Permanent Block Out Revisited

[kirkwad]

I looked through some past posts on here regarding permanent block out for screens to eliminate tape. It looks like it's been a few years since the topic has been discussed and I was wondering if anybody is successfully utilizing it to eliminate tape. We use 4" split tape currently & I've always wanted to eliminate all the labor, product cost & waste associated with taping the insides of screens.

So if anybody has opinions, upsides, downsides, complaints or anything to add on the subject, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Tapeless shop for years, so happy to not dump crap tons of tape in the garbage let alone sucking up $6.00 rolls of tape.

[rusty]

we just use a bigger scoop coater to take up as much of the frame as possible and then use cleanup cards to cover remains emulsion. no tape except for reg marks.

I don't like permanent blockout because ink gets stuck in the corner and I end spraying myself in the face when it kicks back. might be aq little extra work buts works for us and saves on tape.

[jsheridan]

we were nothing but permanent blockout.. until we went to all waterbase. stuff finds it's way under, around, and through any little hole AND it was making a mess in cleanup room as we have to wash out the ink after printing, so were back to normal screens, wide coat with a piece of 3" tape.
Yeah it's trash but it's a necessary evil now.

[ericheartsu]

we were nothing but permanent blockout.. until we went to all waterbase. stuff finds it's way under, around, and through any little hole AND it was making a mess in cleanup room as we have to wash out the ink after printing, so were back to normal screens, wide coat with a piece of 3" tape.
Yeah it's trash but it's a necessary evil now.

i hate it so much.

[BrazosDesigns]

Guess I'm in the minority, but I like the permanent blockout.  All the new s-mesh screens I get from Spot I'm getting with blockout.

Anyone in the Houston area have some permanent blockout they want to get rid of?  I'll gladly pick it up so I can do the rest of my screens. 


One caveat....I still put a 3/4"-1" wide piece of tape across the top and bottom where the emulsion and blockout meet, and esp. for water base.

[kirkwad]

Awesome. Thanks for the responses. I'm going to give it a test run on some screens and see how it does. We're like 99% Plastisol ink so I'm not too worried about waterbased seeping through... just put some tape on those boys.

Any recommendations on a specific permanent blockout you're using? I saw RhinoTech has some & there's the 2-Part frame adhesive that's used.

Thanks!

[Prince Art]

we just use a bigger scoop coater to take up as much of the frame as possible and then use cleanup cards to cover remains emulsion. no tape except for reg marks.

We haven't tried permanent blockout, but this^^^ is what we started doing a year or two ago. Coating takes a little longer, but setup & cleanup are MUCH faster & cleaner. And there's no messy tape to dispose of, either. We are all plastisol here. Also, for the sake of a more accurate picture, I should probably add that we're all manual, but use only 23 x 31 screens. The width of our pallets & squeegees is such that for the vast majority of our jobs, ink doesn't touch the sides of the screen frames. This also makes cleanup much easier - spatula up from flat surface, wipe with a rag, nothing to deal with in the crevices or sides. (Got this idea from a comment Zoo made awhile back, about his shop using larger screens on the auto [I think] for the same reason.)

[kirkwad]

Yeah I thought about straight emulsion, but we've got 4 autos & 1 manual & coat 100-150 screens a day on an auto Uni-Kote, so it's not really conducive to the volume/application we're doing. Thanks for the input though.

1 thing I forgot to ask is if the people using permanent blockout are using an auto-coater & if the overlap into the emulsion area creates any drag or inconsistent coating.

[ABuffington]

Wider scoop coaters:  One of the issues with having a coater going too close to the edge of the frame is EOM consistency.  On low tension screens this will put a boatload of emulsion in the center, whereas a scoop coater with a 1-1.5" can make better contact with the mesh and avoid thick EOM in the center.  With a coater up next to the frame the center could be 20% EOM and the edges 0-4%.  For spot color it may still work, but for halftones it can affect resolution of fine halftones.  If you hold your screen up to the safety lights and it is all consistently the same color and no oval of dark color in the center then the EOM issue may not be as bad, but this takes a really well tensioned screens to avoid.

We use a 2-3 " scoop coater and when done right after coating in cleans up the bead from the large coater and blocks out most of the edge gap but still requires some tape.

[rusty]

Wider scoop coaters:  One of the issues with having a coater going too close to the edge of the frame is EOM consistency.  On low tension screens this will put a boatload of emulsion in the center, whereas a scoop coater with a 1-1.5" can make better contact with the mesh and avoid thick EOM in the center.  With a coater up next to the frame the center could be 20% EOM and the edges 0-4%.  For spot color it may still work, but for halftones it can affect resolution of fine halftones.  If you hold your screen up to the safety lights and it is all consistently the same color and no oval of dark color in the center then the EOM issue may not be as bad, but this takes a really well tensioned screens to avoid.

We use a 2-3 " scoop coater and when done right after coating in cleans up the bead from the large coater and blocks out most of the edge gap but still requires some tape.

We actually use two scoop coaters for this reason.The big one for the edges and then a smaller one for a tight coat. It is more time consuming but the saving on tape and time when reclaiming is worth it.

I use the extra time to wonder where everything went wrong and if I should have gone into accounting.

[Prince Art]

I use the extra time to wonder where everything went wrong and if I should have gone into accounting.

HA!