Wet-on-Wet Screens Sticking

[DannyGruninger]

Possible that he does not have enough emulsion/stencil EOM on the screen itself, and combined with possible excessive squeegee pressure that he's blowing the ink out of the stencil gasket making it blurry. Just something else to look at. I think without seeing what's going on in person it's a bit hard to say what's going on unfortunately.

[Denis Kolar]

15 seconds to flash??
Isn't that a bit excessive? I flash maybe 4-5 secs, at the most. And that is with flash about 4" of the pallet.

I have an air forced flash, that might make a difference, but I do not think it should be that much

[IntegrityShirts]

When I printed on my manual I would flash each color because I didn't have a fancy auto rotating flash. At most I'd flash for about 10 seconds. You try to time the flash for the same amount of time it takes you to print the next pallet. Lower the flash over the garment until it flashes that fast. I have a GEN series purple from texsource and my first impression pulling it out of the bucket is it's REALLY thin, which should be ok for wet on wet. I haven't printed it wet on wet yet as the job didn't need it.

Like Alan said, those large open areas you're trying to lay a top color on really hurt when printing wet on wet. Maybe try a very quick push stroke. Seems like that used to help the blurring on a manual press.

[3Deep]

I'm nowhere experienced as TonyPep, but on a manual with vector art, top colors 160,200,230 mesh count,  I found it hard as the devil manually printing through a 305 all day.  RacerTee your getting some good advice from some of the top notch in the biz here ( nope not talking about me LOL) your going to pick up on a lot of good stuff, I know I have.

darryl

[mimosatexas]

I am a manual printer and have run wet on wet fine with normal inks on some jobs, but this job screams for a flash on each color.  There is no benefit at all to not simply flashing them all, especially since you will be flashing the base anyway.

Generally speaking, I run 180S or 225S for all bases these days.  I do not halftone bases usually, especially when the art has something like yellow like you posted.  I run top colors on either 225S or 280 (standard mesh thickness).  I pretty much reserve the 225S for colors that need the bump in opacity or colors that are inherently gummy (like a lot of flourescents).  I REEEAAAALLLY like 280 mesh for top colors.  300/305 is just too hard to print manually, and doesnt offer much over a 280.  Anything under a 225S/230 would make for a thicker than necessary print in my experience.  The only time I use those meshes any more are for waterbased when it's all I have laying around unexposed, or when doing one hit dark on light stuff that has minimal detail. 

A push stroke will also clean up your prints A LOT when used with a triple duro squeegee.

[ZooCity]

I have to agree, this is screamin' for flash between colors....if it's a plastisol base.  On a DC base this may go down very smooth printing the top colors wow.  Generally speaking though, we don't wow print big spot color fills.  By the time you dial it all in and print those 2 dozen or more testers you may as well have revolved it and flashed where you wanted, the job would have been done or near done in the time a wow setup might take, depending on order size of course. 

Really though, try the DC UB, you'll get those WOW results from the top plasti colors just like you saw printing on white. 

As far as mesh counts go I find it hard to have a consistent reference when printing manually v. auto, you can do so much more on the manual to adjust ink deposit that it can very so much in what those screens are letting down.  If we were printing this manually I would be using a 180 or 150 for the UB and then probably 225 or 270 for the top colors, all thin thread S mesh.  I like to keep our mesh as open as possible for any job, especially those going on the manual.  It's less work for both man and machine and more ink on the garment v. in it when discussing plastisol.  You can also print faster with more open mesh.

[Racer Tees]

Platens staying right at 95deg and the ink cools to 125 in normal rotation. Would you consider this a heat issue Danny?

[blue moon]

is that 195 or 95? one is too hot the other is too low. Your ink needs to hit mid 200's to gel, maybe even high 200's. Ask TEX about the gelling and curing temp of the ink then go 20-30 degrees below it.


pierre

[Racer Tees]

Those aren't my flash temps.  Actual temps of the platen surface.  During a production run tonight doing PFP on another job platens were consistently 140 degrees.  No issue printing white ink, PFP.  Same white ink used in this job.

The back side of the screen isn't sticking to the already printed ink as much as the open area of the mesh is sticking to the ink just printed.  Could I not be sheering the ink correctly?

[Underbase37]

The back side of the screen isn't sticking to the already printed ink as much as the open area of the mesh is sticking to the ink just printed.  Could I not be sheering the ink correctly?

This sounds like peel.

Try a bit more off contact. Or tighter screens. Or some mesh with more open area



Murphy37

[SteveS]

I haven't read all the responses to this thread but it sounds like you're using a very opaque series of ink or they're a bit to thick and might need to be reduced a bit. Pick off and orange peel effect are notorious of trying to print opaque inks WOW or the inks being not viscous enough.

[Racer Tees]

Decided to revisit this today since I had some downtime.  Tried Union Ultrasoft SO White and every screen in the batch is 26n.  WOW on white is better than last time, and it doesn't stick as bad when printing on the UB.

I'd like to try a discharge underbase and/or some wet-on-wet base mixed in the top inks.  Never done any DC printing.  Can anyone shoot me in the right direction there?

[tonypep]

I know someone

[blue moon]

Decided to revisit this today since I had some downtime.  Tried Union Ultrasoft SO White and every screen in the batch is 26n.  WOW on white is better than last time, and it doesn't stick as bad when printing on the UB.

I'd like to try a discharge underbase and/or some wet-on-wet base mixed in the top inks.  Never done any DC printing.  Can anyone shoot me in the right direction there?

hmmm, Ultrasoft white? What is that? If going with Union product, try premium bright cotton white or EZ Print White (we used the EZ for many years and it worked great for underbasing).

As far as DC, order a couple of samples and give it a try. Get a white and a color like orange. burn on a 110 without the registration marks and then close all the pinholes or openings with emulsion. Let it dry and leave out in the sun or post expose. Add 6% activator and make sure your screens are flooded while not printing (so the ink does not dry in the openings). Slow down your dryer to a crawl and you should be good to go.

pierre

[screenxpress]

I wondered about the Ultrasoft SO white myself.  I use the Union Bright Cotton White for underbase.

Lee, I know you've been back at this trying again with a little more success, but did you ever get a halftone underbase or is it still a solid underbase?