Still learning...

[im_mcguire]

Ok so last week, was one of the worst weeks I had for trouble shooting.

First off, we are running a 6 color Workhorse auto with 2 flashbacks. The job in question was a 6 color with discharge underbase and 5 top plastisol colors. Though I’ve never done this myself, I’ve looked at posts and saw many people who have done it with great success.
Here is where things started going wrong for us:
We burnt the first 6 screens on a roll of film that had about 20 feet remaining. Once the films were burnt, we noticed that the key color of the design and the underbase would not line up. And to make matters worse, our base was drying in the screen.
Being new to waterbased discharge, I was thinking I was just too slow, and my shop was too humid.

We decided to change the film roll, and print new films, and burn brand new screens just to start over.
We had the same issue with the underbase and key color.  I’ll keep this story short...
After 12 more screens of trying, I think to myself, could my flashback be causing issues after it flashes?
Sure enough that was the case. Trying to flash on the same head of the dc underbase, was putting so much vapor under the screen, that it actually warped my underbase when I did the second shirt.
I moved my flash to the unload station, and ran the discharge on the first rotation, and the top 5 colors on the second rotation all wet on wet, and had no issues.
Lesson learned. All the more reason our shop needs a bigger press...

[blue moon]

nah, new press, new problems. None of this crap goes away. It does get a little easier, but there's headache every day. . .

You figured it out, that's what matters!

pierre

[Frog]

The first suggestion that I would have made was to go back and check the films themselves, to narrow down where in the process the lining-up problem was occurring.

[im_mcguire]

The first suggestion that I would have made was to go back and check the films themselves, to narrow down where in the process the lining-up problem was occurring.

Once I did that, and realized that was one of the first problems.  I changed to a new roll, and burned new screens.  Once they were dry, I placed my films on my burnt screen to make sure they lined up exactly.
Then when I did a p/p/f on the same head, and took a straight edge to the design after the flash, thats when the problem was in plain sight.

I want to leave this for all users of Flashbacks and discharge.  Don't print and flash on the same print head, it will cause you nothing but heart ache.

[Frog]

The first suggestion that I would have made was to go back and check the films themselves, to narrow down where in the process the lining-up problem was occurring.

Once I did that, and realized that was one of the first problems.  I changed to a new roll, and burned new screens.  Once they were dry, I placed my films on my burnt screen to make sure they lined up exactly.
Then when I did a p/p/f on the same head, and took a straight edge to the design after the flash, thats when the problem was in plain sight.

I want to leave this for all users of Flashbacks and discharge.  Don't print and flash on the same print head, it will cause you nothing but heart ache.

What I meant was, to stack your films to confirm perfection before burning.

[im_mcguire]

The first suggestion that I would have made was to go back and check the films themselves, to narrow down where in the process the lining-up problem was occurring.

Once I did that, and realized that was one of the first problems.  I changed to a new roll, and burned new screens.  Once they were dry, I placed my films on my burnt screen to make sure they lined up exactly.
Then when I did a p/p/f on the same head, and took a straight edge to the design after the flash, thats when the problem was in plain sight.

I want to leave this for all users of Flashbacks and discharge.  Don't print and flash on the same print head, it will cause you nothing but heart ache.

Oh, yeah... Normally I do.  But of course the way things go, it was one of the mis steps I took.  Trying to "get it done" as quick as possible.

What I meant was, to stack your films to confirm perfection before burning.

[Sbrem]

The first suggestion that I would have made was to go back and check the films themselves, to narrow down where in the process the lining-up problem was occurring.

Once I did that, and realized that was one of the first problems.  I changed to a new roll, and burned new screens.  Once they were dry, I placed my films on my burnt screen to make sure they lined up exactly.
Then when I did a p/p/f on the same head, and took a straight edge to the design after the flash, thats when the problem was in plain sight.

I want to leave this for all users of Flashbacks and discharge.  Don't print and flash on the same print head, it will cause you nothing but heart ache.

What I meant was, to stack your films to confirm perfection before burning.

This, plus I've taken to adding the .5 point line down the side of the image in registration color, so the machine doesn't speed up when there are voids in the image of the seps... it takes a little longer to run the films, but much faster than running them twice.

Steve

[TCT]

Being new to waterbased discharge, I was thinking I was just too slow, and my shop was too humid.

Too humid is probably not a issue. At this time of year we are too dry and actually run humidifiers. I would not ever run the flashback on the same head as a discharge or a waterbase screen. Years ago when we had a red press and their Q-runner that thing was a recipe for disaster with WB/DC screens.

[ericheartsu]

Being new to waterbased discharge, I was thinking I was just too slow, and my shop was too humid.

Too humid is probably not a issue. At this time of year we are too dry and actually run humidifiers. I would not ever run the flashback on the same head as a discharge or a waterbase screen. Years ago when we had a red press and their Q-runner that thing was a recipe for disaster with WB/DC screens.

I was thinking the same thing. that flashback on that screen is a big problem.

[Admiral]

We are lucky to have a cts so no film worries at all, since 2013, but even with that we sometimes use bigger strokes - especially when images are large.  We do this to save time during setup (even though we use Tri-Loc it's often very close / some screens are on but needs slight adjustment) so stuff out outside edges of designs will have 1 pt bigger stroke than what we typically do.  It's not even noticeably weird so why not make the sep easier to work with?

Not that that would have solved your issue with the film not lining up but it helps stuff like that.

As for equipment - I can't believe how far we got with a 7 color Diamondback.  Printing 6 screens on that with a quartz flash that only had a timer and getting through large orders.  At some point you just have to upgrade to the bigger press than you think you need and make things easy, predictable to handle.

12 color was our second press, now I find that press small (we went all the way to an 18C, could have gotten away with 16C though...).

Glad you figured it out, I did discharge base with plastisol on top a couple times and while I like the results it is a lot more to work with than running all plastisol.  I remember having scarlet on top and if the discharge base wasn't the perfect amount and cleared perfectly that scarlet could turn orange easily.

[kingscreen]

I’ll keep my answer short.  When we run DC UB with plastisol tops we run WOW. Never ever use the flashback even head up on the next head as it dries up your DC screen and kills it.

[GKitson]

nah, new press, new problems. None of this crap goes away. It does get a little easier, but there's headache every day. . .

You figured it out, that's what matters!

pierre

Totally agree with Pierre, EVERYTHING you do is a lesson.  Learn from it, move on and make more money.