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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: jasonl on March 16, 2012, 08:40:07 PM
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Got a question, I expose both ends of my screens to save on the amount of screens I have to burn. With that said, I sometimes according to size of art have to tape off one design until I finish the other side. When I flip the screen around, I untape it and print the logo on the opposite end of the screen. Problem is, after you take the tape off, its a b!tch to clean before I can print the second side. Was wondering if anyone else practices this procedure and masks off with something that is easier to clean? Thanks in advance for the help.
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First, you don't mean both sides, you mean both ends.
I print manually, so I can control the squeegee travel, and can mask with vinyl carrier sheet or coated paper on the inside.
Even tape makes less of a mess when used inside than on the print side.
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You may also be interested in this thread from our early days.
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,303.0.html (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,303.0.html)
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First, you don't mean both sides, you mean both ends.
Exactly!
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ok, I read that thread. Still didnt see what I am asking (unless I overlooked it). It does work great on my auto with the triloc, just a mess to clean the other end before I can start again.
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For the same color I just tape a piece of film on top.
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ok, I read that thread. Still didnt see what I am asking (unless I overlooked it). It does work great on my auto with the triloc, just a mess to clean the other end before I can start again.
It indeed did not cover specifically how to clean and otherwise make it easier to gang. It did however offer some insights and opinions about ganging in general, and the fact that many find it a penny wise-pound foolish endeavor.
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Tape on top so you don't have ink mixing with adhesive.
Unless you are talking about ink due to color change I haven't had an issue... just peel the tape and then I tape off the bottom of the old design and print.
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Tape on top so you don't have ink mixing with adhesive.
Unless you are talking about ink due to color change I haven't had an issue... just peel the tape and then I tape off the bottom of the old design and print.
that sounds good, i just assumed the squeegee would pull the tape off if I taped on top. Does it work for you?
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Are you on an auto? I'm doing it on a manual so I could stop... it started to peel up a little... but I just put enough down to compensate for a little peel up.
Oh, and when I taped up for the 2nd design I taped top and bottom (sandwich) (obviously ink will still be in the mesh).
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I gang a bunch of screens but only of the same color and only because I dont have enough screens. If I had enough screens I would burn one for each design. The ganging and taping etc. is a hassle to me.
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For the same color I just tape a piece of film on top.
tape film to the bottom of the screen. Make sure you use the non coated (print) side to face the ink. Easy cleanup as the ink will not gum up and you don't have to worry about the squeegee going over it . . .
pierre
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I place a piece of transfer paper over the image then tape it off that eleminates the tape residue.
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will try with film, thanks!
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I use blue painters tape it comes off nice and easy and no mess and its cheap.
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Pallet tape works also
tp
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we use packing tape on the inside. To keep the squeegee from lifting the tape, lay the down so the the direction of your squeegee stroke makes it fall off one layer of tape onto the next. Like shingles on a roof; so if you push your squeegee, start at the far end of the screen and work your way toward yourself (it's on press) and if you pull your squeegee (no jokes ;D) you start to layl the tape down close to you and toward the back of the screen. After the first end of the screen is used, we do tape that off on the bottom (print side), rotate the screen, pull the tape off the inside, and print, provided it's the same ink color of course.
Steve
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thanks for everyones advice, but i am only talking auto here, i would quit before i started up my manual. its just in my shop for looks ;D
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What Steve said.
Ganging images on screens saves us about 2-3 hours of labor time per week, so it's non negotiable at our shop. The only times I don't gang them is if one of the images is too long or we simply don't have enough film ready for exposure. I think I would do it if we were a smaller shop too, nothing bad has ever come to us by ganging. Every time you do it, it's one less screen you have to clean, coat, expose and tape.
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Good point Alan, do you gang screens using the same ink color? I gang screens out of lack of screens but only with the same ink colors. I think the cleanout would take to long if we did different colors on the same screen.
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Yeah Gerry, they are the same color a lot of the time, or close to it. I might put a navy blue and royal blue on the same screen. But, there are times when the images are short, we can have white ink on one end and black on the other end and we don't clean out the ink and the two never get close to each other. You can put left chests of different jobs on the same screen and never have to worry about the colors being the same or close, unless you are a messy printer and don't keep ink confined fairly close to the image areas.
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What Steve said.
Ganging images on screens saves us about 2-3 hours of labor time per week, so it's non negotiable at our shop. The only times I don't gang them is if one of the images is too long or we simply don't have enough film ready for exposure. I think I would do it if we were a smaller shop too, nothing bad has ever come to us by ganging. Every time you do it, it's one less screen you have to clean, coat, expose and tape.
Agreed, I have been doing it this way for years.
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Cleaning ink off a screen to use the 2nd end with a different color is much quicker than a full reclaim, recoat, reshoot, re-blockout/tape up.
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There should be a time & materials calculation to see if it is worth it.....
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All scraps from the inkjet go into a "masking pile" near the press. On the unfortunate times where I needed to gang stuff up (or it was easy-peasy one color stuff) I used the scrap inkjet film.
Cut a piece of film to completely cover the image area and tape it down with blue painter's tape on the SQUEEGEE side. Never put tape across the image area, you're only asking for trouble. Make sure the ends of the tape go all the way to the corners of the frame, this makes it so if a squeegee or flood bar drags across the masked area, the tape is less likely to catch at an end and pull up.
Make sure the receptive (inkjet print) side of the film is down on the image, away from the ink to avoid a cloudy mess.
Overlapping the corners makes tape/film removal easy. Grab the lowest corner and pull up the whole thing.
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Been doing the same process as steve for 5+ years. We use old catalogs to cover the other image, then tape them over in the right direction for the ink flow. Works like a charm.
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OK, I'm going to sound like a jerk here. Here's how it's done in my shop. One image per screen. I don't even allow color changes on press. If we have to change a color, we have a new screen. I know that seems very wasteful, but I don't want to stop my presses any longer than absolutely necessary. If it takes five minutes to clean a screen and change an ink color, versus 2 minutes to slap a new screen in, I'm going with the new screen. We're are all auto here, and Tri-Loc. I need to keep my presses turning, not having my printers become screen cleaners. Like I said, this is how we do it in MY shop.
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and dave, that works for you, nothing wrong with that. but in smaller shops, where a press operator can also be the screen guy, it's less time to clean a screen than it is to cut a new one and so on.
Your staff is setup this way and that works. We don't have enough people here to run it that way.
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And that's why I usually start by saying, "in my shop, what works for me...." I know every shop is different.
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We use palette tape to cover the one side.
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@ JasonL a pal of mine gave me this idea about taping off designs, I use simple waxed paper I get from the dollar store and mask the image area and then tape around the edges of the wax paper. Ink is very easy to clean off of it and the image never get any ink on it now for safety reasons I might place a pc of tape on the image underneath the screen just incase of ink leakage from squeege strokes and I do this on my auto as well as the manual press.
Darryl
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OK, I'm going to sound like a jerk here. Here's how it's done in my shop. One image per screen. I don't even allow color changes on press. If we have to change a color, we have a new screen. I know that seems very wasteful, but I don't want to stop my presses any longer than absolutely necessary. If it takes five minutes to clean a screen and change an ink color, versus 2 minutes to slap a new screen in, I'm going with the new screen. We're are all auto here, and Tri-Loc. I need to keep my presses turning, not having my printers become screen cleaners. Like I said, this is how we do it in MY shop.
No Dave, that sounds right for your operation. But without that kind of volume pumped out everyday, ganging is cheaper for the smaller shops. I know a shop that pulls the mesh off their Newmans so they don't have to clean it at all, just pop on a new piece of fabric. They couldn't care less about "work hardening" the fabric.
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OK, I'm going to sound like a jerk here. Here's how it's done in my shop. One image per screen. I don't even allow color changes on press. If we have to change a color, we have a new screen. I know that seems very wasteful, but I don't want to stop my presses any longer than absolutely necessary. If it takes five minutes to clean a screen and change an ink color, versus 2 minutes to slap a new screen in, I'm going with the new screen. We're are all auto here, and Tri-Loc. I need to keep my presses turning, not having my printers become screen cleaners. Like I said, this is how we do it in MY shop.
I guess it boils down to where your bottleneck in production is, if the auto's are spinning 24/7 then your way makes perfect sense, get all operations that don't put ink on shirts off the press and keep those suckers spinning! I think most of us can only dream...or nightmare.. ;D... about being that busy. For us it makes more sense to just wash up a screen as the same guy who runs the printer at any given time can be reclaiming/shooting screens, packing/unpacking product for padprinting/weeding vinyl for signage or a hundred other jobs.
I worked as Production Manager at a 24/7 shop that ran like a well oiled machine and it really opened my eyes to a lot of production ideals, but some of them don't transfer directly over to my own little graphic,parts,garment-screenprint/padprint/signmaking employee-multitasking shop in a small community.
I will say it sure helps to have those big-shop efficiency tricks up your sleeve for when you do get slammed with that huge order though, and your quoted example above is no exception. Thinking about thing differently depending on the circumstance your faced with separates the successful from the not in an economy like this.