Cross zipper printing with plastisol.

[mjrprint]

How do you  handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?

[Frog]

Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.

[blue moon]

How do you  handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?

for $100, Rick Roth will send you the sample material you should get and tell you all you need to know to make it happen! But even with all the info, it is a pain in the behind. Printing is easy, but the prep and tear down are just too time consuming for small runs.

pierre

[mjrprint]

Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.

We have 8 of them. There are still issues with them. If the inside zipper lining isn't exactly the same size as the small metal piece on the palette you get a gap still.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

Heres a pic of our zipper boards when they were new in 2006

[blue moon]

Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.

We have 8 of them. There are still issues with them. If the inside zipper lining isn't exactly the same size as the small metal piece on the palette you get a gap still.

same here. We bought one and it is not really universal. It works well with some hoodies and it has issues with others. Eric did say that they improved the groove, but after printing with foam, it did not really make any sense to go back to it.


here's a pix of over the pocket print on a hoodie to show how well the foam works.

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3359.0;attach=2909;image

pierre

[mjrprint]

How do you  handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?

for $100, Rick Roth will send you the sample material you should get and tell you all you need to know to make it happen! But even with all the info, it is a pain in the behind. Printing is easy, but the prep and tear down are just too time consuming for small runs.

pierre

Well that was an interesting diversion from work. Just read a pretty great article on the guy. Seems like a great place to work. I really like his philosophy on employee compensation and taking care of the people that keep his business going. Don't find that attitude a lot these days.

[tonypep]

Hate to use a word oft mentioned by the one who shall not be mentioned but.....shims.
There I said it. Seriously though we use the Action boards and have a variety of these to compensate for different brands. Also use the foam boards. Each job is a bit unique.

[mjrprint]

Hmmm never thought of shims. I'll try that.

[blue moon]

Hmmm never thought of shims. I'll try that.

we have also used a piece of rope and laid it in the groove then covered with masking tape. It raised the area to match the particular zipper type. Our biggest problem has been the wide gap as it seldom matches the zipper width or depth. Some shims n there could fix that too. Neoprene foam might be a good choice instead of something hard.

pierre

[brandon]

The Action platens work pretty well for us. ITC, AA, Hanes, whatever hoodies. I do admit though we run them with the carpenter tape stuff from Home Depot in the grooves since all of the hoodies are different. We used to do the rubber platen thing but we have the change over pretty quick with these. And the art helps as well. This is when I love distressed art!

[Frog]

a related question;
Do you guys cut the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?

[Screened Gear]

a related question;
Do you guys ct the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?

I always pull the zipper apart before sending it down the dryer. On hoodies with exposed zippers I use car pinstriping  tape and tape the zipper so the ink doesn't get in the zipper. I take the tape off before it going in the dryer.

[blue moon]

a related question;
Do you guys cut the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?

nope, don't touch it. Leave the ink and everything right on the zipper. It either peels off or stays on permanently depending on the zipper type. Some customers want the ink on the zippers.

pierre

[brandon]

I think it looks better on the zipper. Just my opinion.