Problems printing big image

[Maxie]

Today we printed the attached design and it was a nightmare.
It's a big print about 14" diameter, design is 11 colors and we have a 12 color head.
Print, flash and then a color on every head.    No cooling station.
The shirt was lifting.   Plastisol sticking to screen and popping as it lifted.
We have off contact.
Tried our usual Tekmar glue and spray glue, no difference.
Tried a fan on head after flash, helped a little.
Any ideas on how to get this to work will be appreciated.    I have another 1500 to print.
Base 205, colors 305.

[blue moon]

can you post the original art? This looks like a 7, maybe 8 color print. Not sure why they would use 11!

pierre

[Dottonedan]

Typical problem with most separators. If they know you have room for up to 12 colors, they will use 12 colors.

The idea (on the surface) is that more colors, make it more accurate and easier to control.  That is true, but often over done and I’m not so sure it’s by accident.  It’s not just this one image, it’s most separators. I see it all the time, posted by printers who have used other separators. They love the prints and say “10 colors or 14 colors.  Most times I’m thinking why so many? This is not a push to use me. I’m already overly busy. It seems many printers are at the Mercy of the separators color choices when they just totally rely on what the sep person says.  I think it’s like this until you get up to the more seasoned separators like myself, Coudrey, etc. I don’t know if it’s due to skill, or morals. Good separators know you don’t need 12 and won’t give you 12 unless you demand it. Enough in that.

A few things that I’ve experienced with this and being short on cool stations.

1, good tight screens (consistent)  improve everything!

2, cut back on the flash temp a hair after you get running. As you know, the pallets will be highly warmed up. You account for this sticking by cutting back on flash temp, a little lower than normal. Just makes sure the base is tacky, but doesn’t come up.

3, the obvious….use more glue. Sometimes, depending on the garment, you might need to switch to spray glue.

[Dottonedan]

Side note.
The art looks familiar, like maybe I quoted it, but I don’t think I did the seps. Especially since it’s 12 colors unless I was asked to make it look as best I can and used all of the colors I wanted (due to being a high profile customer). Still, the art looks like it could only need 8 colors. Maybe 9 at most. Obviously this gives you far more production room. But I know, you are already into it and can’t change it up mid stream.

[Maxie]

For anyone interested, a few people told me that their is no solution for a 11 col print on a 12 col press.   We had the seps redone to 9 col.    We couldn’t see much difference but having a cooling station after the flash and another empty station after 5 col made this design printable without problems.
We thought we’d need a second flash but didn’t use it.

[darkbosque_]

11 colors for this is a little extra. Yeah that cool down station helps but when we are in a pinch like this just adding a fan to the print head after the flash and a little dwell time will help. If you have it some silicone spray to the back of the screens sometimes helps too.