TSB
screen printing => Waterbase and Discharge => Topic started by: DCSP John on October 15, 2013, 03:02:15 PM
-
Hi Everyone..
We do fair amount of discharge printing on both tees and fleece, but have never printed discharge across the zipper.
We don't have specialty platens for zippys..., nor do we have neoprene on any platens.
Will be printing on Indy Trading Co. Full Zip. Kissing zipper.
Any sage advice? Loose screen, increase pressure? I don't anticipate much hassle, but figured I would
throw this out there to gleen any advice I can get.
Thanks.
John @ DCSP
-
Hi Everyone..
We do fair amount of discharge printing on both tees and fleece, but have never printed discharge across the zipper.
We don't have specialty platens for zippys..., nor do we have neoprene on any platens.
Will be printing on Indy Trading Co. Full Zip. Kissing zipper.
Any sage advice? Loose screen, increase pressure? I don't anticipate much hassle, but figured I would
throw this out there to gleen any advice I can get.
Thanks.
John @ DCSP
get some foam and put it on the platen(s). shouldn't be more than few bucks each.
pierre
-
Hi Pierre...
Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?
Thanks Pierre...
John
-
Hi Pierre...
Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?
Thanks Pierre...
John
I'm not Pierre, but here is one of the things we have used:
http://www.uline.com/BL_857/UPSable-Industrial-Rolls (http://www.uline.com/BL_857/UPSable-Industrial-Rolls)
1/8" or 1/4" works nicely, sometimes the 1/4" is a bit much though.
-
Hi Pierre...
Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?
Thanks Pierre...
John
sorry, contractually not allowed to answer that. any foam will probably do.
pierre
-
Doing this exact thing right now. I've been using closed cell neoprene, it gives but is firm. Only thing is the stuff I have is too thick, 1/2", and requires a bunch of fandangling to get it work on press with the increased height.
Print wise the only difference is using a little more pressure than usual as you want to find the sweet spot with the sq pressure where the foam compresses enough to even everything out.
Tough part for us is finding a good line with saturating the outside lip of the kissing zipper fabric. It seems pointless to fill that area completely since it's basically a fabric "hinge" but we still try to.
Pierre, tell Rick to get in touch with me, I'm still down to pay him to learn more tips on this.
-
Done a fair amount of across the zippers. On specialty platens, foam, and believe it or not just straight up normal platens with no foam. That was due to be printed on those supper thin AA hoodies and we didn't need anything. But I recommend the foam or specialty platens for sure. You can customize the zipper channels per design and hoody easily. But discharge for sure and in this case I usually use statics. Statics that I am not to to concerned about. But it really depends on the design as every one is a different approach to time and materials involved.
-
Good stuff.
We have some some extra exposure unit neoprene.
Should provide enough 'give' for the zipper.
We'll apply some high strength spray glue on top of a masked platen or two and see what the results are.
Looking forward to it. Will post images.
Thanks guys.
John
-
We have some some extra exposure unit neoprene.
That will work even better, we have some stuff like just a bit more rigid that that works wonders. I just couldn't for the life of me remember where I got it from to give you a link. You are on the right track though!
-
OK so how does it work with the foam? You cover the whole pallet or just the center where the zipper runs. if you cover the whole pallet you still put glue on the foam? I`m trying to visualize it as I have a job like this coming up very soon.
-
Here's what we do: Spray-tac generously (or whatever you use) the platens, put down a full platen covering of Neoprene or whatever foam you're going to use, premask/platen-tape the top of the neoprene and fold the edges over to the bottom of the platen to help secure it and keep the edges from lifting, then spray-tac the pre-mask like normal.
-
Thanks
-
To add the only bit of my experience no one's mentioned--those Indy sweats seemed to print better for me with no channel cut, just a 1/8" firm neoprene pad.
Jealous though--that print Zoo posted is beautiful. I always get stuck printing crappy old plastisol on these jobs.
Sheesh, like they were too easy to start with... ::)
-
we printed these yesterday. One screen, two strokes on a manual (just sampling).
the black hoodie had the contrast adjusted in photoshop so it's easier to see it (the background material).
pierre
-
Nice!
We just cut out two test pieces of neoprene that we are about to attach to a few platens on
our fleece press. We will run test print tomorrow.. although testing on $20 zippys is never much fun.
John
-
What are you all charging for over the zip? We're high at an extra five bucks per but that covers doing both kidding zips, open zips like AA F497 and multi color. The waste can be high on this, both in garments and blown screens. I'd like to charge less but don't feel comfortable yet.
-
What are you all charging for over the zip? We're high at an extra five bucks per but that covers doing both kidding zips, open zips like AA F497 and multi color. The waste can be high on this, both in garments and blown screens. I'd like to charge less but don't feel comfortable yet.
$75 per order on auto.
on manual very little (depending how many platens we have to cover with foam) and something like $0.25 per print (plus fleece fee if applicable).
pierre
-
We were lucky that we had a set of zipper platens for this with foam down the middle ready to go. And we only did this on Hanes Print Pros, Gildans, ITC's, and AA's so we knew what to expect. So for us it was platen change over and how long that takes but with two guys not long. But we would mark it up for time just can't remember how much. But it has to be worth it financially or to keep the client around for the large easy runs.
-
Hmmm, we're crazy high on this then for a larger run. I'll have to dig into it and maybe make a matrix instead of a flat rate per pc. Honestly, once it's all setup it's not too bad but it can be a rough go in some cases.
Thanks for the props Foo and Pierre, great work as always. Your post long ago with the sim pro blackbirds really inspired me to do better with the over the ____ printing. If anyone was wondering that print was done with CCI and Sericol inks on a 225 s.
-
Here is an old one. Perfect timing. Cleaning and organizing computers today...
-
@blue moon:
was that discharge white on a black gildan hoodie? I've been hesitant to try that as they were 50/50.. but if it seems to be working, I might just have to give that a shot soon.
-J
-
@blue moon:
was that discharge white on a black gildan hoodie? I've been hesitant to try that as they were 50/50.. but if it seems to be working, I might just have to give that a shot soon.
-J
nope, plain ole plastisol . . .
not that I think about it, all of our over seam prints have been with plastisol.
pierre
-
Fellas..
Success on all fronts with our zip up discharge print.
We used our house bright red mix that we've owned.. , aptly named Pepitone Red. :)
These were for one of our beverage customers, hence the growler.
The neoprene was perfect.
The only downside was that these sweatshirts are like sponges, and even with one stroke of discharge
still required two trips down a 10' tunnel with slow speed/higher temps.
John
-
Nice man. Yeah we have to 2x in the dryer just for safety's sake.
-
For the record I never gave the formula. We have around twenty reds.
-
Oh and BTW thanks for the dubious achievment award! Seriously though, the reason we can often achieve better hues with wb/dc is the lack of fillers and resins required for plas inks. While necessary, they can sometimes get in the way. For companies like Hilfiger for instance, printers are required to match trim colors which are of course dyed. Easier to do this with wb.
-
OK, I've read this through, and I'm a little confused (not new to me to be confused). My thought would be to leave a channel (like for DTG) but it appears that the favored approach is the 1/8 inch neoprene foam over the whole platen, which will let the zip push down; would this also be the case on a really heavy zip hood, like a Champion or MV Sport/Weatherproof? I guess I'm having trouble seeing how 1/8" foam will make a difference on 1/4" height seams... test, test, test I guess.
Steve
-
OK, I've read this through, and I'm a little confused (not new to me to be confused). My thought would be to leave a channel (like for DTG) but it appears that the favored approach is the 1/8 inch neoprene foam over the whole platen, which will let the zip push down; would this also be the case on a really heavy zip hood, like a Champion or MV Sport/Weatherproof? I guess I'm having trouble seeing how 1/8" foam will make a difference on 1/4" height seams... test, test, test I guess.
Steve
That's correct but we're using thicker foam and, where appropriate, cutting a groove for zip areas.