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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Mark @ Hurricane Printing on April 01, 2013, 06:06:52 PM
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I revised this thread...my new topic:
Tons of issues and questions on this simple left chest print:
ok...so I did a test run of this. Used all 156 meshes...no underbase...im printing in this order: white; grey and maroon...flashing every color. Am I using the correct meshes???? I find the print coming out jagged looking. Also I am using brand new, never used before, 4" yellow bladed squeeges which are 70 durometer. The prints weren't coming out as crisp as I would like so I started using my longer 15" squeeges, which have a red blade and the print came out much better, a little much more crisp...but still jagged looking.
So I looked at my films thru loupes on a light table and my film print looks jagged under the loupe but not to the naked eye...to the naked eye they films look crisp...and the design is a vector design created in CorelDraw X5....I use an Epson 3000 ink jet printer and I cleaned the heads before I printed these films and the utility test print came out good, so I went forward with printing the films.
So any idea what I may be doing wrong? I only printed 10 and stopped because I feel it can be better. I have 132 to do.
(the following was my original post before I changed it up) I have a left chest design that is 3 colors (white; maroon; grey) going on ash colored shirts and natural (off white) color shirts.
Do I use an underbase for this or no? Since I have to make a white screen anyway I was thinking to make it an underbase....but i think, being the color shirts, an underbase wouldnt be required and i should just make the white screen just for the white in the image.
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Plenty of ways to do this, but we would likely use one white screen (ash and natural are fine with this)
as the underbase and top white, colors on top of this. Only reason being that the texture/gloss will be the
same on all colors as opposed to matte on the maroon/grey and semi-gloss on white if you didn't underbase.
It also makes it look sort of patch like which we find many service type businesses like. I think texture/gloss
is one of the more overlooked aspects of a printed product.
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I personally wouldn't do one and just print it in 3 spot colors but honestly EB makes a very valid point and either way will work fine. I just avoid printing on an underbase whenever possible.
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I wouldn't UB this either. What I would do though is print my white last and leave the option open for flashing the 2 colors in case they smear into the white at all.
I would print maroon, gray, (maybe a flash) and white...you could avoid the flash by choking your white so it can't touch the other colors.
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Tons of issues and questions on this simple left chest print:
ok...so I did a test run of this. Used all 156 meshes...no underbase...im printing in this order: white; grey and maroon...flashing every color. Am I using the correct meshes???? I find the print coming out jagged looking. Also I am using brand new, never used before, 4" yellow bladed squeeges which are 70 durometer. The prints weren't coming out as crisp as I would like so I started using my longer 15" squeeges, which have a red blade and the print came out much better, a little much more crisp...but still jagged looking.
So I looked at my films thru loupes on a light table and my film print looks jagged under the loupe but not to the naked eye...to the naked eye they films look crisp...and the design is a vector design created in CorelDraw X5....I use an Epson 3000 ink jet printer and I cleaned the heads before I printed these films and the utility test print came out good, so I went forward with printing the films.
So any idea what I may be doing wrong? I only printed 10 and stopped because I feel it can be better. I have 132 to do.
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Inkjet films will look a little jagged under a loupe, the real question is "Does your screen look jagged?" My guess is your underexposed.
I am not a huge fan of a 70 duro on a manual.
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I would do the white last like mentioned before. Check the off contact, may need more. There may also be a bleed issue between the different inks. Where two or more inks touch or one on top of another one will leach into another giving an jagged edge. Could also be the white is not smooth and creating small valleys for the other inks to fill in making a jagged edge.
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Offcontact probably. I print with 70 squeegees every time. No issues.
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Printing manually we most likely would have used 156 for white , 195 for grey and maroon BUT the bigger issue that may be causing your smearing jagged issue is two fold.
No 1 is there sufficient EOM on the 156 to provide a good gasket when the grey and maroom is applied. If the EOM is low (thin) you are going to blow out the ink beyong the image edge especially if your OC is high and you are using a lot of print pressure.
No2 you may be over flooding the grey and maroon ink. Try for schnitzs and grins not flooding the grey / maroon. Instead dab some ink above the image and push through the print. Do the edges look better?
The combination of thin EOM and too much ink will mush out edge work every time. Also you might lower your off contact and use pess print pressure.
It is going to be a balance of all of the above but if you have good EOM the flooding and pressure become less important. Off contact always seems to be a + or - factor.
good luck
mooseman
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I agree with what has been mentioned so far....checking screen for jagged (exposure) and off contact.
Is it truly printing jagged?....or are the colors bleeding together?
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I know I'm going to sound like a mean on SOB here, but I think last time you posted this I said I would print it without an underbase, I know I'm missing something here as I didn't read every post but I don't really see the problem with this print very simple 3 color left chest. I've read a little in your post why are you looking at your film thru a loupe who in sam hill gonna do that unless your in offset printing (your screen printing on clothe) you'll never see those edges once printed. I'll say this, and trust I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but if this job is giving you fits your in big trouble beyond a 3 color left chest, seems like to me your really going way over the top with this, but you do have some great printers on here that can help you out and not be a Ahole like me....just print a sample and see what you think.
Darryl
What are you printing on? type on shirt material
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Totally agree with daryll.
One thing I would not have done is print the colors on such a low mesh count.
But really everyone here can only speculate on your problem with out seeing the actual result, if you provide a pic of the print you do not like then these guys can probably pin point your issue better.
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I know I'm going to sound like a mean on SOB here, but I think last time you posted this I said I would print it without an underbase, I know I'm missing something here as I didn't read every post but I don't really see the problem with this print very simple 3 color left chest. I've read a little in your post why are you looking at your film thru a loupe who in sam hill gonna do that unless your in offset printing (your screen printing on clothe) you'll never see those edges once printed. I'll say this, and trust I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but if this job is giving you fits your in big trouble beyond a 3 color left chest, seems like to me your really going way over the top with this, but you do have some great printers on here that can help you out and not be a Ahole like me....just print a sample and see what you think.
Darryl
What are you printing on? type on shirt material
I am printing it without an underbase.
And I look thru a loupe becuase I have the tri loc...and I line up my films as I should: light table; carrier sheets; loupes..etc..etc
And every job beyond one color gives me a pain in the a$$..I am NOT a professional.
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I can not speculate as to what could be happening without a picture of the bad prints. Then I bet money I've seen something exactly like it in our shop years ago and could tell you how we fixed it, and I would also bet it had a lot to do with screen tension, EOM and proper off contact :).
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If your films look okay to the naked eye they should be fine, for now.
But how do the screens look? Jagged can be under (usually) or way way way over exposed.
My guess is underexposure without seeing a picture of the print. Usually what comes to mind
when someone uses the word jagged.
Alan's suggestions would be my next guess.
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Mark, my statement like I said I know I'm being a jerk, but I would really like to help you as everyone on here would. I know you are a newbie and eager to learn...like Alan said post a pic of your prints, and I'm one of the worse for not following the directions on the box, I do trial and error, your print might be great and you just don't see it so please post a pic.
Darryl
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I had to post as a PDF...ive tried 10 times to load as jpeg and for some reason it isnt working...and the the file size of the jpeg is half the allowable size so I have no idea what the problem is...anyway...here is the PDF..im posting the bad ones first..this is not the jagged edge issue..these are just all around bad prints....is this a sign of a flooded screen?
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here is a PDF of the jagged edged ones....and you can se ein the grey oval at the top there is a consistant little part of grey going into the white...i dont know if this is bleed thru or in the screen itself..i will have to look when I get home from work.
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You might be pushing too much on the squeegee?
One time I gave my brother to try printing, that is how it looked. In the mean time, I was afraid that my palet arms were gonna snap in half :)
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I think the problem is he is printing the white first and from the look of it in the pic the white is thick. Then he prints the grey next and since it is not underbased he is trying to get the grey to fall perfectly inside the white. In his situation I would print the maroon, grey first flash it then the white. He probably needs to back off on how much white he is laying down as well as the grey. Maybe he is using to much angle on the squeegee and flooding to hard?
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I agree, it looks like there is too much ink going down. I would thin my white slightly to get it to flow better and worst case change my mesh counts on the colors to a higher mesh.
Also, with butt register designs like this I choke back my white slightly to let the colors fall in better.
Also, if the colors aren't underbased, I would print the white last.
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I have ordered three 200's meshes and three 230's meshes. I plan on trying all 3 colors with the 230's first.
As for too much white on some of them..you are right about that because I'm not that great at "cleaning the screen" when printing white so I have to do more than one pass sometimes..if I don't, I get a lot of shirt fibers poking up and looks crappy.
My print order was white (no underbase); grey; maroon...I printed the white first because I figured if it was last it may cover up some of the thin grey oval line thats on top and bottom....it gets thin in those areas so I figured if I did white first, and flash then the grey would lay on top of the white at the edges and be more prominent.
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I agree with the last two comments.....
As best I could see in the image it does not at all look like jagged screen stencil or art.
Screen mesh, print order and pressure.....experiment.
Most of all remember.....it's just shirt printing...it's not life and death......if you are feeling pressure about the guy wanting his shirts, give him a call and buy some time. I am sure he will understand.
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I agree with the last two comments.....
As best I could see in the image it does not at all look like jagged screen stencil or art.
Screen mesh, print order and pressure.....experiment.
Most of all remember.....it's just shirt printing...it's not life and death......if you are feeling pressure about the guy wanting his shirts, give him a call and buy some time. I am sure he will understand.
there is pressure hahah...he needs them by Friday morning....and I work a full time job...so if all goes according to plan with the 230 meshes and following everyones guidence that has been posted, HOPEFULLY i can have them done late tonight.
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We used to see this all the time...too rough print on the white, too thin EOM, too much pressure, too much ink...we used to freaking see this ALLTHE TIME >:(
technique and attention to detail will cure it
mooseman
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Not to mention the grey is so close to shirt color you can choke the grey a ton and not even be noticable, this will give you a much better chance on a crisper edge between grey and white.
But yea white should be last in this case.
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Well you guys have just about covered everything there is, just make sure the white ink is smooth and not thick, which will cause you to use more squeegee pressure to get the ink to clear (most white inks have a little puff in them even though they say they don't).... now that I see your print I would do that white solid and lay a nice clean one stroke of grey and maroon over top, as long as your white ink has a smooth surface your other prints will be nice and crisp even with low mesh counts 137 150 using a 70 duro squeegee and maybe a 60 for the white.
Darryl
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Thanks everyone....I will attempt again tonight and will eventually post pics of the results. Hopefully I can knock it out.
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We have faith in you. It's really about experimenting and figuring out how you best print.
The biggest thing you need to overcome is a clean white print. Once you have that, you are good. One thing I would do is stand your squeegee up more on the print stroke. It will create cleaner print usually.
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Mark I will say this about you, you have the makings of being a great printer, most would just plow thru this and go with it, your taking your time to get the best print possible, we'll be seeing your prints in Impressions mag one day good luck.
Darryl
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Be patient Mark, it will come. I also would not underbase this, my order would be Maroon, Gray, White (dark to light, why step on the white?) off the press and onto the belt. 156 should be fine. If you print jagged to the naked eye but your films look sharp to the naked eye, I would check the screens for proper mesh bridging... I like my squeegees a little stiffer than 70, but everyone develops their own touch on a manual.
Steve
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Whatcha talkin bout steve!!!! I like my single duro 70's :o
Darryl
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Looking at those pics, my thoughts are the problem is from not sheering/clearing the ink where ink is building up on the screen back that then gets squished into the other colors. As soon as you have ink accumulated on the bottom, you're on a downhill slide until you clean off the back (and I just hate having to do that!!).
Build-up can be caused by any one of a number of things from technique to mesh size, to squeegee angle, to pressure, to consistency, to off-contact.
Marc has a manual Chameleon (I think) press which I'll assume is a back clamper so I'll suggest this to try.
I'm leaning towards inconsistent off-contact (since 'clearing the screen' was mentioned) allowing the screen to lay on the garment completely and build up ink around the image on the screen lift. If that's happening, what I do to maintain consistent off-contact (back clamp Workhorse) is to tape a 12 inch piece of a cut-up yardstick (usually 1/8 inch) across the bottom of the screen at the back and at the front where it will set on the shirt and front and back edges of the platten when pulled down. Then no amount of stroke pressure or arm flex can alter the 1/8 off-contact during the stroke and should sheer the ink clean and eliminate buildup.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)
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(to answer your question above I have an 8/8 chameleon with side air clamps set up in a one car garage hahah..with an 8ft dryer..and an MSP3140 exposure unit..needless to say I have zero room other than standing in one spot to print but I made it work)...Check it out..had to put it in PDF again..the site isnt accepting the jpegs..anyway...job completed. Much better...not great but definitely better and acceptable. I did loose money on this one..like a hundred bucks or so because when i felt the 156's weren't working for me I bought three 200's and three 230's and some 70 durometer 6" squeeges (the 4"'s i bought were not cutting it for me.). I used the 200 for the white and 230's for the maroon and grey. I tried different print squences as suggested. I did white last and, though it came out good, I decided to go a different sequence. When the white was last it covered up the grey inner oval to much to where the grey looked thin...I hit the white twice (flashing in between) and looked good but wanted more grey showing. So I went with maroon, white, grey and it worked best to me. And I also realized on the grey, I barely had to apply ANY pressure to the squeege....really I was amazed..its like I was barely giving any kind of down force to where it made me think I wasnt even touching the shirt with the mesh. It does suck I had to make the screens 3 times though...so I cleaned and burned 9 screens for a 3 color job. I did all 156's first..didnt like it..figured i screwed up the exposing..so I cleaned them all and did it again...still wasnt satisfied...so I put the job on hold while i ordered the three 200's and the three 230's thinking im covered for ANY combination of screen I needed because a deadline was looming.....coated all six new screens..and went with one 200 and two 230's and it was the right combination. I dropped the shirts off this morning on the guys back porch on my way to work this morning.
Thanks everyone for your insight. I don't know what the deal was..I printed more complex things than this before with zero problems....its like everything was working against me on this one and it was just bizarre..a simple job like this and it busted my butt...like every approach was wrong...made me feel inadequate.
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Whatcha talkin bout steve!!!! I like my single duro 70's :o
Darryl
Maybe I'm thinking about 60. I was never comfortable with too floppy a blade. I don't push a squeegee very often anymore (but I will this weekend, sponsors for little league teams). For me, a stiffer blade and a light touch, just enough to shear the ink, gave me the best result. However, I've printed with bulletnosed squeegees too, pretty weird...
Steve
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Glad it worked out...... and , you did not loose any money, you just invested in in better screens :)
Now you need to get some Newmans and you'll be allright
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From the sound of it your white needed to be choked back. If the white was covering up some of the grey that is bad, going on ash to start with you could have choked the white and the grey as well. Having a slight gap between the grey and white would not be noticeable but it would have been crisp. Your right tho grey inks are pretty smooth and loose easy to print. Another angle to printing that job could have been a solid grey with the white and maroon as a top coat, crazy sounding but things like that actually work well.
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Looks really nice.
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A couple things to consider...As you gain experience, you will doubtless become more aware of deficiencies in customers' logos, as they apply to screen printing. We are, after all, the "retarded third cousin" to offset printing. Sometimes, you have to "dumb it down" a bit...Every time you force ink through a screen you get a little image "spread"...Positive details ( Be they halftone dots or an outline) get bigger, negative details which are too fine, will tend to "choke" as the surrounding background shape "spreads" during printing, basically filling in, and obscuring. You will develop an eye for these deficencies and preemptively correct them at the art stage...the oval that was giving you grief could easily have been made slightly bolder, thereby eliminating some of your headaches. Re: mesh selection.... Definitely an arcane art, lots of factors to take into consideration. Basically, the viscosity of the ink dictates my mesh choices....Rule of thumb, White ink is thickest, Black is thinnest....this varies somewhat, dependant upon the ink brand(s) you are using. Also a factor in choosing the "correct" mesh is the color of the substrate. (Red/Royal/Kelly shirts need a little more "laydown" (Coarser mesh) to maintain color fidelity than Pink/Columbia/Mint Green) When it comes to detailed printing, a hard/sharp squeegee is your friend! Print order...Now there's another arcane bit of business...EVERY graphic will present it's own special little challenges. You will need to factor in the relative amount of a particular color in a designs' various elements...(The less of a particular color in a design, the earlier in the print sequence, it should appear.) Mitigating against this is the fact that darker inks withstand "picking up" on subsequent screens better than light inks. So you kinda have to "average out" those two opposing factors to get a print order/mesh selection that works. Confused? Me too! Relax, it's only a tee shirt! LOL!
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thanks...good info....well the print came out good but now the contract guy that gave me the job is concerend I put the image too high on th eleft chest. I put the center of the logo 4" from center of chest and about 2" from the top end of platen. I put my shirt on the platen to where the bottom part of the collar (brim?) is off the platen...like the bottom stiching is my stopping point in sliding the shirt on the platen. Funny thing is I printed one...and put it on in front of him and his partner and they all agreed it was perfectly fine. Then yesterday I'm talking to him and I asked how did the client like the shirts? HE said he doesnt know yet because he hasent heard back but im afraid the left chest image was too high. I said "I put on the sample shirt in fron of you and your partner so you can see and you both collectively agreed it was perfect..NOW you are telling you think its too high!?!?!?? Needless to say I was kind of frustrated by that.
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A left chest print is going to fit everyone different anyways, some people like a higher print some like a lower print, I try to hit it halfway of both and let it roll. The only customers that I have that fuss about left chest print placement are women!!!!!!.
Darryl
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Glad it worked out...... and , you did not loose any money, you just invested in in better screens :)
Ditto....what he said
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"Check it out..had to put it in PDF again..the site isnt accepting the jpegs."
I have to assume that you didn't lower the resolution to 72, and the file was then too large.
Here it is, and all I did was opened your pdf, and exported it as a 72dpi jpg.
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The top two images does look a touch on the high side, not terrible nor unacceptable but a tad high.
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I use this as my placement guide, and have for many years.
All of these measurements are from where the collar opening lines up on the board.