two heaviest screens heaviest ink content I put in the end of the print order.
The black screen is a typical simulated process sep with no solid areas all halftone.
This is a white T-shirt printed seven color simple process for 80,000 units.
The two people in charge of production want to flash the black screen and print it first. I've already lightened it so that it can print at the end of my light blue and dark blue and mix with this two.
They suggested I change it and I've done this type of printing thousands of times at the shop so I've worked at for large quantities but I think I have a bigger problem here with the way they know to print.
So my question is for 80,000 (white) shirts even if the halftone black separation has been lightened back for gain and intended to blend with the blue and black should I change it to have the black first and flash it on a white shirt? L
I figure that there is very rarely an occasion to flash on a white shirt if the steps have been done right… And they have… I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the number of times that they would have to wipe the screens down at the end of the print sequence for black would be more than the time invested in flashing up front??
I can only guess that because it's 80,000 that they think that
it will pick up and become too light to many times in the production run so they want to keep the black up front and flashed.
What are your thoughts?
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I've never had the experience to print 80,000 prints but with wilflex black on a couple of thousand the print has stayed consistent after the first 15 or so prints through the rest of the run especially on white. There is a far cry's difference in 2000 and 80000 though.
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Let them do it their way to get the job out. Later you all can go back and review how it ran and discuss if your seps would have run better.
You are the new kid on the block it will be a while before you can get everything printing "your way". I had the same problem when I took over at Transgraphics....
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agreed with Orion! Your job now is to observe and document. Make sure they understand that and that you will be implementing changes after the assessment. Make sure you document how long it takes to produce that order (as mentioned already, it's what you should be doing now) so you can compare it to your results later.
pierre
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A consideration....process black. Whats the difference? Primarily pigment grind..Wash test no matter what
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I'll do what ever I need to on press to run 80k shirts in a very timely and productive manner. if that means flashing the black or what, then so be it.
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And, please document with pics some of the end products, and your pre-press differences. A visual comparo could be valuable for all. (this assumes that you are not bound to secrecy as Tony was)
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It would depend on the art actually, but generally we wouldn't flash on white. I would tend to think that would slow it down a second or so, and for 80K that could add up. But as Pierre said, let them run it the way they know, and work with them later...
Steve
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we run a flash on almost every job (even if it's just for 1/2 a second).. warm platens keep the glue stickier longer. I'm along the camp of whatever gets the job out the door quicker with the most consistent results.
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Agree let them rock the way they been rocking and make changes on smaller jobs and work your way up, you don't need pissed off printers before you can get rooted in.
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You have given us your mechanical reasons for printing it your way.
I would ask them for the mechanical reasons why they want to print it their way. There could be several reasons why "their way" works the best in your shop currently. Anything from ink selection/ink opacities/current dot gain/in house wash testing/customers wash testing/etc...
I see both options as being viable for different reasons.
I personally like to have a flash, like others have said, to keep the boards warm and the glue sticky. Assuming waterbase tack of course.
Maybe you can add your black screen at the end of the run to show them what it would be like?
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You have given us your mechanical reasons for printing it your way.
I would ask them for the mechanical reasons why they want to print it their way. There could be several reasons why "their way" works the best in your shop currently. Anything from ink selection/ink opacities/current dot gain/in house wash testing/customers wash testing/etc...
I see both options as being viable for different reasons.
I personally like to have a flash, like others have said, to keep the boards warm and the glue sticky. Assuming waterbase tack of course.
Maybe you can add your black screen at the end of the run to show them what it would be like?
"Keep the boards sticky" I get, but even in a New England weather it's never below 85° in our shop, or so it seems anyway...
Steve
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"Keep the boards sticky" I get, but even in a New England weather it's never below 85° in our shop, or so it seems anyway...
The glue seems to work best in the 100ish range or so and a 'courtesy' flash on whites helps with ink pick up later in the run.
Black flashes fast, like really fast so it won't slow the press down. This 80k will build up ink on the black screen no matter what so hitting it first and flashing, is exactly what I would do.. even if my artist told me he wants to print it last.
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If I had the press size I'd flash all color before the black even went down, as I use black as my trap color a lot here, not much trap but just a little, I can see why they would want to use black in the run first.
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Can only speak for what I would do.....
I rarely ever(close to never) run black first..... We run black on our last head if the highlight white in front of it is a small area, if the white has large areas black then goes right in front of top white.
On white garments we print small to big wet on wet, flash before black which would print last.
If the art has solid black AND black halftone for 80k garments we are running two black screens, 1 with solid and halftone, and 1 solid areas only. That way we can control the halftone better and still get a deep solid black.
Good luck with the new gig and getting them to change. I've found that "change" is a very scary scenario for most printers
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And, please document with pics some of the end products, and your pre-press differences. A visual comparo could be valuable for all. (this assumes that you are not bound to secrecy as Tony was)
Was is the operative word. Here to help and desperate with job decisions so....lets help eachother
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How did it go today Tony?
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And, please document with pics some of the end products, and your pre-press differences. A visual comparo could be valuable for all. (this assumes that you are not bound to secrecy as Tony was)
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I appreciate everybody's input thank you very much. I will be watching as I have been for the last few days while also cringing I might say.
We did however manage to crank on a 10,000 piece order at 90 doz or 1080 per hour. One color black ink on light ox. Very fast running. That was on the M&R press maxed out. Same design on the Anatol. The Anatol was doing 70 dozen an hour maxed out.
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That was on the M&R press maxed out. Same design on the Anatol. The Anatol was doing 70 dozen an hour maxed out.
What?... another shop besides ours runs blue and red presses. Have they modified the red press side clamps so that a tri-loc can be used?
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We never run black first, ever...but if a flash helps, use it, that's why its there. I always use ours on every job. Like mentioned it keeps the glue working, assuming you are using waterbase glue, if your not, change that first.
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On a large run of white shirts we would run a clear base or thinned down white base, top colors on high mesh, then (we have a saying in the shop) black last matters. That way you don't have to stop for lint, your shirt looks great for many laundry cycles and overall ink cost is much lower. Plus you only have to watch your base and black inks, other colors last much longer.
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We never run black first, ever...but if a flash helps, use it, that's why its there. I always use ours on every job. Like mentioned it keeps the glue working, assuming you are using waterbase glue, if your not, change that first.
We run black first all the time, but, it would be a flat, no half-tones image, then we print white after that, then flash and print the top colors. But if half-tones are there, then we prefer our black near or at the end...
Steve
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That was on the M&R press maxed out. Same design on the Anatol. The Anatol was doing 70 dozen an hour maxed out.
What?... another shop besides ours runs blue and red presses. Have they modified the red press side clamps so that a tri-loc can be used?
Yes, that's correct. Exact same.
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As you can see some do some don't some do it in different ways it's all a matter and how you prepare the yard to print properly for me my preference is the not flash at all so if I can do the separations to where I don't have to flash and I'm not getting a lot of build up and then pick up it's all the better. That's just my thought,and how I've tried to do it most times. I've set the art up to work in many different ways before but mostly wet on wet for Whitey's. We will be finding out on this one next week.
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As you can see some do some don't some do it in different ways it's all a matter and how you prepare the yard to print properly for me my preference is the not flash at all so if I can do the separations to where I don't have to flash and I'm not getting a lot of build up and then pick up it's all the better. That's just my thought,and how I've tried to do it most times. I've set the art up to work in many different ways before but mostly wet on wet for Whitey's. We will be finding out on this one next week.
This has to be voice to text, right?
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Spot color black, print 1st 95% of the time. Halftones involved then we will put the black wherever it needs to be to yield the best print. Might be the 1st down on a sim process or might be the last or anywhere in between. We use a black that doesn't build up under normal shop temps and print it down 1st all the time to give us more freedom with the rest of the print order. If you have a crappy black ink or you can't step on the black for whatever reason then it's not a good idea to print black early. But I would keep an open mind about print order and not get into never adjusting things such as this. I can't tell you how many times we've kept from doing revolver mode simply because we printed black 1st or early on a print run. Hundreds of labor hours over the years have been saved by going against the grain. One of the 1st lessons I learned from an old salty screen printer was to always print black last and unfortunately it took 3 or 4 years for me to go against that and reap the benefits. Of course quality is number one but we haven't had many instances where the quality was affected negatively with black going down early, most of the time it adds to the print quality.
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Man, I wish we could print black first. Our pre-press and reg is tight enough to do it on so many jobs but the issue we have is our quartz flash will burn the garment to a crisp in the black ink area before the ub gets flashed.
On 80k I agree, do what you gotta do for uninterrupted production.
That said, if you electrical costs are in a certain range it may be beneficial to 86 flashing. Also reduces heat, bulb wear, etc. but jvanick's mention of keeping the platens warm is real not just for maintaining tack but wb/dc and especially hsa inks benefit from it. But we will run most jobs no flash if it's not getting in the way with production.
I like the suggestion with the clear base, 1st down. That's super smart, saves ink, grabs lint, prevents fibrilation etc. Rutland makes an awesome ink for this.
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Man, I wish we could print black first. Our pre-press and reg is tight enough to do it on so many jobs but the issue we have is our quartz flash will burn the garment to a crisp in the black ink area before the ub gets flashed.
On 80k I agree, do what you gotta do for uninterrupted production.
That said, if you electrical costs are in a certain range it may be beneficial to 86 flashing. Also reduces heat, bulb wear, etc. but jvanick's mention of keeping the platens warm is real not just for maintaining tack but wb/dc and especially hsa inks benefit from it. But we will run most jobs no flash if it's not getting in the way with production.
I like the suggestion with the clear base, 1st down. That's super smart, saves ink, grabs lint, prevents fibrilation etc. Rutland makes an awesome ink for this.
when we got our new press and quartz flash - we experienced the same thing -- burn that black ink up!...which sucked because im a huge fan of black first... had a job that was sepped for black first, we couldnt get the print to match the controll sample any other way , so we let those palletes get stupid hot, and it worked like a charm...
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Man, I wish we could print black first. Our pre-press and reg is tight enough to do it on so many jobs but the issue we have is our quartz flash will burn the garment to a crisp in the black ink area before the ub gets flashed.
THIS!!!! is why we rarely ever print black first..... I'd love to know how alan and these guys are printing tri blends/garments prone to scortching with black first. I have watched certain garments go up in smoke with black being flashed prior to the white being gelled.
I suppose it goes back to what works for some doesn't work for all :)
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Man, I wish we could print black first. Our pre-press and reg is tight enough to do it on so many jobs but the issue we have is our quartz flash will burn the garment to a crisp in the black ink area before the ub gets flashed.
THIS!!!! is why we rarely ever print black first..... I'd love to know how alan and these guys are printing tri blends/garments prone to scortching with black first. I have watched certain garments go up in smoke with black being flashed prior to the white being gelled.
I suppose it goes back to what works for some doesn't work for all :)
we have no issues with flashing triblends, but we use a Red Chili D with the temperature sensor... as soon as the substrate hits the set point (200 typically in our case), the flash automatically turns off...
we haven't had scorching on press since we got the Red Chili D... before that we had a Quartz Express flash unit that you'd have to turn the flash down as you continued using it as it would heat up...
also some bulbs have a different wavelength that apparently helps too.
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same here.. the quarts flashes have power adjustments.
set it to 70% .5 sec for a 'keep the glue' warm and 80% for a flash the black.
I hate to run black first for that reason, it can burn a shirt when not done right.. but this is 80k shirts.. i don't think most here can grasp the time that it's going to take to print this. things change in production setup when runs this size go on. It's a process job and keeping those colors working properly is going to be the real challenge here. By adding a wet black at the end.. it tosses in a new set of parameters and the chances for buildup and shifting are huge. Well,.. stop and clean the screen some may say.. that's cool when it's a short run to keep it crisp, this needs to stay crisp across two shifts, maybe 3 shift with up to 3 different sets of eyes keeping it approved along the way over days of production.
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That's odd, set point doesn't appear to be the issue at all to me on our regular Chili. It's that black naturally absorbs heat faster and then transmits that heat to the fabric, which is already sensitive to heat and all the while the white ub is not gelled yet. Having a set point wouldn't resolve that in my opinion but you can sometimes resolve it by reducing the intensity, i.e. pulsing the output of the bulbs.
I do believe it's a wavelength thing. IR flashes don't really do this.
Did you mention variable IR wavelength bulbs? This might be what's fixing it and has been a thought in the back of my head, to try and find a better wavelength for blends, etc.
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When burning up black ink, was that a halftone black and any black...or was it solid type? I'm wondering if using process black down first (that is all halftones) would be good to flash early on (with Quartz)?
80% power for .5 sec? What (if), on a similar job, I run process solid black down first, and then a poly white over top trapping the black in? The poly would then need way too much flash and burn up black I guess.
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i recall poly white flashes off in the 130- 140 range compared to the 160 of normal white so it will flash first or at the same time as the black would
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Man, I wish we could print black first. Our pre-press and reg is tight enough to do it on so many jobs but the issue we have is our quartz flash will burn the garment to a crisp in the black ink area before the ub gets flashed.
THIS!!!! is why we rarely ever print black first..... I'd love to know how alan and these guys are printing tri blends/garments prone to scortching with black first. I have watched certain garments go up in smoke with black being flashed prior to the white being gelled.
I suppose it goes back to what works for some doesn't work for all :)
What? The black is burning under the flash? Huh? I've never seen anything even close to that? In fact, if mentioned to me, I'd say, "No, that doesn't happen"... So, why is that happening? Not a challenge, it just sounds so bizarre to me????
Steve
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I've never experienced the black burning either. Not sure I understand what's going on. Are we talking about the black gelling in the screen or something happening with the black ink on the shirt? Our flash units on the RPM aren't as strong as the HiFlash units on the Centurian and we don't do a ton of triblends, but I think we've scorched 2, maybe 3 shirts in the 10 years I've been printing so something we're doing is working if that is an uncommon thing to scorch that many. One thing we've always done with our flash units is adjust the settings which on the RPM there are many. % from 5-100% power in the pallet up position, % power in standby (pallets down), standby time from 1 to 20 seconds and the power % while in standby mode and when you do those things right we've managed to not scorch much of anything. We keep standby power % down to around 10% and we've been keeping the flashes at 90-95% when in pallet up position.
Oh, and one more thing, white ink flash time is one of the most important factors I look at when choosing a white ink. It has to flash fast or I won't touch it. So we're running larger jobs with a 1-2 second flash time so that could be a reason why we're not scorching anything. But also, I'll admit we see triblends only a few times per month max.
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I'm talking about regular spot black, wilflex Matte Black in our shop.
It doesn't happen under IR or at least I've never seen it happen. Hence my thought that wavelength might have something to do with it. I don't know what else would explain some experiencing it and others not.
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Black burning hmmm, I know black heats up faster than most colors but burning? I've burn my share of shirts for sure but never a black ink print.
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with us, it was an attempt to print black /underbase/flash, then top colors..for me i had traditional set up like this to control black dot gain...
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I learned that on a nice poly sweatshirt I was printing. My fault, I wasn't paying attention. Black, flash (burn), well, didn't get to the poly white, but would have been next. I've never claimed to be smart.
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I learned that on a nice poly sweatshirt I was printing. My fault, I wasn't paying attention. Black, flash (burn), well, didn't get to the poly white, but would have been next. I've never claimed to be smart.
Yep, that's how we print a black and white on poly, still have never burned the black. There's always something. Now I suppose it will start to happen to us, LOL...
Steve
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I can assure you guys it has nothing to do with how we flash or the type of flashes. IMO the roq evo flashes we use are by far the smartest flashes on the market. We actually have never had this happen on our Roq but we did have it happen multiple times with our m&r "D" flashes. What I am referring to is if you have a design with a small patch of black ink and large solid patch of white ink and you print the black before the white, obviously the white will take much longer to flash then the black. What I've seen happen is the black absorbs all the energy from the flash and the sensors on the flash keep flashing due to the white ink not being flashed. If your printing on a garment that has a low scorching characteristic then the black will actually burn the garment. A lot of the times it looks fine until you stretch the print only to see the black has become brittle due to heat. But from the testing I have done it has more to due with the garment then anything.
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Lets dispel the first rumor. Its ok to flash white shirts.....lol Do it right and print the black last. We print like Danny. I can count on one hand the print jobs where we have stepped on black in 8 years. Of those they are on poly. Run two blacks to control gain and run the sh!t out of it. their other screens are going to cause more issues that running the black last will.
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I can assure you guys it has nothing to do with how we flash or the type of flashes. IMO the roq evo flashes we use are by far the smartest flashes on the market. We actually have never had this happen on our Roq but we did have it happen multiple times with our m&r "D" flashes. What I am referring to is if you have a design with a small patch of black ink and large solid patch of white ink and you print the black before the white, obviously the white will take much longer to flash then the black. What I've seen happen is the black absorbs all the energy from the flash and the sensors on the flash keep flashing due to the white ink not being flashed. If your printing on a garment that has a low scorching characteristic then the black will actually burn the garment. A lot of the times it looks fine until you stretch the print only to see the black has become brittle due to heat. But from the testing I have done it has more to due with the garment then anything.
This^
If you aren't using quartz flashes you'll probably never experience this. Older quarts flashes are more likely as well, and the wavelength of the bulbs plays a big part. Some blended shirts are crazy sensitive to this.
Murphy
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Nothing like it, flash the black ink on poly or TriBlend and shirt comes out with the portions of the shirt under the black print...GONE....vaporized... and in some cases the white poly ink still wet. ;D
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Dan, were you hired on as an artist, or as a shop manager?
As an artist I would do as the shop manager asks.
As the shop manager I would do things as I feel would run the best with the production team available.
As an artist I would assume they hired me as an artist and separator.
As a shop manager I would assume they hired me to run things in the most efficient way possible. But nobody likes the new guy comeing in and shaking things up, everybody knows it's going to happen, and then the eyes start rolling.
Best of luck!
Murphy
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Dan, were you hired on as an artist, or as a shop manager?
As an artist I would do as the shop manager asks.
As the shop manager I would do things as I feel would run the best with the production team available.
As an artist I would assume they hired me as an artist and separator.
As a shop manager I would assume they hired me to run things in the most efficient way possible. But nobody likes the new guy comeing in and shaking things up, everybody knows it's going to happen, and then the eyes start rolling.
Best of luck!
Murphy
First, I am not your average artist. :)
2ndly, I am Operations Mgr. and, handling production seps. for the art dept. until I can get the others trained.
With that, I listen to all options. From them (my two production Mgr's, and from you guys. I want to do what I know has worked in the past while working on hands at other shops, but these guys don't print like where I've come from and they believe they are correct of course, (Same ole story every time I go into a new shop). So I have to "show them".
[/size]You guys say give them a week, and yes, I have to give them room. I just got here. LOL. Most importantly, over the years, I've learned that A, I can be wrong and B, It's not always done as I have ...and can still be right. Therein lies the problem. We all know this can be done in different ways. This is a great discussion for me. I've already learned that in some cases, you can burn the shirt with black up front. That makes clear sense to me and especially if this is going to be 1000 or 10,000. The pallets and ink will be plenty warmed up and in this one case coming up, I'm deciding on how I want to build these seps for this one job (and discussing it with my guys).
[/size]This next "important job" has a color count (price) limit...It's Flat, solid vector inside (think US map in 4 colors) Solid White, Solid[/font][/size] [/size]red, Solid[/font][/size] [/size]Green [/size]Solid[/size] [/size]Blue and [/size]Solid[/size] [/size]Yellow. It's going on Royal (50/50). 1000 in this order. The previous run they had so much issue with this, it was FUBAR. That was 10k. This reorder is for 1000. but will be re-ordered over and over so they want me to change up the seps to get it to look better. There is no (and cannot be) a top white). It's on 50/50 Royal...and now get this, It's also got a colorful sun ray "burst" of halftone fading to the shirt in the background of all of those other colors. So, 7 colors max. Ya see?
[/size]So, First thing is to beef up the stencil thickness to get a better coverage. Customer wants bright white...and so do I.
[/size]Heres my thoughts on the base.
[/size]I'm running a 156 on base coated round edge, 3/2 and then a face coat. I just tested the halftones on a 50 lpi for this and it's holding down to 8% well. I think to assure a heavier coverage, I may also add another coat. 3/3 and then a face coat. So I will use that 8% as my smallest dot (on the underbase) and will fade that up to a max of 25% where the top ink colors will be heavier and get richer and deeper. This way, they can lay that white opacity and then also be holding some kind of halftone on that same white screen. Flash that...and then the top colors.
[/size]The top color (fades) will fall much heavier to the shirt color and allowing those to disappear via shirt and clear base added to those top inks. About 10% I'm staring with, BUT, I fear they may get too transparent and show too much of the white base THU the inks. Thats why I want to use 55lpi and not use so many dots. 55lpi (in small %) but printed heavy, may give me the look of 45lpi. We can live wit that no prob. But I want to make sure the inks cover well...but not get bullet proof so I will be using 300 mesh on top.
[/size]The previous print had black over (SOLID) white base. You knowhow that looked. So, I want dot print that first, (this is a different job than what I had initially posted about the white tee). Here, I want to use black up front...but now, from what you guys posted above, I'm afraid of that method. I still may have a problem because this black is being trapped by this thick white opaque base I want to create, leaving a valley for this thinner black that must be printed into because I don't want to use big thick black either.
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When printing black at any point in the print order - then flashing it - you will have issues with any shirt that has synthetic fibers in it. Cheap synthetic fibers make it worse.
An easy solution with the black is to lower the black pigment load. This will lower the amount of heat pickup. This also assumes you can make a black in house that you are comfortable with. As always - Test ;) Also, I know you are a fan of combining colors during the print run to help with your black ink strength. Try adding blues or reds to your black to slow down the heat absorption. This of course lowers your black pigment load and necessitates making a black ink in house. I have played with adding curable reducer/primer clear/plasticiser all with some success. I currently make a custom black in house that does better than off the shelf blacks, but is not as good as I want yet.
I am late to the party here but:
If you have a quartz flash with a power option - like others have said - lower the power to 70... maybe even 40... and have the flash on just long enough. This also works wonders on All synthetic garments I have come across. Unfortunately, this means you HAVE to have other inks that flash fast - or do not have another flash on. When we run jobs like this and we have to stop for "too long", we will run off the shirts and warm the boards back up to around 130 and start the print run again. Infra red flashes are the best for trouble garments.
When we run a 5-7 color design on our 14 color press with 3 flashes, I will try to put black much later in the print order and use a very sharp harder blade like 70/90/70 or 75. Again, only on blended garments/synthetic fibers/and polyester. Like you said - a little thinner than butt register to assure the ink doesn't spread up the design sides. Works like a champ 90+% of the time.
Get some S thread in the shop!
What will you end EOM be for that screen?
Hope my rambles help some!
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Love love love all of the information this company did not have a an emotion meter so I'm looking into one I can tell you that it will be sick we have a nice clean sharp edge with the three into and face coat but I'm thinking it might need to be thicker for this Polly. Just a little bit.
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Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.
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Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.
I agree with this, we use the same philosophy in our shop.
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Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure. In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.
Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week. ;)
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engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.
every day all day
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Dan
I have to agree with these guys. No way I would run a 50/50 Royal with only one white, especially half tones. I may even run both early in the print to give that sunburst more pop and control dye migration.
As for flashing black our biggest beef (other than burning) is it makes the black glossy which I don't care for.
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Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure. In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.
Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week. ;)
As an aside, what is the current situation there between sales and production? How much animosity is there? Since your job will straddle both it could be a real tough one to walk into. Just your description of what you will be doing set off alarm bells for me.....
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Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure. In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.
Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week. ;)
As an aside, what is the current situation there between sales and production? How much animosity is there? Since your job will straddle both it could be a real tough one to walk into. Just your description of what you will be doing set off alarm bells for me.....
Well, to say the least. Its multiple challenges. One example is that the sale people (who work for us) just sent in a 10k order and say...oh, We've know about this order...art's been done for a week...and we just put the order in 2 days before it's due. Yea. Apparently the sales staff has been working like this for a long time. A lot of "special" dynamics going on. SALES staff will be my biggest hurdle but I've been through this before. They won't bend as easily.
If I get canned in a year, at least I will have been through the gauntlet and have some great experience. :0
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Sales vs. production is usually a war, good luck brokering a peace treaty. Sales represent the customer, production represent reality :D. Any salesman worth his weight should be familiar with the pressures of the production floor, and the floor needs to know often in sales it's yes to a 3 day-turn or they won't order period.
Being production manager at a true 24/7 shop was a real eye opener.
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I try to broker the sales/production contention by explaining the concept of internal customers. Each needs to serve eachother in order for continued success. Goes across the board as well. Basic business.
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Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.
I agree with this, we use the same philosophy in our shop.
We also "donate" the extra screen and print just to get it done and billed. It's a very rare practice, but sometimes we just do it; the cost is minimal...
Steve