How would you lay out my shop?

[Dottonedan]

Never seen them have any issues unless they expose incorrectly or the vacuum lid f's up.

People say that all the time. What they forget is that early on in the learning process, we pick up bad habits or work stooges. (while having issues in any area) you make adjustments along the way. As long as the end result is good, you think you are doing great but you might have compensated somewhere to make things right and not even realize it. It's a normal part of your day and in fact, "it's how we've always done it". Ever heard that one?

It's been said here that Pierre walks about 40' to his exposure unit with screens out in the open. While he is an outstanding award winning printer and gets great result, I'll tell him he's making a mistake by doing that.  As a side note, on his more critical stuff, he puts it in a black trash bag.

[Gilligan]

You may have been stating that for posterity's sake, but I certainly understand.  I in NO way think a LOT of the things they do are correct or even good enough for me.

They have a fluorescent exposure unit... they even have an older unit that he would essentially give me... but I'd rather build a single point source.  He doesn't understand how he could get better results but he's been reading and thinking about a single source exposure unit.

It works and they make plenty of money... but for VERY little more invested they could be doing better work... even if it's not really noticeable... like you were saying... all those small bits add up and the "flaws" compile up and all it takes is a little slip somewhere for a "crack" to show.

[blue moon]

Never seen them have any issues unless they expose incorrectly or the vacuum lid f's up.

People say that all the time. What they forget is that early on in the learning process, we pick up bad habits or work stooges. (while having issues in any area) you make adjustments along the way. As long as the end result is good, you think you are doing great but you might have compensated somewhere to make things right and not even realize it. It's a normal part of your day and in fact, "it's how we've always done it". Ever heard that one?

It's been said here that Pierre walks about 40' to his exposure unit with screens out in the open. While he is an outstanding award winning printer and gets great result, I'll tell him he's making a mistake by doing that.  As a side note, on his more critical stuff, he puts it in a black trash bag.

I think the point here is that you have to know what your limitations are, what is the right way to do something (I think JSheridan knows something about that!) and how close you can get to it. So I have to walk through some light and I realize there is a price to pay. I chose to pay that piper for the everyday work. But when it comes to the super high end stuff, where every dot counts, there is no compromise and the screens are bagged, or in some cases double bagged to the exposure unit (end even the incandescent bulbs are turned off!). From what I can tell, the walk over in subdued lights is costing me 2-5/1000^th of an inch. For 99.9% of the work that is not an issue.

So to recap, compromises are OK as long as that is all they are. Once they become standards, we are heading down the wrong path . . .

pierre

[Prosperi-Tees]

Here is my layout when I get my auto next weekend. At least I hope the layout works out ok. The shop is only 20x40. Its gonna be super tight. Any suggestions on this one? This may help Gilligan as well. I do not have a dedicated dark room and dont think I will invest in one.

[Gilligan]

How do you plan on "protecting" your unexposed screens?  Covering the rack?  I'm thinking about the same.  But I do have a chest freezer that stopped working... I might use it and just prop it up a bit to let the air circulate.  I'll drape something around it to block that light but keep the air flowing.

Nothing set in stone there... will see how it all goes.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I have the 2 screen racks basically draped in a black king size flat bed sheet. I have uv blocking sleeves on the lights and keep the roll up door down when exposing screens and I never have any trouble.

[jsheridan]

washed out screens will also benefit from the dry air in the coating room, so combine those to quickly dry your screens. Merging the two spaces will give you more usable room as overall less space is dedicated to walking areas.

This is an early on mistake most printers make because they don't know better. You coat your screens in the evening and head home. Those screens dry all night and have zero moisture content as you left your dehumidifier on 24/7. Now you burn and washout a screen and place that soaking wet screen back into your dry room. That very instant your dry screens start to re-absorb ANY moisture in the air. Do this 3-4 more times and all of a sudden your tiny dark room is back up to 60% humidity and your screens are sticky. 


If you can stand in your 'exposure' room screen cabinet and shut out the lights and see daylight or light coming in, you need to block it out to total darkness. This is the only true way to ensure you're never introducing outside light that can prematurely expose a screen. If we can fully expose a screen in the sun in 1 minute or less, then how is it OK when that light creeps into the dark room 24/7.

Do it right with a wet and dry room.
The dry side is your coating and storage room. Humidity and air temp is controlled here with an AC/HEAT unit and dehumidifier. Your floors and walls are white and you're using the clear UV blocking light sleeves for your well lit room.
Most self-contained exposures now can be placed in this room as well. Shut off the light, turn on the exposure and see where the light scatter goes, keep your screens out of this area or use black tape and tape the glass edges.

Your wet room is reclaim and washout, wet screens go into a drying cabinet that has warm air flow with no direct fan blowing on cleaned screens, washed out image screens can go under a fan or drying box.

As Dan has mentioned, just because "that's the way we've always done it and it works for me" doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to work.

[Gilligan]

Short of building a room... what is the best way to keep screens dry when I'll be pressure washing (reclaiming) in the same 900 square feet?

I do have a dehumidifier and central air conditioning in that room...  BUT I am in south Louisiana... it's HUMID... ALWAYS.

I could drop visqueen around an area fairly easily as I have some... it's also black... would that be "enough" to shield out the humidity?

[Shawn (EIP)]

Short of building a room... what is the best way to keep screens dry when I'll be pressure washing (reclaiming) in the same 900 square feet?

I do have a dehumidifier and central air conditioning in that room...  BUT I am in south Louisiana... it's HUMID... ALWAYS.

I could drop visqueen around an area fairly easily as I have some... it's also black... would that be "enough" to shield out the humidity?

Good question, when my washout room was inside my shop (it's now down the hall in a restroom, yeah that has it's pitfalls...) my entire shop would be muggy not to mention stink of franmar.

[Evo]

Not that I could afford the time really, but I stayed up long enough to mess with this. I was interested to see how this would pan out. Not bad. I'm curious to see what others would do. I'm sure its missing some things but space is an issue fort he best options.  I could make some of the back rooms slightly thinner. 

I have the editable file done in Illustator.

This is really nice but IMHO the product has to "snake" through the room too much, and the rooms that need to be built are in the area of the room where the ceilings are highest, which would mean having to put plywood roofs on em...

I would build out the screen rooms underneath the loft area, as you already have a built in ceiling for these rooms. Simple wall construction, a door or two and you're done. Make sure these rooms have a de-humidifier.

Where the rooms are laid out in the sketch, make this all rack shelving for staging goods.

Production can come in the big door, head east, make a big u-turn through the room, then back out the door.


Oh and put everything except the dryer and press on wheels. Makes the space very flexible and easy to keep clean.

[Evo]

This is an early on mistake most printers make because they don't know better. You coat your screens in the evening and head home. Those screens dry all night and have zero moisture content as you left your dehumidifier on 24/7. Now you burn and washout a screen and place that soaking wet screen back into your dry room. That very instant your dry screens start to re-absorb ANY moisture in the air. Do this 3-4 more times and all of a sudden your tiny dark room is back up to 60% humidity and your screens are sticky. 

3 seasons of the year here, my screens go right into the bed of my pickup to dry. It's a silver Ranger - so the screens dry very quickly in the sun and get some post exposure.

In the winter/rainy months, they go to a staging area near the dryer or flash unit with a small fan on em.

The screen room is ONLY for coated screens, or screens just de-greased, and I try not to have them in there at the same time. Keeps the de-humidifier from working too hard.

[Gilligan]

Well, I feel accomplished... Ok, just a little and I really didn't do much.

Got my bro-in-law out of my shop (half way, rest going tomorrow) and I built a squeegee rack... it ain't really pretty but it's perfect for what it is (I free handed the router and my fine motor skills suck).

Oh, and I rerouted the feed on my Sand Blasting cabinet... seems like it will help out a lot.  (yeah, that's not really screen printing related but the work we do with it runs through the same company I do the screen printing through.

[Gilligan]

Here is a pic... it's is just temporarily quick clamped to a shelf to check it out and show the wife.

[Gilligan]

Very off topic but to add to cool stuff that has happened to me.

I got invited and accepted to be a youtube "partner" channel.  So now I make money off any videos I put up there.

Crazy because I don't have much on there and not many subscribers... just one semi-popular video.

Either way it works as the wife plans on doing some children stuff since most of the stuff that is very popular is total rubbish.

[rmonks]

I agree with tonypep. I put as much of my stuff on wheels as i could, as that allowed me to pull my car in the shop If I wanted to work on it.