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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Dottonedan on March 14, 2013, 09:20:08 PM
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I've talked to a good many shops over the years both high end shops and low end shops. Super mega shops to very small shops and find a wide range of answers to this questions and the answers never are the same for each "group" of shop be it size or newb. I recently heard a shop owner say he sharpened his squeegees about every production run or even mid run... but he was very large runs of say 20 thousand to 70 thousand.
It would be interested to hear how often the masses do it.
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Used a squeegee sharpener on about 4 of our old 75 duro squeegees, bought about 7 or so new ones over the last several months.
Definitely have 3-4 dull ones I try not to use at all, and 5+ that could use sharpening for sure.
Just paid for a 15 year old 36" wide encore engineering sharpener from a local guy going out of business and will have it in a month. Then I will make sure I can feel the ridges on my fingers on our squeegees else they will be sharpened asap.
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Have you ever noticed what a warrior does before every battle? He sharpens his blade.
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you sharpen it more than 3 times and you're playing with it. Wait, oh, SHAKE it more than three times...totally different.
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For those of us that have no sharpener, what business around town might have something that can be used?
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For those of us that have no sharpener, what business around town might have something that can be used?
The right kind of router setup maybe?
This reminded me for the umpteenth time to build a simple "polishing" setup. I think if you focus on keeping the very edge honed with some high grit paper you'll do ok. Sharpener would be nice for sure but if you are into bevels...?
I currently flip the blade up to four times using all four edges of the piece.
You are you noticing warriors battling? With blades? Florida is crazy man.
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We just purchased a Theime that will do up to a 60 inch blade (we use 44's for all over) - I need to get the final payment over tomorrow and hope to have it installed in about a week!
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I use to have the sand paper set up. But it won't get it as sharp as a sharpener.
I am still playing around with mine. I think I sharpen it after 400 to 600 prints. I will try to extend that over 1000 to keep the cost down. If it still maintain the easy of printing, I will try to extend that even further.
BEFORE YOU BUY A SHARPENER.
Make sure it will cut your squeegee dimension.
I am currently changing all my squeegees rubber to a bigger one so I can sharpen it.
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Im working on a sharpening system now, waiting for parts to arrive next week. There is nothing like a brand new blade, but a newly sharpened one is a close second....
I told my local supply shop to buy a sharpener, a donut probe, newton meter, that do-hickey that reads the density of film - all the goodies a screen shop could use - but not want to buy and charge for a service, I'll pay a few bucks to map out my dryer....they all said great idea, but never did. So now we have something in the works with the supplier.
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I'm in the vast minority but we prefer to replace with new blade. The reasons are on an old thread.
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Same as Zoo, we rotate them all four edges.
Does anyone know exactly what is used in a commercial sharpener? I have a decent router table and never thought of sharpening blades with it.
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Rotary diamond bits. They are expensive.
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I have a glass grinder that I always meant to modify but never got around to it.
I also thought that were some sharpeners that actually slice with a blade which would produce an edge more like the original (though they are usually extruded)
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I used to do sandpaper and 2 blocks and would just run it on that a few times but that was for my manual squeegees. For my auto I can only print with 1 edge so when I feel that gets dull, I will just run it around and keep doing that until all the sides are used up and then probaly move those to manual holders and do the sand paper trick again. There was an article a year or maybe a couple where Rick Roth said to never sharpen as it changes the way the blade is meant to be used.
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HAHAH, it is so funny this topic came up. the shop from down the street came in and asked if they could use my sharpener. Fine, we borrow stuff back and forth, I borrowed platens last week.
he said the squeegees hadn't been sharpened in about 15 years. HAHA, they were almost bull-nosed, no joke, totally rounded on the edges.
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I'm in the vast minority but we prefer to replace with new blade. The reasons are on an old thread.
Your "vast minority" is leading with a whopping 67%! Though the reasons for "preferring" may vary.
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Rotary diamond bits. They are expensive.
Yes they are and most people don't know how to sharpen a blade correctly which is just as bad as a dull blade.
I used to be a sharpening pom pom waver.. now with the price of some blades and the time it take to maintain blades.. it's easier to just go the disposable route and swap in new material.
BUT.. if you invest in top dollar blade that is made to be sharpened then yes.. sharpen.
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we don't replace ONLY because of the holders we have, the old style M&R. It takes forever to get the damn blade in some of them haha..we'll try sharpening and then I was looking at one of those "maintainers" from nazdar, like a glass hone or something. give'er a quicky before use....
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Rotary diamond bits. They are expensive.
Yes they are and most people don't know how to sharpen a blade correctly which is just as bad as a dull blade.
I used to be a sharpening pom pom waver.. now with the price of some blades and the time it take to maintain blades.. it's easier to just go the disposable route and swap in new material.
BUT.. if you invest in top dollar blade that is made to be sharpened then yes.. sharpen.
A diamond router bit is not overly expensive, I could build a jig that fits the squeegee holder and squeegee together and have it ride in the sled I built for the router table.
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There are two types of sharpener.
blade:
Hot Knife Squeegee Sharpener (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-I2ENzezQ#)
router:
Serilor Squeegee Sharpening Machines - Diamond Short Cut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrNw6tBYRv4#)
The way Serilor/Fimor manufacture their squeegee.
Fimor: screenprinting squeegees manufacturer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxyZtwdKMfs#ws)
Why I prefer over changing?
Labour is cheaper in this region of the world compared to replacing a squeegee.
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Only concern I have with using a straight cutter on a router is chatter, even the slightest chatter would make a squeegee near useless. I would just have to try it to find out.
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We had the Encore Cutronic at the graphic shop I used to manage. It's great as it has a vacuum attachment to get the shavings out of the way, you can set the number of passes, and it automatically adjusts a few thou. on each subsequent pass. If you go that route go with the larger diameter (4") diamond grit wheel as it stays much cooler while cutting. I would be concerned with using a router due to the high RPM. It'll probably be okay if you don't do too many passes, or try to cut too deep in one pass, or feed too fast.
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Inkman, I say go for it. The low end model in that vid is practically a router table.
abchung those vids were sweet, pretty old school.
I'd say that one that actually cuts the blade would be where it's at but looks pricey.
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I found and image of the bigger wheel:
(http://www.encoreenginc.com/images/roues2.gif)
From what I could find, most of the diamond wheel sharpeners run at 1430 - 2800 rpm, there is probably some latitude, most basic single speed routers are above 20000rpm. some variable speed routers will get you down below 10000rpm, but you've got to really shop around to find one that gets below 3000rpm.
We had one of those non-rotating blade sharpeners, but it caused deflection in the first and last inches of the squeegee blade as it entered and exited the squeegee and one side would be protruding .030" - .060" longer, and the other end cut shorter.
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Hmmm my best router only goes down to 8000 rpm's. sounds like burning will be an issue, same issue with wood, you need to mold at the lowest speed possible with out losing quality or else blade burn is common.
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I built a squeegee sharpener for about $35. It works great. Shaves about 1/16" each pass. Found a source for 1/4" shaft diamond bits for dirt cheap and mounted a cheap cut off tool from Harbor Freight. Here's the result: http://youtu.be/VenDec_BIUs (http://youtu.be/VenDec_BIUs) (first test drive before it was mounted to a table)
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That is excellent.
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Great idea. From the sounds of it tho, (where you hear vaaaruuuuuuuummmhm). The uuuuuu part in the middle of the cut may show (although still very slight)a slight uneven or consistent amount. Something that would not be seen in flat spot colors or maybe even 35-40 line screen halftones, but it could effect a high end print like 65-75 lpi 4 color process where consistency is critical. This is knit picking tho.
I'm not knocking your build at all. Great idea. prob. perfect for most all jobs.
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Great idea. From the sounds of it tho, (where you hear vaaaruuuuuuuummmhm). The uuuuuu part in the middle of the cut may show (although still very slight)a slight uneven or consistent amount. Something that would not be seen in flat spot colors or maybe even 35-40 line screen halftones, but it could effect a high end print like 65-75 lpi 4 color process where consistency is critical. This is knit picking tho.
I definitely botched some test manual squeegees testing it out. Cutting Lube helps with the heat but it also took a while for me to get my hand control down to get it really smooth and sharp. It's also part of the reason I built it to take off so little each pass. In our shop we run 40-45 halftone jobs fairly regularly and so far so good. I have a 4CP on this week's production schedule. I'll keep that in mind if I run into problems.
My opinion is the only way to truly get a perfect edge is with a hot blade sharpener. They're crazy nice but also crazy $$$$$$.
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Some neat ideas here. Kingscreen--that's really cool. So do you just drip a little fluid on for each squeegee, or pass?
I think a router would be great for the HP, but would probably have to be geared down.
It might be easier just sourcing a reasonable size motor that's already wound to spin the right speed.
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Kingscreen--that's really cool. So do you just drip a little fluid on for each squeegee, or pass?
I have been adding it a couple times each squeegee. I'm not certain each pass is necessary but it definitely needs it a couple times for each squeegee.
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I printed labels with solvent inks for years. That really degraded my squeegie edges fast, so sharpening was absolutely necessary (otherwise I would have been replacing them way to frequently). Sand paper produces a much rougher finish and allowed the solvent to attack the blade faster. I bought a basic sharpening kit from Encore and the diamond cutter heads produce a nice smooth even finish if you progress in small steps and finish with the smoother diamond cutter. Really helped when printing solvent inks.
Speed is important as is how much you try to remove at a time. While I have a motor that was made to turn at a lower rpm than a router there is no reason that you couldn't use one. All good woodworking supply stores like Rockler sell variable speed controllers that make it easy to run a lower speed without modifying your router.
Plastisol and wb just don't eat my squeegies like the solvent based inks did, but it sure is nice to take a pass on my blades occasionaly, particularly if I get nicks or edge damage of any type.
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From my experience, new blades are not as sharp as a sharpened blade, we bought a 60
Inch diamond maxi for $600 on digitsmith, I see them on there often. We sharpen daily it allows us
To use much less pressure and higher squeegee angles.