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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: Maxie on June 19, 2017, 08:56:55 AM
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I have visited different shops and noticed that in some of them the graphics dept decide mesh count to use when printing.
We have the screen maker, who is also a printer decide?
What do you do? Should we be teaching our design team about mesh counts
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Yes, your design team should also be given on press experience.
This is simply so that they know the tools that are being used to actually create that pretty logo they see on their screen ;) Think of squeegees and mesh as their brush of choice...
Until they have used their brushes for a while, they don't really know which one suites their design best.
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In my shop, the one who makes the separation, gives the instructions to the guy who expose. (he knows how to print shirt, so that helps a lot)
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small, one auto shop. no employees have ever worked another screen printing shop.
we went as far as to REDUCE down to three available meshes. (100, 135, 200)
we're still in the middle of 4 of 5 employees giving feedback on mesh choices: printer, artist, screen dude, me.
we would love to have a secure knowledge that can be easily understood and written up to cover 90% of cases, so it can be firmly understood and decided at the ART level, so it goes on the production sheet before going to screen room and before going to press.
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Most of us here know which to use, though we always have discussions on jobs, to be sure we're on the same page. There are no young folk here...
Steve
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Open line of communication between artist who create the art...and the artist who prints the films (could be two different people, but they often already communicate on what is desired. The shop (print Mgr) or screen room person then also needs to communicate with art department.
Some (or many) art departments are artist who don't know much about screen printing. They create and leave it up to the print production. THIS, is a mistake. The artist may put in way too much fine detail to be printed easily.
A typical response is for production to look a the seps and say, that's gotta go on a 305 mesh to holds those dots. But the art dept. really want heavy coverage etc.
Always a BEST case scenario to have your artist knowledgeable of halftones and why we use them for different mesh. Then, what the artist calls out...should be given much credit, but left as a guide only...at least until the art dpet. and the prod dept are confident in each other.
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Thats pretty much how its done here. In the end , for now, I make the final call
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Two things:
- Prepress Tech sets the mesh. (screen tech can override by going up a count if a color plate is not imaging well on what was called out)
- Consolidate your mesh counts so the decision is not complicated.
Stinkhorn has the right idea here. While those counts mentioned wouldn't work for our shop, we're doing essentially the same thing and running 90% of our work across two mesh counts. It makes the screen callout much easier to train anyone to do. And, slightly off topic, it also simplifies so much up and down stream of pre press.
I set our sop for selecting mesh and update it form time to time but I try very hard not to ever make the day to day screen decisions. Our artist does and, if in doubt, asks the production team. Only if nobody can provide an answer do I step in. I do review all our prepress still and fix any obvious errors but that's it. If you embed yourself as an owner into this part of the process you'll never get free.
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Stinkhorn has the right idea here. While those counts mentioned wouldn't work for our shop, we're doing essentially the same thing and running 90% of our work across two mesh counts. It makes the screen callout much easier to train anyone to do. And, slightly off topic, it also simplifies so much up and down stream of pre press.
Obvious question: what are those two mesh counts?
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Streamlining the mesh counts is a great idea for a shop that does about the same look on most things. Works in many shops but not in others. Some shops need a wide variety of mesh for a wide variety of types of printing/designs.
For example, Printers who do a lot of souvenir/resort/attraction type work may find themselves needing lower mesh for special affect inks on up to high mesh such as 300 s for simprocess. As is the case for Maxie.
Different strokes indeed.
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My team and I call the mesh when separating.
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Stinkhorn has the right idea here. While those counts mentioned wouldn't work for our shop, we're doing essentially the same thing and running 90% of our work across two mesh counts. It makes the screen callout much easier to train anyone to do. And, slightly off topic, it also simplifies so much up and down stream of pre press.
Obvious question: what are those two mesh counts?
150/48 and 225/40
We do coat the 150s in two ways- high and then std eom. I'd love to get out of that too but it's a necessity for quality plastisol printing in our shop to have a taller stencil gasket.
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Stinkhorn has the right idea here. While those counts mentioned wouldn't work for our shop, we're doing essentially the same thing and running 90% of our work across two mesh counts. It makes the screen callout much easier to train anyone to do. And, slightly off topic, it also simplifies so much up and down stream of pre press.
Obvious question: what are those two mesh counts?
150/48 and 225/40
We do coat the 150s in two ways- high and then std eom. I'd love to get out of that too but it's a necessity for quality plastisol printing in our shop to have a taller stencil gasket.
Sounds about the same here..... I just sold all my roller frames - going to statics and 99% of what we are doing is only 3 mesh counts which makes things so nice
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I choose the mesh counts here, and will do so until someone else can make the those decisions close to what I do. When I had an experienced printer here there were many times where he would choose the count and on a few hundred occasions over those years I fixed a problem by using a better mesh count. Even moving from a 150 to a 180 can make all the difference in the world with how a print looks and most importantly, how it runs.
And I'm against the grain with some of the other great shops, I like having a ton of different mesh counts in the dark room because I like the control. I agree on paper with consolidating mesh counts down to 3 or 4, but as long as I'm making the mesh count decisions I'm going to keep 12 different mesh counts on hand. 83, 90, 100, 110, 120, 135, 150, 180, 225, 280, 300, 305. For years I've been thinking about adding something between the 180 and 225 so maybe I'll go with a 200 thin thread.
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For standard printing we use 4 mesh counts with one coated 2 different ways for 5 total. If we didn't print HSA it would be 4 total screen options across 3 mesh counts.
Then we have some low count stuff for glitter, shimmer, etc but I don't count it. It's a handful of panels on or off frames, done "as needed" v. being in the regular cycle of screens.
Alan, I'm with you- I thought for sure I would freak out consolidating but it turns out it works equally well because you tune your system back from the limited counts. Kinda hard to explain in detail but just try it for a few weeks, you can always get the other screens back out.
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Well, maybe you have that one employee who knows everything. If so, have him/her do it.
If you have multiple people with good experience, encourage them to speak with one another about what has and hasn't worked in the past.
They are likely to learn what the limitations and caveats of your situation are, and make things better.
If the screen, press, and pre-press people can't work together to improve quality then you have much bigger issues.
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83/71 saati, 135S, 180S, 225S, and 280T are all my meshes I actually like to use. I have a handful of other in the shop, but hate using them. I actually am thinking about dropping the 180 and looking into trying a higher eom 150S instead of the 135S for transfers and white bases on spot color stuff. I really wish there was like a 260S so I could get rid of the 280T and 225S
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Interesting reading how you all work.
In the USofA you have designers with silk screen experience. Our designers know Illy and Photoshop but nothing about screening, they learn but it takes while.
We have one key worker who is in charge the printing dept. He exposes screens and decides which screen to use.
I am the one whom reads TSB , goes to shows, visits other printers and keeps learning. I pass this on to the printers and graphics.
We use mainly 4 mesh counts, 110, 150, 220 and 305. None are S meshes. I tried S mesh and we ripped them very quickly. I now have all the screens on wagons and am getting everyone to be more careful. After the summer I'll try the S mesh again.
I go to an annual folk festival and also print their shirts, I have shirts going back about 16 years. I can see how our printing has improved over the years. Used to be so thick and now it's nice and thin.
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We used to run 3 counts. 110 155 and 230. Of course we have 305's and 60's around in case, but I would say 99% of our work fell into those 3.
We are slowly moving to 150s, 180s, 225s and 230. I don't like the 225s for overprinting, it's a bit too much ink.
I am really digging the s-mesh screens. I wish I would have tried them sooner.
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225/230= basically the same after tensioning. Mesh opening differential imperceptional
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The 225s are the thin thread mesh. it has a theoretical open area of 42% vs the standard saati mesh of 27%. We found that with several wet on wet over a base the 225s screens tended to build more and stick.
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Ahh I see
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The reason that I see that the guide should come from the art department (provided that they are trained in that) is that they know what they are intending. COlor prints don't always tell the story, but they help a lot. They may desire two white screens. One for a heavy thick laydown of bright white on a 156 or 110, and another for a very consistent, yet thin layer of solid white perhaps on a 305 with the ink based out 20%.....providing two different tones without using halftones. That can be confusing to production to see two white screens and neither is really a highlight.
On the flip side, I don't know how many times I've called out to use a particular mesh in the art sheet, only to find out that it's being run with a 156 because they were all out of 305's.
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Ha how true! Here I have open discussions/e-mails with separators nec. I'll make substitions as needed when I know changing squeegee parameters/ sequence, etc will make it work and screens are marked with these instructions as needed (not often)
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On the flip side, I don't know how many times I've called out to use a particular mesh in the art sheet, only to find out that it's being run with a 156 because they were all out of 305's.
There's the rub between art [and even "best practices" in general] & production- however it "ought" to be done, the bottom line is very often it has to get done & out NOW. Regardless of how many preceding orders also had to get out NOW. Simply ignoring instructions is inexcusable. But if you're in a time crunch, you work with what you have because, whatever other concerns there may be, many times the production worker is in trouble if that order doesn't get moved out ASAP. (First time I ever used a 60 mesh screen, it should have been a 110 or better - but we'd been working over time for weeks, slammed all day every day. 60 was all that was left, and we got the order out!)
I suppose these last few posts put a spin on the answer to the original question - there's always the possibility of one person "officially" deciding what to use, and someone else actually deciding what to use. How often there's a discrepancy depends on dynamics of the individual shop, of course. But from a QC angle, it's worth knowing if that's happening.
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Thats what I call a "boots on the ground" post 8)
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I pick the mesh when doing the separation. But I usually give a 2nd option since we may not always have the 1st choice mesh available. It all goes on each film positive like this:
150 or 180 - white ink
Front center
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Not to pick a fight, and this is only our shop and the few artists we've had in here, but none of them were even slightly qualified to choose the right mesh count for a particular job. And one of those artists was quite good and I tried to teach him everything that I knew and was learning at the time. He was here during our "renaissance" when we turned the corner from being just another print shop to putting out decent quality stuff so he learned a lot, but still, he didn't learn more than I did. I'm sure there are some artists that know as much or more than I do about production, but even if they worked here it's still my call to make because I've been out here doing it for a long time and I can't remember the last mistake I made choosing a mesh count...so I trust ME.
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Not to pick a fight, and this is only our shop and the few artists we've had in here, but none of them were even slightly qualified to choose the right mesh count for a particular job. And one of those artists was quite good and I tried to teach him everything that I knew and was learning at the time. He was here during our "renaissance" when we turned the corner from being just another print shop to putting out decent quality stuff so he learned a lot, but still, he didn't learn more than I did. I'm sure there are some artists that know as much or more than I do about production, but even if they worked here it's still my call to make because I've been out here doing it for a long time and I can't remember the last mistake I made choosing a mesh count...so I trust ME.
I trust you too. :) Still, even the best production mgr needs to know what I'm thinking, or what I want to achieve so you can make the call. So as long as I give you a guide, you should be good to make your best judgement...and is why I stated what an artist gives production should be used as a guide. I've really only worked in one shops where every artist was capable of calling out the mesh properly. (it was part of our SOP. and we had about 6 artist. In as many shops as I've been in, it's really only been about 1-2 out of 10 that have the artist call it out. There have been many artist who just can't even answer what line screen they typically print at. Typical answer is, "Whatever the default is that the film printer came with".
I don't care if someone changes things up, but eventually, I'm gonna know ''if you don't know" and then I would address the "who makes the call" question. One can't "make the call" simply because they hold a position that "they feel" should make the call. Bottom line is, you need to get it done right or very close to right as best can be. There were plenty of people in my past who wanted to make the call because they held a position but didn't hold the knowledge. Ego thing. An artist that comes in new to one of those shops knowing enough, always upsets the apple cart.
That said, of course, there are always exceptions. I'd expect the production Mgr to know more than me, but that's not always the case as I've found. There are many production Mgr.s in place (for various reasons) and it's not always because they know production. Maybe they are good at scheduling/juggling orders on press, or the best person available working with or handling people issues as well as handling management issues. To have one person (have a full grasp on each of those areas), is a rare find.
The best person to make the final call, is the one with the most knowledge. That can be the screen reclaim guy if need be.
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Also in the 'not to pick a fight' camp, but as mentioned, several people here are coating two specs of stencils on the same mesh--those two stencils will resolve to different tolerances in two dimensions, affecting a number of other variables.
Are you speccing a certain stencil type and thread dimension along with a mesh count?
I consider that pretty much the fancy part of my job. You know, not VERY fancy, but still. :)
For those keeping score, 125, 156, 230 are standard counts here.
150S for fancy base plates, 305/34's process, 86's metallic.