TSB
screen printing => Newbie => Topic started by: Stinkhorn Press on January 29, 2013, 02:06:25 PM
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Currently most of our customers are happy enough with our imperfectly printed bulletproof spot color work. Possibly a self-fulfilling prophecy as everyone who isn't happy with them didn't bother to notify us if that was the reason they chose to go elsewhere...
I'm not happy with
A- the quality of the print, our technical ability
B- the fact we can't sell on high-quality/high-knowledge.
C- the time required to flash everything
Mid-range goal - wet on wet printing as often as can be achieved.
I realize this isn't a simple, change one element and it will happen situation.
Where we are now -
Run one manual 6/6. Press is decent, holds registration, holds OC, platens to screen holds parallel. I believe we have it pretty well sorted.
Printer (employee) has been printing for me full time for 1 year, no experience before this press or this shop.
Everything is PFPF (except when one color isn't touching another). Nowhere near one hit whites. We do trap/choke underbases and often make a highlight white if the design calls for it.
I am the artist and the owner.
Our screens are a mix of wood statics and aluminum statics. Half 110, half 125, couple of 86s. We did one round of throwing out about 40 egregiously awful screens a couple of months ago. We do a whole lot of tiny and repeat orders (36 team, 1 and 2 color logos softball league every March, etc) so we have a long screen recycle cycle (about 12 per day enter/exit the cycle, we keep them on screen for a time for re-orders).
We have an older Newman tension meter, true accuracy unknown. The screen tensions vary wildly. We have 12 Newman Rollers I bought off craigslist. Only three of them meshed up (shurloc for ease). No flat good table and no long mag wrench so they are probably not perfectly flat and probably have torque tensions acting on them.
We do spot color with some minor gradient work. We can't expose/hold much better than 33lpi (Accurip on Epson 1400 with waterproof films and AllBlack). Our gradients can't handle much outside the 20/80% range.
Emulsion is Chromaline Glide. Coated glisten style, usually 2/2 with rounded edge of coater. Exposure unit is a bank of tubes. Screen room isn't dehumidified and is cold. Exposure to get near solid step 7 of 21 step guide is around 3 minutes.
It's clearly going to take some work. I'm game.
What's the lowest hanging fruit to start with? What changes, tests, adjustments will yield the best control improvements? What can I ignore for now, what will prevent any improvements until it's addressed?
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The first thing you need to do is up your mesh counts. Bump up to at least 156, then 180, then some 230. On a manual, you won't have much need to go above 230. Static aluminum at a minimum, preferably all retens.
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Higher mesh counts will help with both WOW printing as well as better halftones (both LPI and quality).
I'd start with a handful of 230's.
Ink's are going to play a big factor in this as well. Heavy opaque athletic inks (for top colors) are not going to
print well WOW.
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Coming from the days before flash units were around, I agree with the other folks. Visiting a very good shop once (Mirrior Image in Pawtucket, RI) to look at MHM presses before we bought, Rick Roth told us "If you need more than 2 flashes, you're doing it wrong." And, he was right.
Steve
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Retention-able frames, at our number of screens circulating, would be a hefty upgrade. I assume I would need a stretching table to get consistency (and to get them truly flat) as well? That would require air too. And clamp adapters on the press (side arms, 2 manual screws per side). And learning to stretch mesh properly. I'd love Newmans, but I don't know, everything else involved, if we're ready for them at all.
Knowing there will at the very minimum need to be an upgrade in screens, I am leaning towards decent statics in the meantime. Some threads on this forum have suggested that Murakami stretches their own screens, s mesh, that come in a decent tension to start with? Certainly open to other options too - the shurloc system?
Our [current] customers aren't driving this, I fear we need to learn to crawl before we try running.
Most of our ink is One Stroke 480 http://www.onestrokeinks.com/pc_product_detail.asp?key=7DF49AC6464146B4BE20808FA6F7B5DF (http://www.onestrokeinks.com/pc_product_detail.asp?key=7DF49AC6464146B4BE20808FA6F7B5DF) and a little Hybrid series. Is that a decent ink for wet on wet? I am not very well versed in ink options. We print 70% of our stuff on 50/50 tees and fleece.
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I started with Newman's only, 18x20. Easy to stretch on a decently flat table. A torque
wrench is all I would recommend. Totally not necessary for quality work, personally I just
never wanted to be at the mercy of someone else to stretch screens for me. What if
your friend comes over to show you his new crossbow and the thing goes off and takes
out a huge stack of screens? Unlikely, I know, I just like being self sufficient in every way possible.
Trying out new mesh counts (as seen here) and tensions is also much more feasible with rollers.
With side clamps you don't necessarily need the adapters.
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Statics will do if they are decent tension, you don't need ultra high tension, it's just nice to have.
You'll also want to have a good wet-on-wet ink line, not all inks are suitable. Read-up on some of the various underbasing techniques like using 1/2 tones in the underbase etc.
I'll just throw this out there, but if you're looking at getting away from the bulletproof plastisols, then you may want to skip out on the middle and go all the way to discharge/waterbase. It's more of a learning curve for sure, but in the end you'd be adding more value to the shop..........
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Oops, forgot the other factors.
Poly blends using full on poly inks are going to be hard to get an underbase that you can print
wet on wet easily.
Yes you can discharge UB poly blends with plastisol on top, but one thing I've noticed with athletic
printing is that the high gloss/heavy hand feel tends to be desired, oddly. Discharge won't
get you there, though it makes printing WOW a cakewalk.
No idea about OneStroke, never used them. Given their name/price I'd wager they aren't going
to be great for WOW. I always liked Union Autoline for this, even manually.
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I would say that the best bang for the buck would be to drive up and see what we are doing. Seeing things in action just makes everything easier to put into perspective.
We still use statics for a lot of our work!
pierre
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Retention-able frames, at our number of screens circulating, would be a hefty upgrade. I assume I would need a stretching table to get consistency (and to get them truly flat) as well? That would require air too. And clamp adapters on the press (side arms, 2 manual screws per side). And learning to stretch mesh properly. I'd love Newmans, but I don't know, everything else involved, if we're ready for them at all.
I switched last year, I would never go back to statics (I still have a bunch for one-offs)
I built my owns stretcher, stop by to take a look. Maybe on the way back from Pierre :)
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If your goal is reasonable wet on wet production, good statics, proper ink, printing and stencil techniques can get you hundreds of prints without wiping down buildup till you hit at least a couple hundred shirts.
Not to say you shouldn't get roller frames, by any means, but if you're like us, sub two case orders are 70% of what we do, and well cared for quality statics IMHO give a similar return to well cared for rollers--if used properly. Don't be a shop that spends their last dollar on retensionable frames only to find out the real reason you're having problems has little to do with equipment.
Definitely check out Pierre's shop if you have a chance.
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I have lived through the same evolution....wish I had a printer..........still wearing all the hats here.
I think I have only 2 statics that are 110 mesh....and I don't remember using them at all last year. Everything else I have is 158, 196 or 230 mesh statics. Last tear I did buy 6 retensionables to work with. I will incorporate more of those in as time goes on. Much easier to work with all around.
My press is rather sloppy...so until I get a new one I trap. But you said your press holds registration rather well.....then use that...you shouldn't need to trap very much at all. Wet on wet can be used a lot more often than you think....and that comes with time and confidence. I think you said your printer has one year experience.....yep....been there....flashed everything to death in the beginning.
Lowest fruit on the tree?.....in my opinion experiment, take risks....jump in with both feet. You will have some disaster prints [have screens on hand for reburn and adjust art]. I think it just comes down to time on the press and learning how far you can push the limits...compared to what you do now. If you have any slow times that is a good opportunity to play with some new things.
I guess for me it is a bit easier as I do the artwork as well as the printing....so there is equal knowledge in both areas as what is needed and what will and wont work.
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If no one mention this using the right inks for wet on wet printing helps also and yeah bump up those mesh counts, but a nice tight 110 or 137 can still print wet on wet if you can get a nice ink cover in one stroke ( stops so much build up).... hey I really dig what blue moon said cuz I consider him one of the best printers on here (still use a lot of static frames)
Darryl
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I have statics and rollers (oversize). Selling the rollers as my presses don't have the right clamps and the adapters are worthless. Up on the mezzanine we have a frame stripping and stretch and glue operation. Tension is tension.
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Plenty of good info here but the one factor that really needs to be addressed..
The guy pulling the squeegee has no clue what he's doing and until he learns WHY he's doing what he's doing, all he'll ever do is mash ink into a shirt.
You need him to take the lead on learning how to be a better printer and start reading technical publications. Best place for that is screenweb.com which is the online database for screenprinting magazine.
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Plenty of good info here but the one factor that really needs to be addressed..
The guy pulling the squeegee has no clue what he's doing and until he learns WHY he's doing what he's doing, all he'll ever do is mash ink into a shirt.
You need him to take the lead on learning how to be a better printer and start reading technical publications. Best place for that is screenweb.com which is the online database for screenprinting magazine.
What he said. A good printer can still print well, in fact better than most even with sub par crappy equipment.
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The lower your tension levels are the more buildup you'll have. If you use statics make sure they're quality and as tight as you've got. You can do fine printing with statics as everyone has said but this is one of those areas that low tension screens add to the buildup problem. I can't really tell you where the magic mark is for tension that buildup begins to get better but we used to have terrible issues with buildup and most of our screens were under 15 newtons. You also need to use higher mesh screens. When using an ink that is not really formulated for WOW printing the buildup is directly related to the amount of ink being deposited onto the garment and the best way to regulate that is with proper mesh selection.
As far as mesh specs go, thin thread mesh is typically better at everything except durability. Thin thread mesh will deposit a thinner deposit of ink yet it's usually more opaque because of the pressure needed to shear the ink is much less and more ink ends up sitting on top of the shirt rather than in it.
Another benefit of printing with higher tension is it allows you to print faster, therefore the mesh isn't in contact with the substrate near as long on subsequent screens leaving less time for buildup to occur.
A lot of these tips are subtle and may be hard to see happening and it's all up to the shop doing the work as to what you're willing to put up with and what is acceptable. You can see I'm a proponent of high tension but I recognize you can do fine work with statics. You cannot do great work with 10 newton screens (plastisol) in my opinion but I'm sure someone will try to say they can. 15 newtons...yeah, you can pull some quality stuff off and at 20 newtons you can absolutely do great work. You just can't do the work quite as fast as you can with 40 newton screens.
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Thanks for everyone's input so far. Good stuff.
Bang for my buck - next week I'm taking Pierre up on his generous offer to walk me around his operation. I'll try and stop by and annoy Dennis at DK as well. Looking forward to that.
SCREENS:
Let's assume I am sticking with statics for the meantime:
Our screens need to be higher mesh count. Ok.
And they must hold decent tension. What exactly is decent appears to be relative to personal experience/equipment/requirements. Ok. With statics - under 15N is not great, but holding over 20 after a couple of jobs is also rare?
I've never measured the tension levels of new screens as they come in.
What's the best tension I can expect coming in? (150/180/230)
How far should I expect that to drop after a couple of jobs?
What suppliers can consistently delivers decently high tension, or does it require bugging someone/anyone extensively? (suppliers I am familiar with/have used - multicraft, rhino tough, nazdar, richardson, ryonet, ace)
Should pretty much any supplier be offering thinner mesh thread options? Murakami S is the only branded thinner mesh I've heard named specifically, is there a reason for that?
Does sending frames back for a remesh save much more than pennies after shipping?
Alan, I think I saw you have a list of combinations of mesh count/diameter - some higher counts/ thinner that are pretty comparable (print-wise) to lower count/thicker meshes and specifically some combinations that you thought just didn't work at all - is that something I should be aware of, bad or less than helpful combinations? Any rule of thumb to get to those conclusions or is it just test test and test some more?
On another thread I saw it suggested that even if the screens aren't super high tension, it helps to have them all within only a relatively small variation in tension to eliminate different tensions as a variable while trying to figure out everything else. Seems sound.
INK
I talked with my One Stroke rep, Mark on the phone and asked a couple of questions.
He tells me the 480 series we mostly us won't be great for WoW, but shouldn't be as bad as a straight up poly ink.
He said they have an older series, the 700 series that is thinner and should work better, but that it IS just 480 with more base and recommended we just get some base and mix our own to try it out.
I'm dumb when it comes to ink. What properties am I looking for in a good WoW ink? Will the ink that I use printing color over a plasitsol underbase be the same I would use if I was printing without an underbase on a light color shirt? Is there any good articles on the different ink properties that I should be considering? I feel I'm over my head here.
Underbasing with discharge doesn't sound insurmountable. I cut my teeth as a printer in a WB/Discharge shop using Matsui products.
Mostly we print on 50/50 (many direct consumer instead of re-sellers so the initial size staying the same is one of the most important aspects) - Can discharge white on a blend get the garment light enough to be a great underbase?
Our main problem with discharge is we have a small electric 8-element workhorse dryer and it simply can't get even a basic lightweight 100% cotton shirt to discharge fully with one pass. Second problem is ventilation. Fumes. The technical aspects of discharge printing I think I'm comfortable enough to start with, but without fixing those two things I don't want to tread too deep.
Plenty of good info here but the one factor that really needs to be addressed..
The guy pulling the squeegee has no clue what he's doing and until he learns WHY he's doing what he's doing, all he'll ever do is mash ink into a shirt.
You need him to take the lead on learning how to be a better printer and start reading technical publications. Best place for that is screenweb.com which is the online database for screenprinting magazine.
Agreed. In the last month I've been working on setting up responsibility for each employee position mostly involving education/improvement. I will probably insist the printer make use of this forum soon too boot. Just a little juggling of expectations of meeting due dates and still having the time to do the other stuff (cleaning the shop, education/training improvements, cross-training).
TL;DR:
- what am I looking for in a decent static? where from?
- what properties of ink am I looking for?
I appreciate all the help and advice. Thanks.