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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: rushhourscreen on February 09, 2012, 09:51:55 AM
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Does anyone have any ideas about eliminating the marks left on dark fabrics from squeegee pressure and heat from the flash? TIA, Debbie
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Everyone now and then we can remove the marks with our spot remover, or running the pieces through a wash cycle.
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are your squeegees rounded on the ends?
i use a bench grinder to round the ends, it helps a bit.
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You should not be getting any marks from the flash. If you are getting squeegee marks from the pressure you can mist a little water on the shirts with a spray bottle and run them back through the dryer. That fluffs up the fibers again and you should be good to go.
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or steam them with a steamer...same thing.....
but you need to find out why this is happening...too much pressure and too much heat...
sam
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Marks from the flash, I don't understand, but are the "squeegee" marks actually from the edge of the boards? If reducing pressure doesn't cut it, round the edges.
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if you are doing embroidery in house, you'll have a steamer. They work well too. . .
Flash marks, if they are burn marks will come out with peroxide.
pierre
EDIT: Sam beat me to it!
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No peroxide is going to work here. These don't sound like scorches anyway.
Does anyone have any ideas about eliminating the marks left on dark fabrics from squeegee pressure and heat from the flash?
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We used to have these marks but it was when I first started printing. I think it boils down to print pressure and you have to go back and take care of the pre-press variables that allow you to print with less pressure.
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sorry, should have added more info. This is an established shop that I just started working at. We print hundreds of shirts a day for resorts and because of a couple of complaints they've been steaming them out. I suspect heat & pressure also but I would like to keep the marking to a minimum if possible. Our auto presses have aluminum boards without rubber and print with 70 durometer squeegees. The printers are using excessive squeegee pressure. I'm going to replace the 70's with triple durometer 70/90/70 to hopefully use less pressure on the printing. The squeegees do not extend over the sides of the pallet. Yeah, the printers here need a little retraining, I think they are mostly self taught.
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Putting some rubber on those pallets might do the trick as well, sure would help on clean up if your using pallet tape. I can see taking pallet tape off a non rubber aluminum pallet a pain in the rear if you guys tape them.
Darryl
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sorry, should have added more info. This is an established shop that I just started working at. We print hundreds of shirts a day for resorts and because of a couple of complaints they've been steaming them out. I suspect heat & pressure also but I would like to keep the marking to a minimum if possible. Our auto presses have aluminum boards without rubber and print with 70 durometer squeegees. The printers are using excessive squeegee pressure. I'm going to replace the 70's with triple durometer 70/90/70 to hopefully use less pressure on the printing. The squeegees do not extend over the sides of the pallet. Yeah, the printers here need a little retraining, I think they are mostly self taught.
we are on metal plattens without rubber and having rounded corners helps. As you said, lower pressure is a factor too!
pierre
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No peroxide is going to work here. These don't sound like scorches anyway.
Does anyone have any ideas about eliminating the marks left on dark fabrics from squeegee pressure and heat from the flash?
We only have this problem with adult squeegees on kids plates, the marks are from the plates, at least that's our problem... yes, spraying them down and sending them through the dryers again, helps, but it's probably not helping the profit margin any.
Steve
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steve the problem is your squeegies are wider than your pallets. Thats why it only happens with the youth pallets on. yes squeegie pressure and all that makes a difference but in your case try a narrower squeegie and i will bet it corrects the problem. in other cases its directly related to moisture in the garments. you cant feel it but its there. thats why steaming helps. its caused by the pallet edges and pressure. my squeegies are slightly smaller than my pallets and we have never had the problem since we made that change. thats also why rounding hepls but doesnt eliminate it completely. also try running the youth shirts down FIRST them print with the adult squeegies. that will help big time also, what your doing is getting moisture out of the garment.If you notice rarely will you see it with 50/50 garments.
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Rick nailed it.
You squeegees need to be smaller than the boards.
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anyone actually use a 4" squeegee on sleeve platens?
PSI to print that would be like 3
I tried it once and it failed badly so I had to use a wider squeegee in order for it to print
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manually printing sleeves is a little different. i use a 5" squeegie printing left chests and sleeves manually.
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I didn't state it clearly. We do have the smaller squeegees, and it did eliminate the problem. The weird thing was, there was a time when it didn't matter, and left no marks, but yeah, the smaller squeegee was kind of obvious. Tweaking pressures and rounding the corners on the blades finally settled it down. Thanks guys.
Steve
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Double bevels set correctly will eliminate this problem and improve print quality.
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sonny, double bevels? are you kidding me, I didnt think anyone used them since the mid 70's.