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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: 3Deep on February 13, 2015, 10:49:16 AM
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Can any one give me a little inside on reclaiming powder, I bought some CRER300 from WM Plastics...It's getting to the point where I might buy a dip tank and abandon my old method. I might can save a few dollars as I think I could use the dip tank and use the chems alot longer and using out of the spray bottle, someone beat me over the head and tell me I'm I thinking right.
darryl
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We mixed our own for years, sodium metaperiodate, soooo much cheaper than buying emulsion remover, then we got the tank, and it is better indeed. We've switched chemical a few times, so I'm not sure what being used today, but they like it a lot.
Steve
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Love my diptank and would never go back. One or two people claim they hated the dip tank, but I feel like they must just really love working out their forearms, or they have peons doing it for em! :D
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We mixed our own for years, sodium metaperiodate, soooo much cheaper than buying emulsion remover, then we got the tank, and it is better indeed. We've switched chemical a few times, so I'm not sure what being used today, but they like it a lot.
Steve
I actually am a candidate for this powder in my diptank because of the chemistry I use. I always remove ink in a separate step, then into the tank for emulsion removal. Where can you buy it?
Stan
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Love my diptank and would never go back. One or two people claim they hated the dip tank, but I feel like they must just really love working out their forearms, or they have peons doing it for em! :D
We just found the stack method faster and we ended up with a cleaner screen, washout booth and everything else the screens touched, it was really a no-brainer. On this very thread we have people removing ink separately and just using the diptank to apply emulsion remover. To me that makes as much sense as filling a cup with toothpaste and dipping your whole tooth brush in it before you brush your teeth.
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Satti sells an emulsion remover powder in bulk.
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Love my diptank and would never go back. One or two people claim they hated the dip tank, but I feel like they must just really love working out their forearms, or they have peons doing it for em! :D
We just found the stack method faster and we ended up with a cleaner screen, washout booth and everything else the screens touched, it was really a no-brainer. On this very thread we have people removing ink separately and just using the diptank to apply emulsion remover. To me that makes as much sense as filling a cup with toothpaste and dipping your whole tooth brush in it before you brush your teeth.
<end hijack>
Satti sells an emulsion remover powder in bulk.
I've not found a SINGLE step chem that works very well for TWO totally different processes. Processes as different as night and day. I either get ghost images, or poor stencil break down. With two separpate steps, I have less staining. And my emulsion of choice reclaims FAR better in a dip tank.
But I'm all ears. If you have a better way, point me towards it.
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Love my diptank and would never go back. One or two people claim they hated the dip tank, but I feel like they must just really love working out their forearms, or they have peons doing it for em! :D
We just found the stack method faster and we ended up with a cleaner screen, washout booth and everything else the screens touched, it was really a no-brainer. On this very thread we have people removing ink separately and just using the diptank to apply emulsion remover. To me that makes as much sense as filling a cup with toothpaste and dipping your whole tooth brush in it before you brush your teeth.
<end hijack>
Satti sells an emulsion remover powder in bulk.
I'll bet I reclaimed hundreds of thousands of frames the old way, clean ink out first, then spray on a sodium metaperiodate solution, scrub some, then blast away. The good part of the dip tank is NO SCRUBBING. I also find the inks come out better by removing them first. I don't do much at all of that anymore, but my screen guy, who I hired at my old shop 31 years ago (so he also has a lot of experience) is much happier using a dip tank. And you don't dip your toothbrush in a cup of toothpaste? What's that all about? ;D
Steve
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Never scrubbed emulsion remover on, dip, brush, done. Aside from that we don't do anything different than someone removing ink first, then using a diptank. If diptanks did decent job of removing ink and emulsion with 1 chemical we'd still be using ours for that, but since the two chemicals will not co-exist in the same diptank without neutralizing each other, it's just a really expensive way to apply emulsion remover. Maybe if we did 100 screens a day I'd fell different about it.
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Scrubbing, brushing is the same thing pretty much. I just moved the brush around to dig it in a little, probably the same thing you do I'll bet. We've tried the dual chemical bath with ink degradent and emulsion remover, but were unimpressed. So, the mineral spirits bath (a real Cincinnati Screen Washer, not a part washer) does a great job, then off to the tank. On the really odd occasion where I reclaim a screen (usually a personal project on a weekend) I don't use the tank...
Steve
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I don't remove ink first using any chemicals. My process is:
1. Don't flood after final print stroke.
2. Card off excess which is all around edges of image area (minus the tiny bit of film left in the image area after the print stroke).
3. Pull tape.
4. Dip.
5. Pressure wash from shirt side only.
6. Spray on 701 and brush around on both sides.
5. Rinse (quick pressure wash, then once over with the spray nozzle, fan setting).
The screen is scrubbed (basically just to disperse the 701) once and turned twice total. My screens look and act brand new. I use plastisol and waterbased, SP-1400 emulsion (often hardened), Supra in the dip tank. I've been using the exact same chems for almost a year now, with one refresh about 4 months ago. I know it differs in different shops, but I followed Evo's advice and it has been flawless.
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Spray and scrub then rinse and repeat is a huge waste of water and out here in CA water ain't cheap.
Diptanks and two part chemicals save me water and money at the end of the day.
How much are those salts now.. they doubled in price a few years ago.
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Good point on the water usage.
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Spray and scrub then rinse and repeat is a huge waste of water and out here in CA water ain't cheap.
Diptanks and two part chemicals save me water and money at the end of the day.
How much are those salts now.. they doubled in price a few years ago.
Haven't bought the old stuff in quite some time. Before I found out about it, I had been buying gallons of emulsion remover, ignorant of the fact that it's 99.9% water for crying out loud. I think it was around $11 per gallon, plus freight. 2 lbs. of powder was $40.00 and made lots and lots of gallons, I really can't recall how many anymore, but it was stupid obvious. I'll check with my screen guy and see what their running now and how many screens they think they get, that varies a bit...
Steve
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Spray and scrub then rinse and repeat is a huge waste of water and out here in CA water ain't cheap.
Diptanks and two part chemicals save me water and money at the end of the day.
How much are those salts now.. they doubled in price a few years ago.
I was under the understanding that there was no such thing as 2-part chemicals as they are not compatible in the same tank without neutralizing each other. Basically they are all just an emulsion remover, and when the emulsion is removed, the ink goes with it.
Am I incorrect?
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I bought some EasiStrip a few years back suppose to be an ink degradent and emulsion remover all in one, well for me it didn't work that well and I've been back to using one part chems since. I ,m right there with Steve about buying a gal of water and just started buying reclaiming crystals and adding my own water, but this will be the first I,ve used the powder...tried the liquid form that you add to make gals and didn't work no where as well as the crystals.
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I believe supra is advertized as a two part chemical. It definitely breaks down the ink a bit, though not completely. It is soft/loosened enough from the mesh and frame (areas without emulsion) that it blows right out with the pressure washer.
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Easyway supra and CCI dip and strip are two part chemicals that I'm familiar with and can say they both work to break down ink and soften emulsion.
I favor dip and strip as it always lasted longer in the dip tank vs supra that required a refreshing every couple of days.
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We used the Supra, got tired of cleaning inky smudges off of the wash out booth, screen frames, exposure units... Not a lot, not like globs of ink, just enough to be a pain, all screens were carded off to the point that no more ink could be carded off. The only way the dip tank worked for us would have been if it did a good job on de-inking and emulsion removal. It didn't. We use the stack method and are just as fast as pre-cleaning ink off and then using the diptank, there is less ink contamination in the shop, and it uses much less chemical, the diptank is now a post-exposure tank and gives us time/money savings I can measure.
We don't do a ton of screens every day, maybe if we did we could find a way to make the diptank work and try some other chemicals, but it wasn't worth it for us.
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I checked with our screen guy, and we are currently using Supra, but we clean the ink out first, as I mentioned earlier.
Steve
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You should look into powder and mixing your own for you next refill then, probably save $100 or more.
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Where is everyone getting said powder?
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Saati has it.
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I would say to any shop that hasn't tried a dip tank to just go ahead and jump in. (pun intended)
It's a pretty minimal investment and what you save is LABOR COSTS, which makes the whole set up pay for itself pretty quick.
If it doesn't work for your shop, no big whoop. Put clear water in it and use it for developing.
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What is this powders' trade name?
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I got mine from WM Plastics it's called CRER300 reclaiming concentrate powder and I'm sure there are plenty other brands out there this is just one.
darryl
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Powder vs liquids. First, dip tanks are the way to go for less labor and material savings. However what goes in there can also have issues over many months of use. If you continue to recharge the reclaiming solution with more reclaiming powder month after month you eventually will see it not perform as well as it was when it was fresh. The reason is it will recrystalize at the bottom of the tank and any new powder will crystalize on top of the hardened stuff at the bottom of the tank. At some point the solution will become so acidic that it will harden screens and not reclaim them. This happens with huge tanks that just have more water and powders added to them over many months when companies don't clean them out and start with fresh water and powder.
This is the advantage of emulsion remover liquid concentrates, it will not recrystalize at the bottom of the tank, it remains suspended in the solution. Our ER-605 concentrate can be mixed 30:1 for plastisol reclaimation or 15:1 for hardened water base screens.
I have seen the results of combo systems that remove ink and emulsion. Couple of issues here, you could be putting plastisol down the drain, not wise in highly controlled waste water managed districts. If you have only one wash out sink it will get contaminated with plastisol and lead to screen contamination during degreasing. Two sinks is OK, but the first sink will get messy, and eventually the whole screen room, if not maintained, will get plastisol everywhere. The busier the shop the less time there is to maintain cleanliness. Consider the screens used to print 20 micron traces for solar cells are made in a pristine clean room similar to the requirements for medical manufacturing. For some reason in textile printing we accept that screen rooms will be a dirty, inky mess. When shops get so bad that ink isn't removed from frames, sinks are smeared with ink, many emulsion issues will follow.
Haze control? Why is it a shop will wait a week to wash a screen? It's the same amount of labor to do it immediately after the job is done. Kind of like letting all your dishes build up over the week and get out ozite pads to get the spaghetti off. Wash water base screens instantly after production with soap and hot water. Clean plastisol screens (especially dark inks) immediately with good screen cleaners. Avoid hot solvents like acetone or MEK or screen openers, why? They can lock in pure photopolymer screens and make them impossible to reclaim. Our SC-507 cuts the ink as well as any hot solvent, there are many good ones out there that are not hot solvent based.
We offer powder in 1lb cannisters and 50lb bags as well as Liquid Emulsion Remover Concentrate through our dealers.
Al
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That's not a fair comparison.
You just have to get the dishes wet and let them sit for a few minutes, no such fix for screens. :)