"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
My thinking - An auto raises the platform and the squeegee drags across maintaining equal distance between the screen and the platform maintains even off-contact as the swipe occurs.I believe with any manual 'back clamp' press, there will be flexing in the arm when you pull (or push) a squeegee across the screen due to the only thing holding the screen up is the arm and pressure exerted down will be more than the arm can withstand without flexing.So if you taped any object (paint stick, cut yard stick, etc.) laterally under the front edge of the screen so it contacts the platen when pulled down, the mesh will maintain the off-contact and roll like an upside down tsunami when printing. Without a shim, flexing will lay a larger than desired part of the mesh down on the substrate and could compromise the print by picking up an undesirable amount of ink back to the underside of the screen.IMO
Quote from: screenxpress on February 20, 2015, 11:43:15 PMMy thinking - An auto raises the platform and the squeegee drags across maintaining equal distance between the screen and the platform maintains even off-contact as the swipe occurs.I believe with any manual 'back clamp' press, there will be flexing in the arm when you pull (or push) a squeegee across the screen due to the only thing holding the screen up is the arm and pressure exerted down will be more than the arm can withstand without flexing.So if you taped any object (paint stick, cut yard stick, etc.) laterally under the front edge of the screen so it contacts the platen when pulled down, the mesh will maintain the off-contact and roll like an upside down tsunami when printing. Without a shim, flexing will lay a larger than desired part of the mesh down on the substrate and could compromise the print by picking up an undesirable amount of ink back to the underside of the screen.IMOUm, what he said too...Steveps. the main reason I like side clamps. Haven't shimmed anything since the seventies...