TSB
screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: tonypep on October 29, 2018, 03:58:48 PM
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Several recent posts have moved me to comment on this and perhaps an article for PW. So many issues depend on raw materials, employee education/application, press and pre-press equip, substrates and how they affect eachother......the list goes on. So here is the question.
How many can you count? I am up to around a hundred so far.
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I can assure you, that no matter how many you come up with, there will always be at least one more. ;)
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This is like the eternal question ............how far is up????????????
It makes no difference if you are are a dumb thumb spot printer like me or you are the Crem de la crem ( and i probally spelled that wrong but my French sucks) the kind of printer we all wish to be some day there is no definitive answer to that question.
Screen printing simple or complex is like a chain. It is comprised of a series of links all the same and equally importand but certainlly different that the link before and after. What i do in 6 steps a more sophisticated printer can do in 4 . either way the links in the chain need to be solid and complete. The difference comes down to efficiency not steps . the shortest distance between two points is a straight line unfortunately i seem to wander along the the journey so the steps are a poor indication of the result.
lastly i am going to be good at this process some day unfortunately I don't think i will be on the planet long enough to see the peak of that mountain.
mooseman :'(
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I thought we were just smashing ink through silk screens?
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Tony, your question reminds me of fractals - you can keep diving in deeper, and still find just as much stuff to work on & refine! Coming up with a single, comprehensive list is pretty daunting! But I think there's room for developing a good theory of how to examine & manage interdependent factors. Since most of the concerns can be clustered into groups as you've done, it seems a sensible approach would start with the more obvious "rough" factors, and after you've got those in check, you can move on to ongoing tuning of the "fine" factors. So, an approach of balanced refinement would make sense, where the goal would be to cycle through each major category for a round of improvements, then return to the first category & do the same thing again. (Kinda like tightening lugs when replacing a tire!) And probably, at each stage, and at each category, you'd have to come with a short laundry list to figure what should be the next thing to improve. I'd be interested in reading an informed perspective on how to engage in a process like that. And I can see an approach like that being applicable to everyone from newbies to veterans.
I realize that wasn't your question... but that's where my brain went. ::)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal)