Action Roller Squeegee for smoothing screen - what settings?

[Stinkhorn Press]

I posted about not being happy with my UB white opacity, got a few shouts of "roller squeegee."
ordered it, should be here this afternoon or tomorrow...
I know it's not for everyone, but if you use it and like it - anything I should know about running it? How fast? How much pressure? Whats the best lube? Anything to be sure to NOT do?

[tonypep]

If its the one from Action no lube is required. Place the screen in the cool down station. To work best the ink needs to be HOT. Use as much pressure as you like without causing to much deflection. 45 PSI is a good starting point

[sqslabs]

We run similar to Tony. 35-40psi, in the head directly following a flash. We've tried a few things with speed but haven't seen too much difference either way.

Make sure the roller is centered on the pallet or you will get a pallet mark on one side of the shirt. I kinda wish the roller was 15" instead of 16" for this reason.

[Stinkhorn Press]

highish pressure
no lube
speed non factor
easy enough thanks!

[Biverson]

How's it working out for you? Thinking of getting this and the double stroke squeegee but not sure I want to drop the $600 on it right away.

[Stinkhorn Press]

in a perfect world, we could get 90% of the smoothness a roller squeegee affords from properly controlling our variables. but we're not that good.

i almost feel like it's cheating, the improvements in the print quality, for the minimum of effort. right shirts, ink, settings and your top colors can look like it's printed on vinyl.

biggest hassle is that it pretty much only works when you have GOOD control of your flash. Too little flash and you'll be hitting still-wet ink. Too much flash and you've fully cured the ink and the roller ain't going to do crap. Get the ink "gelled," get it "cheesy" and hit it with the roller and you've got a nice smooth surface.

i can be recreated cheaper DIY style. Action for sure charges steeply, but it's sure nice to have it just work right out the box too. (you can use this as a lint screen as well, but we found that the DIY solutions to that were effectively free.

[woodrow]

Be sure to add the Teflon sheet to the backside of your smoothing screen, we use mist adhesive and follow that with Mylar tape around the edges...Don't use too much pressure, shoulder bolts and squeegee carriages stress and break if so...

[1964GN]

How's it working out for you? Thinking of getting this and the double stroke squeegee but not sure I want to drop the $600 on it right away.

If the double stroke squeegee is for M&R we have one we are looking to sell. We are selling out M&R press and wont be needing it. Shot me  a PM if interested.

We are pretty happy with Actions roller. We run one in head 1 for the lint screen and one after the first flash (when we aren't using the ROQ Iron).

[TH Apparel]

make sure your flash is not too hot either... if the ink is too hot, sometimes it will stick to the roller screen.
We built ours out of an old flood bar and a conveyor roller from grainger.

[AAMike]

I have bought 4 kits from action so far and it immediately had an impact on the hand of the print. Sometimes we use two on the same set-up. My people fight over them.

[Biverson]

Yeah, I'm still torn. Part of me just wants to take a screen and put a teflon sheet on the bottom and run a regular squeegee across it with extender base. Would there be a notable difference between that and the roller squeegee?

[RICK STEFANICK]

A good link and action actually has a video also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYKctIpavlc

[tonypep]

Had the double squeegee prototype back about 5 ys ago. Its original intended use was for high volume high mesh waterbase printing. It can be used for white but I don't recommend cleaning it like...ever