Ganging Images on Same Screen?

[ScreenFoo]

third image: no adhesive-plastisol goo or yall just deal with it?  otherwise you're doing exactly what I'm doing when it comes to trying to gand left chests or short art with longer art when possible and taping shirt side of the first after printing and squeegee side of the second when printing the first.

Using rubber based adhesive tapes I've had the same experiences as Alan and you--if the ink doesn't hit the open area that's taped off, not a pain in reclaim.  If the squeegee (or auto flood) goes over it and fills it, it starts that nasty reaction.

If I'm ganging screens that get close together, I clean the screen so I can tape off the printed side on the inside of the screen. 

Tried more than a couple different brands and types of tapes that were claimed to not make such a residue when the adhesive hits the inks and sits there for a few hours, but I found none that pulled clean.

Pretty sure that brown tape you wet with a sponge would work, but I can't imagine it'd save time.

[Maff]

Do you guys use squeegee bars?

We are a manual shop and we gang every screen we can. We use 20x24 frames and typically gang a small design on one side with a medium size design on the other. 

We almost always use squeegee bars on these screens, this way we keep ink and contact totally away from the other side. (it's also nice to keep the squeegee close to the design this way).  When we flip the screen around after printing one side, we cover up the screen on the shirt side with any random sheet of heavy paper (junk mail flyers work great) we just tape the paper up on the 4 corners.  The paper is really there just for precaution since the squeegee bar keeps  away all the contact with that area.  No tape residue or junk gets caught in the screen this way... For us

[alan802]

We use these as squeegee bars for our manual.

http://www.lowes.com/pd/IRWIN-QUICK-GRIP-Clamp/50160691

There are cheaper ones out there, but the ones from Harbor Freight won't clamp tight enough to hold more than a small squeegee blade.  The Dewalt ones at Zoro look good and cheap.  We use the clamps for all kinds of things, like holding paper towel rolls around the press and as mentioned above to hold squeegees.

[mimosatexas]

exact same ones I use Alan.  Have a set of 6 of the longer version.  Have a bunch of the shorter ones too, but i use those for wood working projects now since getting the longer ones.  I didn't even thing of using it as a paper towel holder, but that is an excellent idea.

[Squeegie]

I have been doing almost the exact thing alan is doing.  Usually just left chest images on either end.  Sometimes it is a nice horizontal back of front that lends itself to being ganged.
The kicker for me here was to burn both ends of the screen at the same time.  I used to block off one end while exposing the other...but figured out how to get multi colored images to keep in register on both ends.
We don't usually use multiple strips of tape to mask the second half while on press.  I tend to use films from jobs that are a one time thing or dated events. Then just one strip of tape and i can have the entire second half of the screen covered.  This helps for when the ink colors are not the same.  Then when doing the second half I tape the bottom as alan does and if the colors are different I use another old film and strip of tape to mask the inky half.

[Sbrem]

We have always ganged up screens, going back to the '70's. Why wouldn't you? And yes, tape on the squeegee side keeps ink from softening the tape adhesive, and is a no brainer as far as cleaning goes.

Steve

[acescreen]

We gang most of the time but we try not to gang the same job if it is front and back, so we can setup both sides at the same time. This is one of the main reasons we went to a 10 color auto. It is really nice to have a 2 color front 4 color back and a couple of 1 color jobs all setup at once. That is where we have found a lot of our efficiency.  When ever we gang up a screen and the images are close enough that the ink will touch open area of  previous run we always clean the screen and cover the finished image with red water soluble block out fluid. Still requires tape on shirt side to ensure no breakouts but it makes reclamation much easier, no nasty tape residue, and no chance that tape if used on ink side to block off will be picked up.  If we have a 2 left chest prints and we are sure squeegee or floodbar will not touch the open area we just tape off from the back shirt side.

[mk162]

We use a piece of cut lumber for our squeegee bars.  It's 3/4x3/4 ply. We use cheap spring clamps to clamp them to the frames, one on each end.  Works great and CHEAP.

[Prince Art]

A little late, but another option to avoid ink-meets-tape goo is to trim a piece of used pellon/test square to fit the area, and run the tape across that. Make sure tape covers the entire image area to avoid any possibility of bleed-through. (Which is most likely if you have to rest your squeegee in the "used" image area.) I've found that to be a quick, easy to clean solution for print/flip/print gangs.

And squeegee bars are great. I discovered them by accident and wondered why no one ever told me about them.