80,000 white shirts flash or no flash.

[Inkworks]

Nothing like it, flash the black ink on poly or TriBlend and shirt comes out with the portions of the shirt under the black print...GONE....vaporized... and in some cases the white poly ink still wet. 

[Underbase37]

Dan, were you hired on as an artist, or as a shop manager?

As an artist I would do as the shop manager asks.

As the shop manager I would do things as I feel would run the best with the production team available.

As an artist I would assume they hired me as an artist and separator.

As a shop manager I would assume they hired me to run things in the most efficient way possible. But nobody likes the new guy comeing in and shaking things up, everybody knows it's going to happen, and then the eyes start rolling.

Best of luck!

Murphy

[Dottonedan]

Dan, were you hired on as an artist, or as a shop manager?

As an artist I would do as the shop manager asks.

As the shop manager I would do things as I feel would run the best with the production team available.

As an artist I would assume they hired me as an artist and separator.

As a shop manager I would assume they hired me to run things in the most efficient way possible. But nobody likes the new guy comeing in and shaking things up, everybody knows it's going to happen, and then the eyes start rolling.

Best of luck!

Murphy

First,  I am not your average artist.


2ndly, I am Operations Mgr. and, handling production seps. for the art dept. until I can get the others trained.

With that, I listen to all options. From them (my two production Mgr's, and from you guys. I want to do what I know has worked in the past while working on hands at other shops, but these guys don't print like where I've come from and they believe they are correct of course,   (Same ole story every time I go into a new shop). So I have to "show them".

[/size]You guys say give them a week, and yes, I have to give them room. I just got here. LOL. Most importantly, over the years, I've learned that A, I can be wrong and B, It's not always done as I have ...and can still be right.  Therein lies the problem. We all know this can be done in different ways. This is a great discussion for me. I've already learned that in some cases, you can burn the shirt with black up front. That makes clear sense to me and especially if this is going to be 1000 or 10,000. The pallets and ink will be plenty warmed up and in this one case coming up, I'm deciding on how I want to build these seps for this one job (and discussing it with my guys).

[/size]This next "important job" has a color count (price) limit...It's Flat, solid vector inside (think US map in 4 colors) Solid White, Solid[/font][/size] [/size]red, Solid[/font][/size] [/size]Green [/size]Solid[/size] [/size]Blue and [/size]Solid[/size] [/size]Yellow. It's going on Royal (50/50).  1000 in this order.  The previous run they had so much issue with this, it was FUBAR. That was 10k.  This reorder is for 1000. but will be re-ordered over and over so they want me to change up the seps to get it to look better. There is no (and cannot be) a top white).  It's on 50/50 Royal...and now get this,  It's also got a colorful sun ray "burst" of halftone fading to the shirt in the background of all of those other colors.  So, 7 colors max. Ya see?

[/size]So, First thing is to beef up the stencil thickness to get a better coverage.  Customer wants bright white...and so do I.

[/size]Heres my thoughts on the base.
[/size]I'm running a 156 on base coated round edge, 3/2 and then a face coat.  I just tested the halftones on a 50 lpi for this and it's holding down to 8% well. I think to assure a heavier coverage, I may also add another coat. 3/3 and then a face coat. So I will use that 8% as my smallest dot (on the underbase) and will fade that up to a max of 25% where the top ink colors will be heavier and get richer and deeper. This way, they can lay that white opacity and then also be holding some kind of halftone on that same white screen. Flash that...and then the top colors.

[/size]The top color (fades) will fall much heavier to the shirt color and allowing those to disappear via shirt and clear base added to those top inks. About 10% I'm staring with, BUT, I fear they may get too transparent and show too much of the white base THU the inks. Thats why I want to use 55lpi and not use so many dots. 55lpi (in small %) but printed heavy, may give me the look of 45lpi. We can live wit that no prob. But I want to make sure the inks cover well...but not get bullet proof so I will be using 300 mesh on top.

[/size]The previous print had black over (SOLID) white base. You knowhow that looked. So, I want dot print that first, (this is a different job than what I had initially posted about the white tee).  Here, I want to use black up front...but now, from what you guys posted above, I'm afraid of that method.  I still may have a problem because this black is being trapped by this thick white opaque base I want to create, leaving a valley  for this thinner black that must be printed into because I don't want to use big thick black either.

[Colin]

When printing black at any point in the print order - then flashing it - you will have issues with any shirt that has synthetic fibers in it.  Cheap synthetic fibers make it worse.

An easy solution with the black is to lower the black pigment load.  This will lower the amount of heat pickup. This also assumes you can make a black in house that you are comfortable with.  As always - Test   Also, I know you are a fan of combining colors during the print run to help with your black ink strength.  Try adding blues or reds to your black to slow down the heat absorption.  This of course lowers your black pigment load and necessitates making a black ink in house.  I have played with adding curable reducer/primer clear/plasticiser all with some success.  I currently make a custom black in house that does better than off the shelf blacks, but is not as good as I want yet.

I am late to the party here but:

If you have a quartz flash with a power option - like others have said - lower the power to 70... maybe even 40...  and have the flash on just long enough.  This also works wonders on All synthetic garments I have come across.  Unfortunately, this means you HAVE to have other inks that flash fast - or do not have another flash on.  When we run jobs like this and we have to stop for "too long", we will run off the shirts and warm the boards back up to around 130 and start the print run again.  Infra red flashes are the best for trouble garments.

When we run a 5-7 color design on our 14 color press with 3 flashes, I will try to put black much later in the print order and use a very sharp harder blade like 70/90/70 or 75.  Again, only on blended garments/synthetic fibers/and polyester.  Like you said - a little thinner than butt register to assure the ink doesn't spread up the design sides. Works like a champ 90+% of the time.

Get some S thread in the shop!

What will you end EOM be for that screen?

Hope my rambles help some!

[Dottonedan]

 Love love love all of the information this company did not have a an emotion meter so I'm looking into one I can tell you that it will be sick we have a nice clean sharp edge with the three into and face coat but I'm thinking it might need to be thicker for this Polly.  Just a little bit.

[DannyGruninger]

Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.

[dirkdiggler]

Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.

I agree with this, we use the same philosophy in our shop.

[Dottonedan]

Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure.  In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.

Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week.

[jsheridan]

engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.

every day all day

[Lizard]

Dan

I have to agree with these guys. No way I would run a 50/50 Royal with only one white, especially half tones. I may even run both early in the print to give that sunburst more pop and control dye migration.

As for flashing black our biggest beef (other than burning) is it makes the black glossy which I don't care for.

[Inkworks]

Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure.  In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.

Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week.

As an aside, what is the current situation there between sales and production? How much animosity is there? Since your job will straddle both it could be a real tough one to walk into. Just your description of what you will be doing set off alarm bells for me.....

[Dottonedan]

Danny and dirk, I'm with ya. For sure.  In a nut shell, let's just say there is a very good reason why they needed to hire somone and that someone happens to be me. Part art, part sales, part production issues.

Give me some time, I'm working on it. Just finished out my first week.

As an aside, what is the current situation there between sales and production? How much animosity is there? Since your job will straddle both it could be a real tough one to walk into. Just your description of what you will be doing set off alarm bells for me.....

Well, to say the least. Its multiple challenges. One example is that the sale people (who work for us) just sent in a 10k order and say...oh, We've know about this order...art's been done for a week...and we just put the order in 2 days before it's due. Yea.  Apparently the sales staff has been working like this for a long time. A lot of "special" dynamics going on. SALES staff will be my biggest hurdle but I've been through this before. They won't bend as easily.


If I get canned in a year, at least I will have been through the gauntlet and have some great experience. :0

[Inkworks]

Sales vs. production is usually a war, good luck brokering a peace treaty. Sales represent the customer, production represent reality  . Any salesman worth his weight should be familiar with the pressures of the production floor, and the floor needs to know often in sales it's yes to a 3 day-turn or they won't order period.

Being production manager at a true 24/7 shop was a real eye opener.

[tonypep]

I try to broker the  sales/production contention by explaining the concept of internal customers. Each needs to serve eachother in order for continued success. Goes across the board as well. Basic business.

[Sbrem]

Dan, what do you mean you cannot use a top white? If it has anything to do with price it looks as though the previous decision makers do not understand the concept that even if the customer isn't paying for a top white that on a 10k pcs order the job would probably run better/look better then without. I might have mis understood that part of your post but for any production shop whatever method can provide the easiest time on press with minimal downtime should be the route to go. In my shop we print sometimes we print with 3-4 flashes(lucky our oval provides this flexibility) just because we can get the job done in much less time with much less headache. If we are printing thousands of shirts or more then we will do what it takes to engineer the print so it's as easiest to print regardless of what the screen count sheet wants. If someone told me the client isn't willing to pay 15 bucks for an extra screen and a few cents more a shirt but that meant making life hell on press for thousands of shirts I'd eat the cost myself to save the headaches. My opinion engineer the print to run the best/look the best and take advantage of flashes.

I agree with this, we use the same philosophy in our shop.

We also "donate" the extra screen and print just to get it done and billed. It's a very rare practice, but sometimes we just do it; the cost is minimal...

Steve