screen printing > Newbie

printed my first job on the auto- came out horrible

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Shanarchy:
I seriously want to throw the towel in right now. I ran a job of 150 shirts on the auto last night. My first time printing with the auto. 2 color front (pink and teal) on black tees. I used opaque inks and print-flash printed each color. I know that way made the job take way longer time wise, but I did not want to play with an underbase on my first run. I was hoping for less variables to need to fine tune. I used 160 mesh Newmans 32n and triple duro squeegees. These shirts look like pure crap. These are almost as bad as the first job I ever printed on a manual. I honestly do not know how I am going to give these to the customer tomorrow (event is Sunday), let alone charge them.

I do not even know where to begin to ask for help. But the colors covered awful and the pink ink kept creeping under the screen where I would have to constantly wipe the under side of the screen. So the end result was a very muddy spotty looking print.

So I guess my first question is why would I have the ink building up so bad beneath the screen? When printing manually it would usually be from too low of a squeegee angle. But I really played around to find what setting would give me the most opaque smooth print I could.

Anyways, I am totally lost right now. I don't know what I should be adjusting. Is there any kind of a troubleshooting guide for auto printers out there?

I am going to head back to the shop now. It was a late night and I hope I was being over critical. But they are definitely not the same quality as when I print on the manual.

blue moon:
I think that's par for the course. I could not get the white ink down for ever! 'kept thinking I was going backwards with the print quality.

you will get there, give it some time. In the meanwhile, do what needs to be done, which ever way you can. It would not hurt to contact somebody who knows the press (BBB actually joined here) and ask some questions. At least there are plenty of Anatol owners/reps around.

hang in!

pierre

whitewater:
Hey buddy, didn't you do a test print?

If the test looked like crap why did you keep going..?

maybe you should have saved the first run for during the week when you could have replaced the shirts at least instead of the situation that has occurred..

I'm sorry I know I am not helping any and you already know this.

you could always try to get ahold of some shirts somehow and redo on the manual..

killergraphics:
Yes it is almost like learning all over again.

Its hard to get in the mind set to use the higher meshes.

Sounds like the squeegee pressure was to much for 1 thing.

If you have to "160" ink deposit and hit the next color the next color squeegee...pancakes the last color on the shirt and spread it out.

Then you get blurred and pop. I hate pop. Get some Pam cooking spray or silicon spray and spray the printside of the screens and just pat dry.

I would never try to print pink on darks with out an underbase. Even after the shirt comes out the other end of the dryer (for me anyway) still gases to a different color

in the next hour or 2.

I call it auto frustration.

There are many days that an auto job starts to print right on the last shirt.

The hardest thing for me is to take the time to heat up the tables first...MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Then the phone rings and you have to start all over again.

Yes heat up again.

squeegee:
First I hope the shirts weren't 50/50's.
I know you said you didn't want to mess with an UB, but I doubt I would do it any other way.
Here's my thought process on this, and I'll assume you have one flash.
I'd look at the UB and determine the lowest mesh count that can hold the amount of detail in the design (lowest within reason, 110 max probably).
Then I would look at the amount of coverage on the two overprinting colors as well as make a judgement as which of the two is the least translucent color.  I'd choose the lowest coverage and/or most opaque of the colors to go down on the base first.
I'd put the first color down on the base through a finer mesh like 230 maybe, the second on a more open mesh if needed for coverage or opacity, like a 160 or thereabouts.
I'd put the 230 color on a the head right after the flash and the other a couple heads later to allow cooling, and make sure the pallets are very warm, hot before starting.  I'd run a round of defectives to make sure the ink in the print that's getting stepped on does not smear or stick excessively on the last screen.  Fine tune your squeegee pressure/angles to bear minimum, steeper anlges mean less ink down, less smearing.
We use this method daily, but you do need an ink that won't build up too badly.  Wilflex MX ink is what we'd use for the colors.  I'm not saying this is the only way to do it, but what works very well for us.  Keep trying, you'll get it.

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