How thick is too thick?

[Gilligan]

Lol, I love Carlos's attitude.

[starchild]

That is very interesting Danny.  I would have never expected to see a 1/1 with the sharp edge and thin thread would get even close to 25% EOMR.  We haven't touched the sharp edge of our coater in years but I might just do it today and see what it is that could get you those results. 

Alan don't forget to consider the edge thickness of your emulsion coater compared to the digikote (1mm-sharp 2mm-round) coater edge thickness..

[ScreenFoo]

Danny, having fun with all that crazy nice gear...  (yes, I'm jealous )

Great to see data like that--out of curiosity, was the viscosity of the higher solids emulsion higher or lower than the low solids, or was it similar?

[DannyGruninger]

That is very interesting Danny.  I would have never expected to see a 1/1 with the sharp edge and thin thread would get even close to 25% EOMR.  We haven't touched the sharp edge of our coater in years but I might just do it today and see what it is that could get you those results. 

But just so I get this right, you're getting 16% MORE EOMR using the round edge versus the sharp correct?  But in testing other emulsions you're seeing weird things like thicker stencils with the sharp versus round?

I think the reason we are able to get away with the 1/1 sharp edge is due to the pressure we are applying to the coater. We are def applying more pressure then if someone was to coat by hand. I have some data sheets that we have been keeping on eom for the last week and the results are a bit mind blowing with some emulsions. My current dual cure emulsion is extremely consistent from screen to screen, mesh to mesh, etc but other emulsions I have tested recently are giving me crazy inconsistant results.

Certain emulsions we are getting thicker stencils with a sharp edge vs round edge but only on higher mesh counts. Testing the eom is all really new to me but I've run across 2 emulsions lately that this is happening. Since I don't know much about the chemistry behind emulsions I don't have much to conclude why it's doing this other then the fact I feel like the solids content/pigment is too course for some of my higher mesh counts therefor the sharp edge is actually able to push more emulsion through the mesh then the round edge. Now this is just my thinking as I haven't gotten into it enough but yes I'm getting a thicker stencil with the sharp edge vs round edge on certain emulsions on high mesh counts. As soon as I can breathe around here(lost my screen guy last week) I'll post my findings with it. But what I'm finding that is obvious as day with our auto coater is that some emulsions are extremely consistent and some are way off regarding that.

I never had a eom gauge when we were coating by hand but I know I used to coat 2/2 or 2/3 by hand with the same emulsion we are coating 1/1 on our machine now

[Frog]

See what happens when starchild mentions "Alan" in a thread? Google ads are so specialized that I got a link to here
http://www.alanmfg.com/

Apparently no "frog" related businesses are paying for similar service.

[JackThrasher]

That is very interesting Danny.  I would have never expected to see a 1/1 with the sharp edge and thin thread would get even close to 25% EOMR.  We haven't touched the sharp edge of our coater in years but I might just do it today and see what it is that could get you those results. 

But just so I get this right, you're getting 16% MORE EOMR using the round edge versus the sharp correct?  But in testing other emulsions you're seeing weird things like thicker stencils with the sharp versus round?

I think the reason we are able to get away with the 1/1 sharp edge is due to the pressure we are applying to the coater. We are def applying more pressure then if someone was to coat by hand. I have some data sheets that we have been keeping on eom for the last week and the results are a bit mind blowing with some emulsions. My current dual cure emulsion is extremely consistent from screen to screen, mesh to mesh, etc but other emulsions I have tested recently are giving me crazy inconsistant results.

Certain emulsions we are getting thicker stencils with a sharp edge vs round edge but only on higher mesh counts. Testing the eom is all really new to me but I've run across 2 emulsions lately that this is happening. Since I don't know much about the chemistry behind emulsions I don't have much to conclude why it's doing this other then the fact I feel like the solids content/pigment is too course for some of my higher mesh counts therefor the sharp edge is actually able to push more emulsion through the mesh then the round edge. Now this is just my thinking as I haven't gotten into it enough but yes I'm getting a thicker stencil with the sharp edge vs round edge on certain emulsions on high mesh counts. As soon as I can breathe around here(lost my screen guy last week) I'll post my findings with it. But what I'm finding that is obvious as day with our auto coater is that some emulsions are extremely consistent and some are way off regarding that.

I never had a eom gauge when we were coating by hand but I know I used to coat 2/2 or 2/3 by hand with the same emulsion we are coating 1/1 on our machine now

I would love to see your findings.. We coat 1/1 round edge by hand with 20 second exposure times on 137-355 mesh. We get incredible results 90% of the time. Our separator is phenomenal though. We hold a lot of our halftones but could get far more with direct to screen.

[RICK STEFANICK]

doesn't it really just come down to the emulsion choice, style of coater and technique. then exposure times and press results.. NOW printing with HD inks and gels stencil thickness and eveness is more relative. capillary film helps with that with those specialty inks. or of course when setting up a auto coater stencil thickness needs to be evaluated.