Printing Backpacks at 900+/hr

[Clark]

I love the smilim jack.  2/3's of my blades are smilin jacks

[mk162]

Nice, What is funny though is that 1 man with a transfer press is almost as efficient.  I had to press them for 30 seconds each, in that time I could grab the next bag, unbag it, open the zipper and pull up the flaps to make it easy to load.  I got through 72 an hour, by myself...this includes reboxing them as well.

I even considered buying a dual platen heat press to load the next one while the other was pressing.  But I couldn't have made it pay for itself and I didn't see another use for it after this job.

[alan802]

Smilin' Jack.Didn't know anyone besides a few used them.You must like them?

I had a tough time with them in the beginning.  I am almost certain that when the blades are new, they don't have the edge to print worth a damn, it seems like it takes a few hundred print strokes to get the blade edges to where they'll work correctly.  I guess the gasket between the blade and the mesh thread isn't there or isn't functioning right for whatever reason.  I think that period of time to get them right is more than some people are willing to spend on them.  I use ours for most of our work now, they are two blades in one and if you are printing with the beveled side and it's too much ink, flip the blade around and find the angle that will deposit the right amount that you're looking for.  We use the sharp side 90% of the time and I just love the versatility of them.  You have such a huge range of ink deposit that you can achieve with them, straight up angle with the sharp side will deposit 1/4th of the ink the beveled side will with a little angle to it.  If you put some angle to the sharp side, it will still put down some ink while maintaining a sharp edge to the print.  They have flaws, if you are printing a 15" wide print with a 16" blade, it ain't going to happen without upping the squeegee pressure to a very high level.  And then there is the amount of time it takes to get used to them and get them printing well.  I don't think they are the greatest thing like they were supposed to be, we still use regular 70 duro, a few double beveled blades and a triple 55/90/55 pretty often.  I think they shine when printing tough inks through high mesh, and that comes in handy when double stroking something is like getting a root canal around here.  I've had our blades for a year and a half and they have never been sharpened and they are holding up very well.

[Socalfmf]

dave we have a few of them....like them...

[Clark]

Nice, What is funny though is that 1 man with a transfer press is almost as efficient.  I had to press them for 30 seconds each, in that time I could grab the next bag, unbag it, open the zipper and pull up the flaps to make it easy to load.  I got through 72 an hour, by myself...this includes reboxing them as well.

I even considered buying a dual platen heat press to load the next one while the other was pressing.  But I couldn't have made it pay for itself and I didn't see another use for it after this job.

I've never been that big on screen printed transfers...seem like it is basically doing the same job twice.  Is there a reason you didn't direct print?  It seems like it would have gone much faster..

[mk162]

I didn't do the transfers, I ordered them from Ace.  It took 1 guy almost 2 days, about 15 hours to do all the bags.  Printing things like this is only half the battle.  Instead of compartmentalizing the job, we did it all at once.  Unbox, unbag, decorate, box, done.

I didn't have a good size platen either, but I had the perfect heat press.