Farking ink....

[Sbrem]

I never found it difficult to stay clean... mostly anyway. My first boss even asked me why my hands were clean; I told him I cleaned them (duh)

Steve

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

When Ink gets where it doesn't belong, getting it off becomes Job One.

Ink happens. Then it gets cleaned off, right then.

I can't tell you how many times I've traipsed around the presses, looking here, looking there.... rubbing obscured places with my hands, trying to find where the ink mess is hiding. It never dries, and you often can't really feel it when you're busy working. But the guy or gal who made the mess usually knows it and can fix it right then and there in a fraction of the time it takes for "hide and seek."

[Wildcard]

The stuff sneaks up on me often. V-squeegee tends to flick little spots of ink into some odd places that surprise me later on. Some days I'll find a spot of color that I printed a week before.
Maybe with time I will develop better ink tool control but man it gets on my nerves some days.

Keeping ink buckets/pails clean is another story... sigh

[mooseman]

You can laugh up your sleeve if you like but we print manually with plastisol and frequently need a quick clean up.
 Running to the sink sucks...
using our ink wash sucks and it is expansive
we keep a bottle of this stuff handy to the press.
it cleanses the ink nicely off our hands, squeegee blades on color changes and just sloppy ink in general
and it doesn't cost a small fortune.
mooseman

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Turtle-Wax-Bug-and-Tar-Remover-16oz/16888962

[alan802]

In my experience the source of most of our ink mess that gets on our hands comes from improper handling of the goop scoops or whatever you use to sling ink.  It may be different at other shops but for us if you get sloppy with how you handle the scoops you get ink down on the handle first, then it's on your fingers and it grows from there.  As someone who can sling ink all day long and not get a blob of ink anywhere it doesn't belong I often find myself getting really upset when I go back to help out and the first goop scoop I grab has ink on the handle and I have to spend time cleaning it, then I see ink dripping down the side of a bucket.  And it really bothers me when I see the goop scoop laying on the lid of an open bucket with the handle sitting in the ink when it's so EXTREMELY easy to place the scoop on top of the lid with the handle completely out of the ink that's inside of the lid.

I know it varies from shop to shop based on what tools you use but a messy press op or helper is hard to break.  I can only imagine how much time a multiple auto shop with a bunch of messy employees would spend wiping down hands before and during a print run.

[jsheridan]

it turns the container around the ink knife when dispensing ink to sceen with a cut along the rim to stop the flow with out spilling a drop

[Wildcard]

it turns the container around the ink knife when dispensing ink to sceen with a cut along the rim to stop the flow with out spilling a drop

This sounds promising but I may need a bit more of an explanation.

@Alan, were you always that neat with ink from the start or is it a skill learned over time along with everything else? Perhaps there is hope for me?

[abchung]

We had this guy. Slowest mover of them all. But he made sure everything was done properly at every stage. Funny thing is. He would finish before anyone. Plus less rejects...

[Wildcard]

After posting this thread I had one of my worst ink moments yet. I should have taken a photo but I was too busy cussing. Karma perhaps for griping to TSB?

I was just loading some poly white ink in the screen and the thick ink usually needs a little help to distribute nicely on the first few strokes. I set the warm up prints to triple stroke/flood and as I was moving some ink around I dropped my ink tool right in the middle of the screen as the storke started! I watched it get pushed up and down the screen 3 times before having to pack on the gloves and dig it out of ink. It took me a good long while to clean that mess up.
Up side is that I'm lucky it didn't shred the mesh, but I still say: farking ink!

[alan802]

it turns the container around the ink knife when dispensing ink to sceen with a cut along the rim to stop the flow with out spilling a drop

This sounds promising but I may need a bit more of an explanation.

@Alan, were you always that neat with ink from the start or is it a skill learned over time along with everything else? Perhaps there is hope for me?

It started early due to a lesson learned in my 1st week in the shop.  By the time my 1st week was over we had gone through 2 printers and the last one was awful and he made a mess of everything.  So I came up on a Saturday and I spent an entire day wiping down the press and floor that had ink in every nook of an American Centurian which anyone familiar with that press knows it has lots of places for ink to hide.  Luckily the printer that made the mess didn't make it through the day the following Monday but he still managed to make enough of a mess that it took about an hour to clean up at the end of the day.  If the little drops of ink don't bother you now I can see that changing the more time you spend cleaning and once you realize that every hour spent cleaning is an hour less printing your attitude will change quickly. 

[Wildcard]

Oh the drops of ink bother me! I would have the place pristine without a drop out of place if I could. I'm just not that precise at working with the ink and seem to get caught by surprise a bunch.

I figure it must be a learned skill since I'm probably better now than a year ago.

[jsheridan]

After posting this thread I had one of my worst ink moments yet. I should have taken a photo but I was too busy cussing. Karma perhaps for griping to TSB?

I was just loading some poly white ink in the screen and the thick ink usually needs a little help to distribute nicely on the first few strokes. I set the warm up prints to triple stroke/flood and as I was moving some ink around I dropped my ink tool right in the middle of the screen as the storke started! I watched it get pushed up and down the screen 3 times before having to pack on the gloves and dig it out of ink. It took me a good long while to clean that mess up.
Up side is that I'm lucky it didn't shred the mesh, but I still say: farking ink!

I'll see your ink knife stuck in the screen with no damage, and raise you..

a 12 color challenger, 8 color print.. freshly glued boards for a long run.. nice and warm and the operator hit print.. rather than print start.. thanks to even spacing all 8 print heads did their thing... the carousel hung there for about 2 seconds, we had 45n tension screens in there.. when it let go.. the screens that didn't break, acted like a trampoline..


Last I heard.. 15 years later ink is still on the ceiling.

[bimmridder]

Last I heard.. 15 years later ink is still on the ceiling

Don't worry, someone else will get that.

[jvanick]

After posting this thread I had one of my worst ink moments yet. I should have taken a photo but I was too busy cussing. Karma perhaps for griping to TSB?

I was just loading some poly white ink in the screen and the thick ink usually needs a little help to distribute nicely on the first few strokes. I set the warm up prints to triple stroke/flood and as I was moving some ink around I dropped my ink tool right in the middle of the screen as the storke started! I watched it get pushed up and down the screen 3 times before having to pack on the gloves and dig it out of ink. It took me a good long while to clean that mess up.
Up side is that I'm lucky it didn't shred the mesh, but I still say: farking ink!

I'll see your ink knife stuck in the screen with no damage, and raise you..

a 12 color challenger, 8 color print.. freshly glued boards for a long run.. nice and warm and the operator hit print.. rather than print start.. thanks to even spacing all 8 print heads did their thing... the carousel hung there for about 2 seconds, we had 45n tension screens in there.. when it let go.. the screens that didn't break, acted like a trampoline..


Last I heard.. 15 years later ink is still on the ceiling.

This has to be one of the best stories I've heard in a long time.

[JBLUE]

Allow me to ruffle some feathers. I don't allow press operators to wear gloves. To me, that's just telling them it's OK to be messy. Clean hands, clean tools, clean equipment. (ducking)

We do the same. As soon as you allow gloves the ink gets transferred everywhere. They are a lot more careful when their hands are dirty.