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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Shanarchy on January 28, 2013, 08:17:23 PM
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Anyone ever use a squeegee in place of their flood bar? I've been peaking at the Joe Clarke Squeegee and Dr J flood bar. Pretty interesting.
But I'm figuring there must be an advantage to a conventional metal flood bar, or manufacturers would just put a squeegee in both places. I know the DR J is a little more engineered than a conventional squeegee, but thoughts?
The first think I come up with is you won't have the advantage to a winged flood bar. But I'm sure someone must have messed with this. So before I have play time at the shop, what do you have for me?
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Maybe someone will come up with the squeege-flood with wings?
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Maybe someone will come up with the squeege-flood with wings?
Yes!
Maybe you could use those M&R ink traps + squeegee blade? I've never seen those traps in person so maybe not., but if they hook up on the holder it could work, or at least help.
Printing manually the way we do in our shop and also using an auto for flatstock and a metal fill bar there, I say advantage squeegee as flood for plastisol for the best possible hard fill without distorting the image but winged metal floods are just fine for wb.
I think Joe Clarke's Dr.J is based around a concept I've seen him write on that the metal fill bar should not contact the mesh. Image distortion is my best guess but it's still confusing since the squeegee distorts as well, maybe friction issues? My fill bars are always set just a little past the mesh, a little more than I thought would be required in fact, you can feel the bar depressing the mesh underneath.
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I've been using the Dr J for a while now. I use them all the time for our one hits on darks. The squeegee as a flood bar fills the stencil better and you can see a difference in ink deposit between a metal flood bar and squeegee. The other day when I was asking what would be the best substrate to print on to test ink deposit thickness was to measrure those differences between different flood bars, squeegees and also mesh counts. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test and measure soon.
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Alan, ever used a constant force flood?
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I've got some manual ones that I've tried a few times but I don't really like them. I can't say I honestly gave them much of a chance cause I don't print manually very often.
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I've got some manual ones that I've tried a few times but I don't really like them. I can't say I honestly gave them much of a chance cause I don't print manually very often.
My guy actually LOVES those squeegees now... so next time you send me a box of something, send it back. :p
Or send it to Mooseman, I offered to let him try it out.
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The auto ones, I mean.
Also do not care for the manual ones but appreciate the concept. The manual ones are actually incredible on ultra high tension and a paralleled press.
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I thought they worked OK with both CF and conventional squeegees.
The Hydra is sweet for high tension screens and really loads the stencil, but you lose several inches of inkwell.
The Vector seems to keep more ink warmed up, but both are still pretty bad about running out of ink in the middle if you don't keep a massive amount of ink in the screen.
Seems like they'd be great for process if I actually had 4-6 of them, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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I thought that the newman floods were notably missing wings. With all that rolling the ink around it probably flows out to the sides a lot quicker.
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I've been using the Dr J for a while now. I use them all the time for our one hits on darks. The squeegee as a flood bar fills the stencil better and you can see a difference in ink deposit between a metal flood bar and squeegee. The other day when I was asking what would be the best substrate to print on to test ink deposit thickness was to measrure those differences between different flood bars, squeegees and also mesh counts. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test and measure soon.
A couple of questions....
Do you think putting a normal squeegee in place off my flood bar would give me any advantages? Or would it be a poor trial to see if the Dr J's would be worth it?
If someone was to take a 16" Dr J or Smilin Jack and trim either a half inch or an inch off both sides, do you think it would alter the performance being that it would change the profile of the smile cut?
Do you think the advantage to a squeegee base/Dr J flood bar is only worth it for white and high opacity inks? Or do you think you would get a noticeable benefit even using them on wow and general purpose inks?
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My question is why do you need to flood that much ink? Using a squeegee is going to have dot gain galore if you are using it to make contact with the screen.
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My question is why do you need to flood that much ink? Using a squeegee is going to have dot gain galore if you are using it to make contact with the screen.
I agree. If you have to do something like this your messed up somewhere else in the process. I haven't used the smile or the doctor so I am not trashing them but I understand the physics of the design. The cut makes a bending point. Depending on speed and pressure you create your print angle. This is why they go in at zero angle and they want you to run them fast. Since the bending point is lower on the blade then a standard blade (bending at the squeegee holder). This makes you get a sharper print angle with ink compression before the print. The ink compression is similar to printing with a push stroke. Depending on speed and pressure maybe a high print angle then possible with a normal set up. The blade only needs to bend a slight amount to get the angle. Now they say its an 80 duro or something like that. Well the 80 duro has a cut in it making it bend at that point more like a 40 duro since it is only bending half the mass of the blade. The 80 duro material can't clean the screen as well as a soft duro. I have a few blades that do something similar and they do work great. I am sure if you cut a 80 duro on a table saw you could get the same performance as one of these blades. I like the thinking but like everything in screen printing most of these special items are because people have something else not set right or need to compensate for something. Alan I am not talking about you. I know you use these type things to do what some say are impossible. If I saw this last year I would have bought one. I was having issues with ink lay down (not enough ink). It took me a while but I fixed that issue with finding the areas I was not adjusted properly.
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My question is why do you need to flood that much ink? Using a squeegee is going to have dot gain galore if you are using it to make contact with the screen.
I agree. If you have to do something like this your messed up somewhere else in the process. I haven't used the smile or the doctor so I am not trashing them but I understand the physics of the design. The cut makes a bending point. Depending on speed and pressure you create your print angle. This is why they go in at zero angle and they want you to run them fast. Since the bending point is lower on the blade then a standard blade (bending at the squeegee holder). This makes you get a sharper print angle with ink compression before the print. The ink compression is similar to printing with a push stroke. Depending on speed and pressure maybe a high print angle then possible with a normal set up. The blade only needs to bend a slight amount to get the angle. Now they say its an 80 duro or something like that. Well the 80 duro has a cut in it making it bend at that point more like a 40 duro since it is only bending half the mass of the blade. The 80 duro material can't clean the screen as well as a soft duro. I have a few blades that do something similar and they do work great. I am sure if you cut a 80 duro on a table saw you could get the same performance as one of these blades. I like the thinking but like everything in screen printing most of these special items are because people have something else not set right or need to compensate for something. Alan I am not talking about you. I know you use these type things to do what some say are impossible. If I saw this last year I would have bought one. I was having issues with ink lay down (not enough ink). It took me a while but I fixed that issue with finding the areas I was not adjusted properly.
Jon,
The image you posted is the main reason I am interested in the Dr J. 0 degree angle. I have a mini horizon. Great press, but it is a smaller print stroke. I'm looking into testing these and double bevel squeegees to see if I can get an extra inch or two out of my print stroke.
But I am also very interested in items that could possibly improve quality/production.
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I'm not sure it would help much with print stroke length. You still have to flood the image so your flood bar is going to determine your print stroke length. If you switch to a squeegee for flooding it will take away even more of your printable area. Many flood bars are bent so the flood is closer to the squeegee. This may not be true on all presses. If I use a squeegee to flood it will take away almost an inch or more. The winged flood bars from Action are not as bent as the original floods on my press so they also take away from my print stroke. (Sorry to hear your lacking on stroke length. I have plenty of length ;D)
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Complete opposite of opinion of Jon and JBLUE here: I print with a very hard fill on the manual, like printing in with the screen in the air basically. A properly and completely filled screen decreases gain from the print stroke and provides ultimate consistency in ink deposit.
In fact it's the only way I've ensured consistent results in a shop like mine where, at some times, there were up to 4 different manual printers. I want that print to look the same every job, no matter who's doing it. A hard flood or "fill" achieves this by allowing the stencil thickness to regulate ink deposit and minimizing the variable of pressure and angle on the print stroke.
This topic interests me a lot as I've been brainstorming how best to achieve this on an auto. I think hard fills on auto printing would solve so many of these print issues I read about on here with autos. Talkin' bout plastisol here of course. WB can be hard filled as well but the dynamics are completely different. I do hard fill with some WB poster inks on the clamshell which sounds crazy but it works.
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I'm not sure it would help much with print stroke length. You still have to flood the image so your flood bar is going to determine your print stroke length. If you switch to a squeegee for flooding it will take away even more of your printable area. Many flood bars are bent so the flood is closer to the squeegee. This may not be true on all presses. If I use a squeegee to flood it will take away almost an inch or more. The winged flood bars from Action are not as bent as the original floods on my press so they also take away from my print stroke. (Sorry to hear your lacking on stroke length. I have plenty of length ;D)
Brain blunder....you are absolutely correct on the flood bar. A 0 degree angle Dr J would actually work against me for maxing print stroke.
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Zoo, I am not saying hard floods don't work. Jblue also hard floods, if I remember correctly. Hard flooding to a point is good. Fill is what your going for. Over fill is a problem. If you can't fill with a normal flood bar then its not the flood bar that is failing. I maybe the only one that prints with a soft flood. I like to cover the design with 1/18 or more ink. Am I doing it wrong? No. I am doing it the way that works for me. If you have a ton of EOM you will need to do what ever you can to fill it. I have backed off my EOM. I am at about 10 percent now and my prints are all dialed in. There is a ton of ways to print on an auto and coming from a manual it took me a long time to get dialed in. I got a few ways to work like using high EOM, printing with better inks, using special squeegees and even flashing every color. The truth is tons of ways will work but I wanted to print the same way I did on my manual.
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I'm not sure it would help much with print stroke length. You still have to flood the image so your flood bar is going to determine your print stroke length. If you switch to a squeegee for flooding it will take away even more of your printable area. Many flood bars are bent so the flood is closer to the squeegee. This may not be true on all presses. If I use a squeegee to flood it will take away almost an inch or more. The winged flood bars from Action are not as bent as the original floods on my press so they also take away from my print stroke. (Sorry to hear your lacking on stroke length. I have plenty of length ;D)
Brain blunder....you are absolutely correct on the flood bar. A 0 degree angle Dr J would actually work against me for maxing print stroke.
I don't think it wouldn't work against you going 0 degrees--more angle equals more space between the flood and print edges and could equal less printable area--of course the squeegee angle won't change how long the stroke is, but at 0 tilting the flood forward and making the bead smaller (if you can on a Horizon) and shortening the ink well could add an inch or two. Not that it's any fun to run that way.
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at 0 tilting the flood forward and making the bead smaller (if you can on a Horizon) and shortening the ink well could add an inch or two. Not that it's any fun to run that way.
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That would be the thought. I have a couple of double bevels squeegees coming in. Most of my print runs are relatively small (50-100 pieces). My bigger orders range between 200-300 pieces. So on my typical orders shortening the ink bead shouldn't be too bad. I'm going to play around with that and see how it works for me.
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I've been using the Dr J for a while now. I use them all the time for our one hits on darks. The squeegee as a flood bar fills the stencil better and you can see a difference in ink deposit between a metal flood bar and squeegee. The other day when I was asking what would be the best substrate to print on to test ink deposit thickness was to measrure those differences between different flood bars, squeegees and also mesh counts. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test and measure soon.
A couple of questions....
Do you think putting a normal squeegee in place off my flood bar would give me any advantages? Or would it be a poor trial to see if the Dr J's would be worth it?
If someone was to take a 16" Dr J or Smilin Jack and trim either a half inch or an inch off both sides, do you think it would alter the performance being that it would change the profile of the smile cut?
Do you think the advantage to a squeegee base/Dr J flood bar is only worth it for white and high opacity inks? Or do you think you would get a noticeable benefit even using them on wow and general purpose inks?
You can use a normal blade to try it out. I see what Jon and Blue are saying but running a typical floodbar over the top of an image and not doing a hard flood simply does not "prime" or load the stencil with enough ink. The purpose of flooding hard is to prime the pump so to speak and they are right in that there will be dot gain on certain types of printing, that's why we wouldn't use the Dr J on a sim process job or something that doesn't need a thicker ink deposit.
Another reason we fill the stencil by using a hard flood is it reduces the amount of print pressure we need to shear the ink, by a good margin, say 20% on average.
It will alter the performance but probably not noticeably especially if using it as a fill blade. I wouldn't use the Dr J or any squeegee to fill with on any top colors or general printing on light garments because it will affect the WOW aspect by probably depositing too much ink. But, say you are not getting enough ink down and you can see the shirt through the print with one stroke, most people will double stroke, well, you could fill the stencil better however you choose and get a better ink deposit and still stay with one stroke. If that job is a multi color with the need to print WOW then you'll have to be careful and use WOW inks and meter the ink deposit accordingly to keep the buildup to a minimum.
My question is why do you need to flood that much ink? Using a squeegee is going to have dot gain galore if you are using it to make contact with the screen.
You could possibly over fill the stencil and have dot gain galore but we haven't run across this problem. The only time we are using the Dr J to fill with is when I'm shooting for a one hit white or other color on darks. For that purpose, a heavy/hard fill is sometimes the missing 5-10% ink deposit that we are needing. I can't say for sure just how much more ink gets deposited using a Dr J over a regular fill blade but I've got prints of both through the same screen and settings and you can tell by eye there is a difference. If I can ever stop working 15 hour days trying to do shipping/receiving and still run the screen printing department I will do some experimenting and measure the results.