Can we talk about production speeds?

[im_mcguire]

Ok I know in multiple threads speeds have been talked about.  I have been getting a lot of orders coming in the 2,000 plus pieces.  Though most are fine, and we wrap them up pretty quickly, our last job was a 5,000 piece job 3 locations.  With having 1 press, and a max print speed of 400 - 450 shirts per hour (actually closer to 300 shirts per hour) with breaks and such.

We are going to ISS Long Beach to see all brands and what they have to offer first hand. I am looking to find a more production level press, rather than a press that will get me the same capabilities.

Currently we run a 6/8 Workhorse Cutlass.  Air heads, and Servo index.  No matter what we do, we always have had to double stroke every color.  We also run 2 flash backs.

So my question is this...
If purchasing a second press, what areas should I make sure of as far as production?  I know a lot of guys here have presses that run in the 800-1000 shirt range.

Is the air heads , and flash backs limiting my output?

I know the ROQ YOU, M&R Sportsman, or Gauntlet, and Workhorse Sabre, are all presses I will be looking for as far as production.
Ill be at ISS Long Beach this year on Saturday to check everything out.  But I think I am ready to take my shop to the next level.

Let me know any thoughts on Production speeds of your presses, and things I still should consider.

Thanks!!!!

[ericheartsu]

i think air heads can be limiting. But it could be how your screens are coated, and what inks you are using that are making you double stroke.

We double stroke most jobs here, but we print almost all waterbased ink.

[ABuffington]

Additional heads opens up production a lot. Any flash will typically use 2 heads on a carousel to get max production.  So just flashing base and before a highlight can use 4 heads on machine.  High Solid Acrylic Inks can use even more flashes to get optimum quality.  Mesh selection can also help eliminate the need for double stroking/ S mesh can overcome the need for double stroking, but a lot depends on art, shirt, and coverage needed.  For high production yields quartz flashes are also helpful to minimize flash time and to control pallet temps. 

[im_mcguire]

I should have stated, we do run S mesh for 95% of all of our underbases.  We just weel we arent getting the mat down of fibers with one stroke on our press. 
We use Wilflex Lava LB White, mixed up with our drill press so it is nice and creamy.

I can not get a great base with just 1 stroke.  We get a lot of filberation on the shirt, regardless of the style (100% cotton or poly, or Tri)

[Colin]

Are you using a smoothing screen?

Here, we 2 stroke almost every base white.  12 and 14 color M&R, servo print heads and indexer.

This is a decision based on look and appeal of the garment for our client base.  We get paid for it

Most shops that are getting away with a single stroke on their base whites have dropped to a 135s with thicker eom.  Most, certainly not all, also do not have the same level of "whiteness" your shop or mine may think is needed.

White bases are still subjective

With that said, Danny will be at the Ryonet booth and he does single stroke base whites with regularity and will be a tremendous sounding board for you and what you can accomplish.  Pierre also does this, so search him out as well!

[mimosatexas]

Manual printer so this is probably only kind of helpful, but....

I get nice single stroke whites using 135S screens with higher eom, as mentioned.  The biggest variable after that is the ink.  I havent tested that particular ink, but I have tested a bunch of others and VERY FEW offer good matte down on most shirts.  Pretty much any ink will look great on a gildan 2000 or a few others, but start working with triblends, and "nicer" ringspun shirts and getting a smooth base with the wrong ink can be impossible.  I don't use a smoothing screen, but would if I was printing on an auto.

[chubsetc]

I have a Diamondback, Air Heads with Servo Index.  Started with standard mesh for a bit and struggled, moved to S-mesh and started finally moving in production but still with double stroke underbases and the occasional top color double stroke.  Tried double bevel squeegees and now run them almost exclusively for all colors (for about a year now) and I can't even remember the last time we double stroked.  They lay down the ink so nicely through the mesh at faster stroke speeds with less pressure (sometimes much less pressure) than I was running with standard blades.  They have been a game changer in my shop.  Air heads do have their faults and servo heads would definitely make some things much easier but sometimes its not our equipment holding us back but our lack of knowing all the tools available to help in the process.  Hope this helps. 

[blue moon]

Ok I know in multiple threads speeds have been talked about.  I have been getting a lot of orders coming in the 2,000 plus pieces.  Though most are fine, and we wrap them up pretty quickly, our last job was a 5,000 piece job 3 locations.  With having 1 press, and a max print speed of 400 - 450 shirts per hour (actually closer to 300 shirts per hour) with breaks and such.

We are going to ISS Long Beach to see all brands and what they have to offer first hand. I am looking to find a more production level press, rather than a press that will get me the same capabilities.

Currently we run a 6/8 Workhorse Cutlass.  Air heads, and Servo index.  No matter what we do, we always have had to double stroke every color.  We also run 2 flash backs.

So my question is this...
If purchasing a second press, what areas should I make sure of as far as production?  I know a lot of guys here have presses that run in the 800-1000 shirt range.

Is the air heads , and flash backs limiting my output?

I know the ROQ YOU, M&R Sportsman, or Gauntlet, and Workhorse Sabre, are all presses I will be looking for as far as production.
Ill be at ISS Long Beach this year on Saturday to check everything out.  But I think I am ready to take my shop to the next level.

Let me know any thoughts on Production speeds of your presses, and things I still should consider.

Thanks!!!!

while it is possible that the press is holding you back, I would bet on other things first. DISCLAIMER: I might be waaay off as I never printed on an air head machine.
Having to double stroke top colors is telling me something is not set up right. While you might have to double stroke whites, we double stroke top colors (plastisol) no more than once a month and that is always to compensate for separation issues on simulated process jobs.
reach out to Joe and order some of his Synergy white. He might be able to give you some info on the printing setup for your press (angles, speed and pressures).
Also, don't be fooled by the big numbers you read about. Those are loading speeds, not actual production per hour numbers. When loading at 1,000 or more we net 600-700 once you take into account all the stopping and issues that pop up. Also, this can only be achieved on small number of jobs (for us at least as we mostly print 100 pcs or less). We do hit 1k+ every day, but it's usually only one or maybe two jobs out of 15 or so.
My suggestion, for what it's worth, is dial in what you have and work on consistency. Consider bringing Lon Winters or somebody like that to help you dial everything in. Call Workhorse and see if they have somebody who can come and help.
Where are you located? Maybe somebody from TSB that could help is close by. . .

pierre

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

We had a work horse freedom with the V squeegee when I first started. We didn't have to double stroke. So its probably just a mesh count, squeegee selection, or ink selection issue. But you will only get 400pc per hour out of it, I Know that.

If you have independent chopper setup on your cutlass that would help greatly. We didn't.

But Servo index / AC heads is where it's at.

Go Sportsman. Don't look back. You'll have no issues. It's built for one thing. Printing a crap ton of shirts. Makes a world of difference from that cutlass.

[AnaMikeM85]

Personally, and I'm no expert. But the flashback is not as efficient as a normal quartz unit, and the index on a workhorse press is typically slower than a servo indexing press. Just my two cents.

[Nation03]

We had a work horse freedom with the V squeegee when I first started. We didn't have to double stroke. So its probably just a mesh count, squeegee selection, or ink selection issue. But you will only get 400pc per hour out of it, I Know that.

If you have independent chopper setup on your cutlass that would help greatly. We didn't.

But Servo index / AC heads is where it's at.

Go Sportsman. Don't look back. You'll have no issues. It's built for one thing. Printing a crap ton of shirts. Makes a world of difference from that cutlass.

Same situation here. Currently still printing on an older Freedom with the v-squeegee. Single stroke everything. I use mostly S-Thread mesh and I use very low off contact. Like, the bare minimum OC so the screen just pops off the shirt. I also don't print a base white on any mesh over 150-S.

I'm much looking forward to upgrading to at least a press with choppers and servo index within the next year hopefully.

[bryanprints]

Moved from a freedom to a sabre recently.  I haven't seen a giant jump in production speeds, but the print after print quality is much better.  Makes me believe that it's more our processes that have slowed our shop down vs the machine.

[alan802]

Hey, one of my favorite subjects.  Mostly single stroking here, but it's gone to about 80/20, single versus double stroking on white/base prints with the G3.  If using the RPM it would still be 98% single stroking.  If we used 150 and higher mesh for underbasing I'd probably double stroke too, but we don't use that mesh count to base with unless the garments are of lighter color and/or the artwork is less in open area.

If I'm running the G3 it is usually spinning at a 850-900/hr rate, real time.  Of course those people are right when they differentiate between an all day average versus the actual, real time production rate.  It's the same here, but if you want to increase your daily average/hr then it seems like you'd want to increase your actual production rate.  I think they are both important, but if I can run the press at 800/hr versus 400/hr with no degradation of the print quality then who here wouldn't try to do that whenever you could?  The reason why in 16' when we only had one auto we were able to average around 8 jobs/day (some days we did as many as 15 jobs/day, 25 setups/teardowns with varying degrees of difficulty and locations) was in large part due to our real time production rate being maximized and running a few hundred more pieces per hour will directly increase your daily average/hr.  Single stroking whenever possible will increase both those rates and if done properly you won't lose any print quality in the process.

I've said it numerous times about how I believe a double stroked 150 is putting down a thicker ink deposit than me single stroking a 100/54 and I am not as sure on that as I once was.  The spec sheets don't lie, but I think you can manipulate the variables so much on press that you can render the info on the spec sheet useless if you were so inclined.  Let me explain, so the 150/48 is going to put down an ink volume of 39 cm3/m2 with a single stroke.  So double stroking should put down around 78 if you believe the spec sheet or think it works like that.  I don't mind coming on here and admitting I was wrong about something, but I think in this case I'm only partly wrong but my overall premise and production model to avoid double stroking still holds true.  I've been trying to find the time to test this theory and I believe that when I do this on a non-porous substrate the spec sheet will prove to be accurate.  But on various t-shirt material I think it will not be accurate or consistent across different types of materials.  Just this morning I had a one-hit white design that we do all the time but they burned the image on a 150/48 instead of the 120 that we normally do.  Obviously with a single stroke the opacity wasn't as good as our print sample (we keep sample prints of all repeat jobs) so I sped up the print speed and lowered the pressure slightly, then did a double stroke with the 150.  It matched the sample print close enough but was slightly thicker and even noticeably more opaque, but only slightly.  In this case a double 150 matched a single 120 close enough that most people would not be able to tell the difference by eye or handling.  But I'm quite certain the 150 didn't put down close to 78 cm3/m2 of ink volume but probably closer to 55.  The single stroked 120 was probably close to the spec sheet's 48 so trying to judge the difference between 48 and 55 isn't easy, but most certainly the 150 X 2 put down a little bit more ink.  So I still think I'm right, just not as right as I thought.  And the fact that every time you single stroke versus double you are putting, quite literally, half the wear and tear on the moving parts of your press.  And since we're using equipment that is over 6 figures in cost I think it's very beneficial in so many ways to try and single stroke as much as you can.  Ignore the equipment wear and tear at your own peril, there are a lot of guys that used to be on this forum that are no longer running a shop because they ignored things like this.

And if it's simply impossible for any of you to get a high quality print with a single stroke then you do what you got to do to make the customer happy.  But it can't take all day to print 1000 shirts, or you'll not be making many customers happy for very long.  I've also mentioned many times how we do things so I won't do it again, but our standards are not lower than anyone on this forum, and I doubt our ink deposits are any thicker than anyone double stroking any mesh count.  And despite what some might have you believe, you're not going to reach 100% opacity on a black shirt with a 20 micron thick ink deposit (that is half the thickness of a human hair)(head hair, not the other areas .  It takes a certain amount of ink to cover the shirt fibers/color and it's actually fairly thick.  And our goal will always be to reach 100% opacity with the least amount of work possible, regardless of what others are doing.  We do a few things differently than the average shop, and it's hard not to believe we are on the better pathway when I'm always reading about the issues that go along with using different tools and techniques than what we use and we don't have those types of problems.  But there is nothing that we do here that someone else can't do, nor is there anything that another shop can do that we can't do here (and probably haven't tried already).  That's because of what I said a few sentences ago, it takes the same amount of ink deposit to cover a black gildan cotton shirt here at SRI as it does in Ohio, the difference is how we get there, the tools we use and how we use them.