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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Nation03 on April 19, 2017, 05:29:50 PM
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Had a job today that was 158 shirts, 1 color - white print. I figured this was large enough to try burning 2 screens so we can complete in one rotation. Are there any tricks to this? I found it much harder to line up the second white screen as appose to setting up a 2 color butt reg job. I never seemed to be able to get it lined up just right. Even when the screen looked dead on, the print seemed to have sort of a shadow to it. We got it to a passable point and ran with it, but I really don't like the way they came out. We have a job tomorrow thats 185 pieces, white print front and back and I'm just going to end up running it around twice to avoid any issues.
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks!
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Print>Flash the UB. Place some clear tape over the print. Print the second white over the tape. You'll see where you need to go. Just wipe the wet ink off the tape and print again. Repeat until registered.
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Thanks, that's not a bad idea.
Some pallets seemed to be more out of reg then others. Is this due to the inconsistencies of level/parallel?
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What's always helped me is printing the underbase, flashing and then marking the underbase with permanent marker on all sides of the print before printing your second white. That way when your second plate is out just a hair, you can tell which way to adjust your micros based on where the marker is still showing.
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Had a job today that was 158 shirts, 1 color - white print. I figured this was large enough to try burning 2 screens so we can complete in one rotation. Are there any tricks to this? I found it much harder to line up the second white screen as appose to setting up a 2 color butt reg job. I never seemed to be able to get it lined up just right. Even when the screen looked dead on, the print seemed to have sort of a shadow to it. We got it to a passable point and ran with it, but I really don't like the way they came out. We have a job tomorrow thats 185 pieces, white print front and back and I'm just going to end up running it around twice to avoid any issues.
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks!
Do both screens have similar good tension?
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The base was on a 135-S and the over print was on a 150-S. I'll double check the tension, but last time I checked they were both in the 20-22 newton range. Both screens are around a month old.
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We run two whites all the time. Probably 25 jobs today a lone. A good pre registration system is your friend. As Andy said, good consistent tension. Good press set up (parallel). Oh yeah, practice and repitition
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What's always helped me is printing the underbase, flashing and then marking the underbase with permanent marker on all sides of the print before printing your second white. That way when your second plate is out just a hair, you can tell which way to adjust your micros based on where the marker is still showing.
I do this too, and often mark lines through areas that will really help me dial it in, like thin lettering. After printing a test & adjusting, I never test print again without flashing first - if you get any wet ink on the back of the screen, it can blur the edges & complicate things.
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Thanks for the info!
If I have some down time this weekend I'll try getting these pallets more parallel.
This press has the older style workhorse brackets on them, so my next upgrade is going to be the quick release retrofit brackets so I can use a triloc or the new workhorse version of the triloc. Hoping that will make these jobs setup a little quicker and more consistent. Most of what we do is 1 color white on dark shirts.
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We have a Workhorse and experience the same issue. We're in the practice of registering our boards every Monday to make sure they are all aligned. Our printing has been much more consistent since we started this.
The tape idea is a good idea. We just bought this roll from Ryonet and we like it a lot. http://www.screenprinting.com/clear-choice-screen-registration-tape-16-x100yds (http://www.screenprinting.com/clear-choice-screen-registration-tape-16-x100yds)
The other thing we do for some jobs is choke the UB 1pt. That covers slight movement or inconsistencies with the boards.
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This might sound like I'm bragging maybe I am LOL, but when I'm lazy and need two white I will burn the same screen and have no problem with registration, so I will assume my screens are tight and the press is level and dead on. Now the big question!!!! guest your not getting a one hit white :) if not don't feel bad me neither :(
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Alternate option:
100 piece orders, white on black, I use a 150S and send it around twice. On the second revolution I pull the shirts out of the basket and stack and fold them. I know this isn't the traditional way, but I feel the time we lose on the second revolution washes with the time gained stacking and folding, not making a second screen and having to register and reclaim it. But we are also a tiny shop. If we had a 3 person team (loader, unloader, and person at end of dryer) we would do it different on smaller runs. Also, pre-reg system and and choke the underbase a hair helps out when registering underbases, etc. and we use the tape method also.
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didn't get said until that last comment - are you choking/trapping?
if you normally do a .75 point choke on the UB for a top color, .5 point for UB white/top white seems to be enough (if press is close to true, parallel)
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I was going to ask about choking back the UB, but I wasn't sure if that would also cause a blurry/ghost image. I run photoshop so I guess I can reduce the UB by 1 pixel without it being too dramatic. I'll try that on my next run.
We're also a small shop, just my brother and I. We've done a few 100 piece jobs with 2 rotations and we would stack shirts/card ink back to the center of the screen as it was going around twice. Not the worst system and it beats printing manually.
Thanks again for all the advice.
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I like the marker trick myself and we always trap the UB white. We make two white screens 99% of the time, anything over 24 pieces which covers 99% of our work. Depending on the garment, 180/45 and 280/35 or 150/45 180/45. Will improve your white prints tremendously.
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we do the 2 screens whenever its 50 or more shirts. We just burn the same film twice. My printer really gets it lined up in no time. It should be fairly easy...
and even on the smaller orders that have to go around twice, my printer puts on and the unloader takes off and folds on second revolution but we run it real fast that way.
Single printer we would do what Shane does.
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Our number for making a 2nd screen is 150 for the RPM and 200 for the G3. We use the same film for both screens, no choke or trap. We used to choke the base even with white on top but we lost edge definition so stopped doing it. That was years ago though. A 2nd screen on a job AT OUR SHOP means 20 minutes of labor added. So I use the 20 minutes on a scale for how much we can print in that 20 minutes and that's how I came to the 150 and 200 marks. I actually think on the G3 we can bump the number to 225-240 since it's so fast.
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Our number for making a 2nd screen is 150 for the RPM and 200 for the G3. We use the same film for both screens, no choke or trap. We used to choke the base even with white on top but we lost edge definition so stopped doing it. That was years ago though. A 2nd screen on a job AT OUR SHOP means 20 minutes of labor added. So I use the 20 minutes on a scale for how much we can print in that 20 minutes and that's how I came to the 150 and 200 marks. I actually think on the G3 we can bump the number to 225-240 since it's so fast.
Alan, it's funny you say this. I know our group recently had this conversation so I went back and started calculating the labor of set up vs how fast we could print it. I'm up to 72 pieces now and will reevaluate it after we run a job this week.
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I'll probably hold off doing 2 screens until we have a pre-reg system in place, or if it's a huge job and I can justify the time to dial everything in exactly. We can still print 150-200 per hour with it going around twice and the nice part is, the shirts are pretty much stacked and folded by the end of the order since we do that on the second revolution. We don't have a dedicated shirt catcher yet so this definitely helps on time also. Additionally, to line up one screen takes almost no time at all so we're off to the races a lot quicker right now to just setup the one screen and start printing.
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The first year we were running I routinely ran jobs in 2 revolutions so I could catch and box up the job during the 2nd revo. I did thousands of jobs where I reclaimed the screens, coated, burned, prepped, then printed without anyone else even touching a shirt. It works great doing it that way while you're growing. I've always made sure we were in desperate need for an additional employee before we made the hire.
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We basically set it up as a normal 2 color, but we like the print the base, flash it, and cover with tape so we can keep lining up to the same print. If all is right, they should really line up easily. It just takes practice. Today we're running CMYK with an underbase and highlight white, and below the colorful crayon drawing are 20 or so sponsors, printing in white on Gildan Jade Dome. You can't beat it for nice white sponsor names with tiny details...
Steve
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I used to be the printer that would only use one screen and do two revolutions. Then I realized if I use two of the same screen (one revolution) my print time is cut in half!!
4 hour job turned in to a 2 hour job. Time is money. And its well worth it to me taking 5 minutes of my time to expose and wash it out to do so. I give credit to this site for learning this and so many other things. My love this site.
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Our cutoff is set to 56 pieces, more than that and we will do 2 white screens to print in 1 revolution. That is where we find it is faster in production. 56 because there are 14 platens, so over 4 additional revolutions and we make the white high light. This is for a Challenger III.
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I used to be the printer that would only use one screen and do two revolutions. Then I realized if I use two of the same screen (one revolution) my print time is cut in half!!
4 hour job turned in to a 2 hour job. Time is money. And its well worth it to me taking 5 minutes of my time to expose and wash it out to do so. I give credit to this site for learning this and so many other things. My love this site.
This is true, but the counterpoint is what Alan said:
The first year we were running I routinely ran jobs in 2 revolutions so I could catch and box up the job during the 2nd revo. I did thousands of jobs where I reclaimed the screens, coated, burned, prepped, then printed without anyone else even touching a shirt. It works great doing it that way while you're growing. I've always made sure we were in desperate need for an additional employee before we made the hire.
Alan's post is a good tip, especially for a small shop. It's about how effectively you can use your time to get ALL tasks done, not just how fast you get shirts off the press. Inkstain is right in that you're wasting time if you're just standing in front of the press waiting for it to revolve. But if you're able to use all of that time effectively doing something else that needs to be done, and also avoid spending time on burn/setup/reclaim for an extra screen, then that's your best use of time. And you're money ahead.
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With a CTS I pretty much always burn two whites... Our minimum order is 50 pieces, but with how easily things are burnt and locked in its a no brainer.
Id rather pay someone 12$ an hour to clean an extra screen than have my presses tied up for twice as long on a print job...
My two cents, but my mindset is get the jobs off the press, and pay cheap labour to clean the screens.
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We're around 50 pcs for the revolve cutoff but that was on our old press, need to time it on the eco.
Yes with CTS the second screen adds very little setup time but you still have to prep that screen and clean it.
Try a grey ub. Easy to reg and will actually help some top colors stay in hue.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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Even for a film shop we have very little setup time involved for adding a 2nd white screen, they are almost always ready with 1 test print, 2 maximum. But if anyone can coat, burn, develop, tape, setup, teardown, de-tape, and then reclaim (didn't include waiting around for drying time after development) a screen in under 13-14 minutes then consider yourself a rare breed, or a unicorn :). Most shops are around the 22-15 minute mark for each screen, and ours is probably 16-17 minutes. On the G3 with using revolver mode I think we can crank out close to 150 shirts in 15 minutes but if I know how things work around here so I'll use the 20 minute mark to calculate. I know most shops are way under our 150 mark for this exercise, but an order of 60 shirts done in 2 revolutions will be done in about 7 minutes run time and a VERY fast setup time compared to lining up a 2nd screen (even though we do it with 1 test print on average). I'll probably have the order done by the time I had squeegee, flood bar, ink, test print, and tape (we tape up 1 color regi marks before the screen gets on press but 2 screens we do not). Don't forget to look at the amount of time it takes to get a 1 color spinning versus a 2 color. I can have a 1 color set up and test printed in a minute most of the time. I keep the floodbar and squeegee in the head most of the time so I just need to load the screen and put ink in, then one test print and we're ready.
I'm not saying the shops that do it for over 36 or 50 are doing it wrong, I just know with 100% certainty what will allow us to be most efficient here at SRI. Trust me, every time this subject is brought up and I see the low numbers I go back through the entire process to determine if I'm missing something.
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22 minutes of screen cleaning time is 4$ labour, roughly.
22 minutes of press time spinning is hopefully making you more than 4$....
Thats my only argument is its not simply a time factor. Its what time is more valuable....
I don't think of about costs for my kids cleaning screens as important, compared to that press spinning quickly, efficiently, and as frequently as possible.
But thats my opinion ;)
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We typically burn a 2nd screen for anything over 75 pcs, sometimes less, but not usually. This is mainly because we don't have revolver mode on on our gauntlet, and not doing so causes aggravation, and sometimes shirts pulled before they get the 2nd pass. Its also a relatively slow press compared to the newer ones, and burning the top white helps speed things up quite a bit. With that being said, it does take a bit of time to setup the 2nd screen even with pre reg there is the extra film / pre / post press. The cost of shirts accidentally pulled before the 2nd pass is pretty big for us, especially when time is factored in as we don't keep any inventory here.
I might have to reevaluate. We might have a unique situation with our non revolver press though. Perhaps some are factoring ink savings into the equation? I can't imagine it would add up to too much on the little jobs. We have a small crew here, and don't have a dedicated reclaim guy (yet), so its either me or the press operator reclaiming at the end of the week. So labor cost is kind of high on the 2nd screen. Would love to hire a reclaim guy @ min wage, but I don't think I'd trust just any bozo with the thin thread. This is a tough one for us.
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22 minutes of screen cleaning time is 4$ labour, roughly.
22 minutes of press time spinning is hopefully making you more than 4$....
Thats my only argument is its not simply a time factor. Its what time is more valuable....
I don't think of about costs for my kids cleaning screens as important, compared to that press spinning quickly, efficiently, and as frequently as possible.
But thats my opinion ;)
The equation is most certainly different with different sized shops and who will be doing the labor and also what type of money you're making on any particular job. I wouldn't have the time to get that far into it and kept it as simple as I could. You are most certainly right to compare the time printing versus reclaim in many shops with lots of different levels of labor. Small shops with 1 or 2 guys doing production you can keep the equation simple like what I've done, but anyone that wants to get after doing an in depth analysis that puts in the other important factors I'd sure like to see the results.
It's sort of the same argument that I make with my guys who are putting the film on the screens. Their argument is that it takes longer to line the film up perfectly and I tell them that 5 extra minutes per day at the FPU saves about 120 minutes per day at the press. And we all know that the time the press is spinning is more valuable than pre-press, but hopefully most are charging for screens and setup costs as well as the printing.
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Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for the input. Running a little over 500 shirts now with a white print and I successfully got the 2 screens to register dead on. We're flying through them now. Finished up a 1600 piece order last week, front and back in 2 days. Loving the auto. No idea how I went so long without one haha.