Did I screw up? coated a screen with water streaks on it

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

coating some screens last night I ran into two issues of concern:

1 - I was coating an 83 mesh, and when i went to coat it I did the first coat on one side and horizontally on the mesh were about 3 water streaks....and didn't notice it until I made that first pull.....and they are placed slightly below what i think will be my image area.....anyway, in a moment of debating i just went ahead with coating it...and i put extra force into the coater to some how "push" the emulsion into the streaked areas...i did this on both sides then briefly held the screen up to the light to see if i managed to eliminate the streaks...i could see the trail of them but there weren't as prevalent as the first coat.....thru it in the drying cabinet with a small heater and let it dry for about 30 minutes ..maybe more.....checked it this morning and i can faintly see the water streaks...very VERY faint......so do you think this will give me a problem when i go to expose it?


2 - The last screen i coated, I did not have enough emulsion in the coater....i did the first pull and only a 1/4 section of the mesh was coated...i didn't even pull all the way up actually...it was instantly when i realized "damn...i need more emulsion"....so i set the screen to the side....opened up a new quart of ulano orange..poured it int he coater then resumed coating this screen...and i noticed the 1/4 area that was previously coated stood out like a sore thumb once fully coated on both sides...and like the water streak issue above i put extra pressure on the coater to force the new emulsion into the "old" emulsion.......the time between that 1st coat 1/4 area run...opening the new quart...pouring it in coater...applying to screen was about a 30 second interval....however long it was, it was enough to make that small area stand out big time....again...thru it in the cabinet with the screen above (and others i coated) and let it dry for about 30 minutes or so before i turned heater off. Check that one also this morning and its looks good i guess..i can barely make out that 1/4 area.......do you think its ok to burn?

[Dottonedan]

Hi Mark,
I'm no expert on coating, but given that it seems these mesh you are talking about are 83 mesh, I'm assuming you're not printing any detail.   With that, emulsion coating and as it pertains to layers or half layers are not that important (on these very low mesh counts).
I've seem people coat with thick and thin applications on their stroke of a single layer causing very thick area and very thin areas (on low mesh) and it's not made an impact on the image.  The coating looks bad visually, but not a bad print result.


As for the water streaks, (did you only have that one coat), or did you do several coats over top? If multiple coats, I'd not be concerned. Either way, I would assume it's a non issue.  Maybe an issue of breakdown, if you had a 5000 piece order, but not for low quantities.

[jsheridan]

in both cases you can 'fix' the coating as long as the emulsion is still wet.

just coat the same side again, then flip and do a cut coat, don't tip the trough, just skim off the thick coat, flip the screen and coat as normal, flip and do the final coat.

Repeat this step as many times as you need to clear out the imperfection.

[Frog]

That's the beauty of The Glisten Method as explained here. Effective EOM as well as an opportunity for a "do over"