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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: ScreenPrinter123 on December 24, 2013, 03:02:05 PM
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What's the highest mesh count you think you should need in the Murakami s mesh to hold fantastic detail on sim process jobs - 225s or the 310s. We use both but with sim process jobs the 310 has always lacked the punch in opacity that the 225 has - but are you really losing any detail or major lpi by using 225 as your Highest s mesh count? Thoughts? Don't have enough sim process jobs under our belt to really say anything with authority. I just know what I've seen lacking as far as opacity in the 310 range and am wondering if that should just be reserved for cmyk?
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I sat in a Dane clemont class at ISS and he is a huge believer in 45 lpi and no need for more.
He definitely had some nice prints done with it.
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I am a believer in very high mesh. This tho, Fri Multi color sim process should be reserved for shops with a min of 8 colors and higher. With high mesh, you gain "punch" by havi g (more colors) in the mix. 6 color presses are more limited to achieve good saturation with lower mesh like in the 200-280 range.
I prefer as high as you can for sim process. Even on a manual.
The 45lpi position really is geared towards new printers and the large majority of those that take those classes are Danes client base. Keep in mind, Danes specialty is not printing but he does know how to market art. I have to say that printing is not my specialty either (as I don't print myself) but 90% of my experience on hands had been geared towards sim process on high mesh. Highest I've used is a 400 mesh for sure. Possibly 450. These are used on large presses where you have enough color stations to provide the needed "saturation" . 305 and higher does not provide deep ink coverage. Adding more screens over that, assist in ink coverage or saturation.
The less colors you have, the lower the(high mesh range) might be. I wouldn't use anything lower that 230 myself in a 6 color manual.
So, my answer us, it depends on how many colors you have to work with. 10-16 for high mesh 310 or higher. 6-8 colors, 225 mesh. You will find that some elements may require slipping in a higher mesh for finer lot lighter coverage.
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Not enough time to reply in detail right now but the 225/40 s thread your talking about is a great SIM process mesh. If my shop wasn't so hard on screens this would be one of my goto meshes for sim process. I know I have a few prints in the what's been printed lately thread where I ran the entire job on 225 mesh with exceptional results. But to answer your question I would suggest that mesh highly if your shop handles screens well. It will give you great results at 47 lpi on sim process with nice opaque coverage. If I had 225 s or 310s thread on the rack I'd start with the 225 first as I've held about the same detail on that as a std 305/34 mesh which has been a sim process mesh forever.
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To me, 45 Lpi is too big of a dot. Can you do great sim process prints with 45? Yes, no doubt. But to me, I think (so can most everybody else). 55 is considered a standard for most shops doing sim process. A high lpi would be 60-65. That's what I would be shooting for and using the s thread, I'd be trying to Lear how to make the 310 work every time. Higher if they make an S thread higher than 310 yet.
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Correct me if I've been misinformed but I thought you could hold all dots on mesh that is 4 times the lpi. So at 55 lpi, we're at 220, so a 225 s mesh should hold it all provided your exposures are "dialed in" right? We can adjust the ink flow with speed, angle, pressure, and durometer squeegee greatly, so we can always change those settings too to increase or decrease ink opacity - so if the above is correct, wouldn't the 225s still be a perfect fit? In fact, I'm reading how the LX 150 and 180 are supposed to be holding 45 and 55 lpi per murakami's website, so it leads me to believe the s mesh can probably hold 100% of the dots at more than 4 times the lpi so perhaps the 225 could hold up to 60-65 lpi? Not sure. But even at 55 lpi, it seems it would easily hold and therefore making the 310s superfluous? I can always add in a harder blade on the 225 and go more vertical with the squeegee and speed it up to reduce ink flow if it's squishing out too much - find it much harder to achieve the inverse on the 310S mesh if the opacity just isn't there from the get go though.
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P.S. - pretty sure the s mesh is available up to 330 at least.
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55 would be pushing it on the 225 (when trying to hold a full gradation to go as low as you can. That's why people like to drop it to 45-50 to assure they hold everything possible. The 55 pushes the 225 to its limits. You might be able matatically, but its close to that threshold of the mesh blocking the smaller dots. Thick emulsion, over exposure and inks/print methods make this range very touchy.
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So basically you're saying Murakami needs to come out with a 260-40 that you can tighten to 30 newtons and it's the mesh to end all meshes? :-). It seems to be too much of a jump anyway between the 225 and 310. Maybe I'm missing a mesh count offering??????
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So it looks like Murakami makes a 270-34 (T mesh) that has a 41% open area rating while the 225-40 (S mesh) has a 42% open area. Does anyone have any experience with these 270-T meshes and how they'll compare and contrast to the s-mesh? Seems to me if the open area is that close, would the ink be flowing through as easily too? I've only used some unknown name brand of mesh (don't get me started on the level of frustration that accompanied passing ink through that mesh!) and murakami's s-mesh (which is a dream in comparison)...no idea how murakami's t-mesh functions, but since the open area is virtually the same, I wonder how different it is on press? There's a big difference in open area, for instance, between the 150s vs 150t and the 180s vs. 180t, but not so between the 225s vs. 270t. Any suggestions would be great.
FYI, it seems murakami goes all the way up to a 460 mesh in the s mesh... Would like to see someone printing a shirt with that!
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NBC do a 255-48
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NBC?
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NBC is another Japanese mesh manufacturer. Virtually the same quality and specs as Murakami mesh. Dynamesh Inc. distributes NBC in the States. Should be cheaper then Murakami Mesh, at least it`s cheaper over here.
http://www.nbc-jp.com/eng/product/screen/luxex_sc_spec.pdf (http://www.nbc-jp.com/eng/product/screen/luxex_sc_spec.pdf)
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Two thoughts. The "times 4 (or 4.5)" is a rule of thumb in avoiding moire I believe. And just a rule of thumb. Sometimes you actually have to test. And there is more than one mesh company that makes "S" thread mesh. It's been around decades.
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Hi Bimm.
The un matched or complimentary lpi screen angle is connected to moire. You get moire when having to screen angles collide that work against each other.
The mesh (interference) is a different beast often thought of as moire, but is related to the (rule of thumb) connection. This is math. the math determibes the proper (mesh that works well) and has to do wether the mesh threads will be blocking the small dots. That is not morie, but (mesh interference. The two are different beast to tackle. When the mesh nears (too low) those thick mesh threads block small dots causing (interference) and can show that saw toothed jagged halftone at the end of a fade.
Its very easy to mix works and have these terms confused with others. I still do myself sometimes.
There is still yet another term that is similar but I forget what it is at the moment.
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Hi Bimm.
The un matched or complimentary lpi screen angle is connected to moire. You get moire when having to screen angles collide that work against each other.
The mesh (interference) is a different beast often thought of as moire, but is related to the (rule of thumb) connection. This is math. the math determibes the proper (mesh that works well) and has to do wether the mesh threads will be blocking the small dots. That is not morie, but (mesh interference. The two are different beast to tackle. When the mesh nears (too low) those thick mesh threads block small dots causing (interference) and can show that saw toothed jagged halftone at the end of a fade.
Its very easy to mix works and have these terms confused with others. I still do myself sometimes.
There is still yet another term that is similar but I forget what it is at the moment.
I'll add the garment weave interference to this lot. Some garments will create patterns similar to the mesh interference due to the way the fabric is knitted. This generally tends to be spotty throughout the
pierre
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I guess I always thought that moire was "a pattern within a pattern". If there are dots not printing because of mesh interference, in a pattern, I thought that was moire. My mistake. My ulterior motive in my reply was sometimes you need to test and research.
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few thoughts here on the subject . . .
we have successfully printed 55lpi thorough the 225S. It did not hold all the dot's, but I think it went down to 5% or so (disclaimer as usual, this is with a calibrated do which is SIGNIFICANTLY SMALLER than stuff printed by RIPs that have not been linearized. It is an equivalent to 65 or possibly even 70lpi on the RIPs straight out of the box).
On the original topic, 330S is our mesh of choice for the high end prints. Daily stuff that does not need as much attention is printed with 305 thread almost without exception. As Dan said, if going on a shirt directly (no ubase), more colors will help saturate the print, but there are options that can be engineered into the print. If the fine detail is needed, we have on few occasions used a spot color bump plate to get more ink where needed or dropped the lpi to 45-50 and used thicker mesh. These are options you can give to your customers and have them decide if better print or lower cost are more important.
As far as printing on an underbase (90% of the sim process jobs), there are no issues with coverage using 305 mesh. The ink is going on top of the white film which is preventing it from soaking into the shirt. I have found that too much ink tends to mushroom out and create soft edges. In our case, 225S on an underbase would not be an option as it would be too much ink.
The total amount of ink deposited on the shirt directly and on the underbase are significantly different. While the white shirt will take 300% deposit (i.e. 3 screens at 100% or 6 screens at 50% for example), only 150% to 180% go on top of an underbase before it starts mushrooming and smearing. This is obviously all wet on wet and what seems to work for us. I am learning lately that we still have a long way to go when it comes to the proper ink control. . .
pierre
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I guess I always thought that moire was "a pattern within a pattern". If there are dots not printing because of mesh interference, in a pattern, I thought that was moire. My mistake. My ulterior motive in my reply was sometimes you need to test and research.
100% correct on that. Test and test, research and research. You probably just don't run into that problem a lot. ;) For me, I trouble shoot a lot of shops that run into this and I have to narrow down the exact problem. So I'm probably just more attune to the various causes.
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I guess I always thought that moire was "a pattern within a pattern". If there are dots not printing because of mesh interference, in a pattern, I thought that was moire. My mistake. My ulterior motive in my reply was sometimes you need to test and research.
from what I understand, it is all called moire, it just has different sources. But both of us could be wrong. . .
pierre
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They identify the sources (that look like Moire) differently so that you can more accurately and quickly define the true source of the problem. If it were all Moire, you would have to trouble shoot 5-10 options.
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305 here at 55 LPI. Like Dan I do not care for bigger dots so 45 LPI is done only as on a need be basis. We also run a linearized printer like Pierre. It is a whole other ball game than non linearized films. The dots are a lot smaller since the dot gain of the ink on the film has been adjusted to be accurate. So your dots are like a dot one would see at 65-75 LPI. For us a 230 or 225 will get a moire more often than not. Stepping it up to a 305 s cures that for us.
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So basically you're saying Murakami needs to come out with a 260-40 that you can tighten to 30 newtons and it's the mesh to end all meshes? :-). It seems to be too much of a jump anyway between the 225 and 310. Maybe I'm missing a mesh count offering??????
http://www.murakamiscreen.com/documents/MeshGuidefromCatalogweb.pdf (http://www.murakamiscreen.com/documents/MeshGuidefromCatalogweb.pdf)
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Yep. That's what I was looking at - nothing with s mesh in between 225 And 310. Was hoping the 270t may have been a good mesh because it has comparable open area to the 225.
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With that said, any of the other s mesh manufacturers make a 260s mesh?
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Yep. That's what I was looking at - nothing with s mesh in between 225 And 310. Was hoping the 270t may have been a good mesh because it has comparable open area to the 225.
Sorry, I was thrown by them labeling the whole chart as "Smartmesh" at the top. Still the 270 34 micron looks like a viable option even if they don't give it the "S" designation.
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If you want amazing open area numbers, look at stainless mesh:
http://www.nt-jp.com/en/products/pdf/scr_Micromesh.pdf (http://www.nt-jp.com/en/products/pdf/scr_Micromesh.pdf)
(http://www.nt-jp.com/en/products/img/michromesh_04.gif)
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huh, did you see the blade speed on that? 10mm/min? that's 1/3" per min or so!
my understanding is there are issues with the metal mesh so it's a no go.
as far as open area, how's this?
LX Mesh
pierre
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and here's a 230 for comparison
pierre
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and here's a 230 for comparison
pierre
This one... Danny say poo poo for halftone work. :( Is this your mesh?
Steel mesh (as far as I can remember) is not great for printing on apparel. The reason being, it's not very elastic. We used it when I worked at the glass factory when we were printing on (hard surfaces) like Coffee mugs. Even then, as it got hotter and hotter, it would (bag out) or lose it's elasticity. Not real stable on long runs. The more friction and use it got, the more it would distort.
We of course, were printing with hot inks. They were made of a clay like ink material (minerals and such) and you needed to heat them up and melt them in a Bunsen burner of sorts. The metal mesh is all we could use, but after a while (2000 prints or so, you would need a new mesh to maintain an accurate print. They would start to make a round dot egg shaped and elongate your entire print.
Once they do that, they don't ever go back to shape. Same thing I'd bet happens under a flash. As each stroke of the squeegee pulls, after that flash it will elongate your print image causing distortion.
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This is a great thread/great question. Screenprinter123, we think alike. I actually just ordered up a small grip of yardage in the 270T for the exact reasons you laid out. We have a huge gap in our upper meshes as our lineup (excluding specialty mesh) is: 135-150-180-225-330. That's a huge gap between the 225 and 330 and that 270 has really good numbers on paper as well as a small thread size despite it's "T" designation. For reference the mesh goes SS (super crazy thin), S, T (standard), HD and then they'll use thread micron suffixes for ones that fall in between.
I have to give a 2pt answer since 90% of our sim pro is wb/dc nowadays.
For plastisol over a base I always, always, always want less ink deposit and finest possible lpi. I am in Dan's camp in that you must have enough total ink across the image to use higher mesh appropriately. That said, for sim pro over a plasti base (which I avoid like the freaking plague) I may even prefer the next mesh up from a 330/30 S, less is just better here for WOW printing. Going onto the shirt or onto a DC UB, more is OK there.
Now, wb/dc is another animal. We need penetration and we need a minimum amount of it to ensure a long lasting, wash fast print is made. You run a risk here of doing a gorgeous job of saturating the very top strata of the fabric, patting yourself on the back and then sending out a print that will fibrilate and fade in very few launderings. This would lead one to get spooked and run lower LPI on more open mesh. We do run 225/40 for larger spot color fill areas and very basic sim pro jobs using WB/DC. It's easier on press, penetrates in one stroke when you need it to and looks pretty darn good for a lot of jobs, think of your punk/metal band type of art with more basic halftone blends and fades, most of that art is fine at 45-50lpi. The 225/40 can stand on it's own with saturation for spots/halftones on one screen. However, the 330/30 needs buildup, overprinting and enough overall colors smooshing it all down to saturate most fabrics. Dan's comment on print color count is extra accurate in this case as is Pierre's mention of fabric weave. There's no hard and fast.
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Guys, thanks for all of your comments. Keep in mind I am assuming single stroke prints - we don't have time unfortunately to be double stroking -- which would probably change the possibility of doing 225 over 310 - if time permitted double stroking 3,000 pieces would put me in the higher mesh camp - but you all may be assuming single strokes - not sure. Are you guys assuming double strokes or single strokes when you say you're doing 305+ for your sim process jobs with plastisol? Thanks again for your input.
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Ideally, you want a single strong (all the time) on everything. Sometimes, as a band aid, you will hit twice for something but in general, 1 hit always on all it (the goal). So, all in all, I think everyone is talking one hit.
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Ideally, you want a single strong (all the time) on everything. Sometimes, as a band aid, you will hit twice for something but in general, 1 hit always on all it (the goal). So, all in all, I think everyone is talking one hit.
yup, one hit for almost everything. As Dan mentioned, top colors are double hit only as band aid to get the job off the press. Underbases for many of our jobs require two hits. but if the job is big enough where it would make a difference, we can burn two screens and still just stroke once.
pierre
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This is a great thread/great question. Screenprinter123, we think alike. I actually just ordered up a small grip of yardage in the 270T for the exact reasons you laid out. We have a huge gap in our upper meshes as our lineup (excluding specialty mesh) is: 135-150-180-225-330. That's a huge gap between the 225 and 330 and that 270 has really good numbers on paper as well as a small thread size despite it's "T" designation. For reference the mesh goes SS (super crazy thin), S, T (standard), HD and then they'll use thread micron suffixes for ones that fall in between.
I have to give a 2pt answer since 90% of our sim pro is wb/dc nowadays.
For plastisol over a base I always, always, always want less ink deposit and finest possible lpi. I am in Dan's camp in that you must have enough total ink across the image to use higher mesh appropriately. That said, for sim pro over a plasti base (which I avoid like the freaking plague) I may even prefer the next mesh up from a 330/30 S, less is just better here for WOW printing. Going onto the shirt or onto a DC UB, more is OK there.
Now, wb/dc is another animal. We need penetration and we need a minimum amount of it to ensure a long lasting, wash fast print is made. You run a risk here of doing a gorgeous job of saturating the very top strata of the fabric, patting yourself on the back and then sending out a print that will fibrilate and fade in very few launderings. This would lead one to get spooked and run lower LPI on more open mesh. We do run 225/40 for larger spot color fill areas and very basic sim pro jobs using WB/DC. It's easier on press, penetrates in one stroke when you need it to and looks pretty darn good for a lot of jobs, think of your punk/metal band type of art with more basic halftone blends and fades, most of that art is fine at 45-50lpi. The 225/40 can stand on it's own with saturation for spots/halftones on one screen. However, the 330/30 needs buildup, overprinting and enough overall colors smooshing it all down to saturate most fabrics. Dan's comment on print color count is extra accurate in this case as is Pierre's mention of fabric weave. There's no hard and fast.
Pm or post back here if you get any results soon on the 270t as far as how it compares to the s mesh.