One Hit White -- the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[alan802]

No finesse on a second stroke, just a single stroke , one pump chump.  I didn't have time to put it on the auto because I was printing the fronts while they were printing a job on the auto but I could have gotten better results on the auto I believe.  I used a Manny squeegee blade on that job and printed it really fast.  Pretty much I was just flicking my wrists and I was done.  I had a few where I had to hit it again because when your trying to get that perfect print stroke with as little pressure as possible, sometimes you print too soft and end up leaving ink in the screen.

I should have clarified that the text on that second pic was the 180-S, printed, flashed and printed then the soldiers face was printed with one stroke through a 225-S.  I didn't adjust the stroke for the second print on the text, I just had the 180 in printhead 1, went around 2 revolutions and the soldier on printhead 10.  It was 24 pieces so I used the one screen for the text and went around twice.

Both of the screens for the back print were coated 2/1 with chromablue.

[ScreenPrinter123]

No finesse on a second stroke, just a single stroke , one pump chump.  I didn't have time to put it on the auto because I was printing the fronts while they were printing a job on the auto but I could have gotten better results on the auto I believe.  I used a Manny squeegee blade on that job and printed it really fast.  Pretty much I was just flicking my wrists and I was done.  I had a few where I had to hit it again because when your trying to get that perfect print stroke with as little pressure as possible, sometimes you print too soft and end up leaving ink in the screen.

I should have clarified that the text on that second pic was the 180-S, printed, flashed and printed then the soldiers face was printed with one stroke through a 225-S.  I didn't adjust the stroke for the second print on the text, I just had the 180 in printhead 1, went around 2 revolutions and the soldier on printhead 10.  It was 24 pieces so I used the one screen for the text and went around twice.

Both of the screens for the back print were coated 2/1 with chromablue.

What type of squeegee, angle, pressure, and speed for the 180. Also, I have my off contact set at .13. What about u?

[Screened Gear]

Ok I will play. Below is a sleeve print that I have been doing for this client for years. I print the front and back of the shirt with a Print Flash Print. But this sleeve print can be done with one hit on the manual. 60 Duro 6 inch squeegee, thick out of the bucket quick white just worked up by hand to help flow, thick soft flood (I never hard flood), soft 35 degree PULL stroke, 123 with 10-15% EOM (I have done it with a 156 and almost no EOM, off contact at 1/8th. The manual is a finesse game. One pass on almost all of them. A few needed a second pass (no flash just redid the print stroke) because I used too much pressure the first time.

If you look at the zoomed in photo you can see fibers in the print. You can't see them when looking at the shirt. This is one time you can get away with a one hit print.

[alan802]

What type of squeegee, angle, pressure, and speed for the 180. Also, I have my off contact set at .13. What about u?

The squeegee was a Manny from Joe Clarke, angle was straight up with the beveled edge, 89 degrees, pressure was probably around 24psi, speed was 12.  Our off contact will be totally different from yours because I have mine set up so that .00 is actually zero off contact/on contact for a newman roller frame.  When our press is set to .00, the mesh is just barely touching the pallet.  You could easily set your press parallel so it's like ours, that way you have the full .40" off OC to play with.  Some presses have it set so that .10 is actually on contact and they only have .30" of central OC, I wanted to be able to use all of it if needed, which I haven't needed but it's nice to know it's there.  For newman roller frames, our OC is set to .08, on shurloc ez's, we are at .04 for most shirts.

[ScreenPrinter123]

What type of squeegee, angle, pressure, and speed for the 180. Also, I have my off contact set at .13. What about u?

The squeegee was a Manny from Joe Clarke, angle was straight up with the beveled edge, 89 degrees, pressure was probably around 24psi, speed was 12.  Our off contact will be totally different from yours because I have mine set up so that .00 is actually zero off contact/on contact for a newman roller frame.  When our press is set to .00, the mesh is just barely touching the pallet.  You could easily set your press parallel so it's like ours, that way you have the full .40" off OC to play with.  Some presses have it set so that .10 is actually on contact and they only have .30" of central OC, I wanted to be able to use all of it if needed, which I haven't needed but it's nice to know it's there.  For newman roller frames, our OC is set to .08, on shurloc ez's, we are at .04 for most shirts.

I'm pretty sure Michael calibrated it to be the same [i.e., 0 = the mesh just hitting the pallets -- otherwise I'd find it difficult to speak with other printers who have presses with digital readouts to try to duplicate things, eliminate variables, etc. etc. - you'd only be guessing at the height if your 0 doesn't really = just touching some measurable landmark like the pallet].  I'll double check that on monday, but I think I will put that 5/5 back on the auto and lower the off contact to see what comes of it.  I simply can't duplicate the pressure exactly with an all pneumatic -- the pressure increases as the stroke gets further to the bottom of the print, so it starts out low and then increases, so I have to accommodate for that -- need a/c heads.  If I have any better results [and time!] on monday, I'll post em. 

How does the manny compare/contrast to the smilin j - never looked into the manny at any depth - why do I vaguely recall the manny being for manual printing (hence it's name?)?  Is it usable for both auto and manual -- if so what's the difference between the two?  I tried the smilin J -- had decent results with the beveled edge, but at the end of the day, just went with the triple durometer squeegees -- like screened gear -- just had to get jobs out of the door and couldn't play around testing it a lot at the time. 

[ScreenFoo]

I really enjoy these threads.  Very nice prints. 

I had to do something fun after all the crap today, threw down a few shirts on one of my old twofold experiment stencils--2/3 coat, 10LPI (that's actual LINES per inch  ) on 86/100 mesh.   
Figured I'd do a black and a red shirt.  All manual.
A little arms length shot--

And a couple close ups--

[ScreenPrinter123]

Thanks for posting pics guys. Screenfoo, is this manual or auto?

[Rockers]

Anyone can do a one hit print. Its really depends on what your level of quality is.

I totally agree with this statement.
Especially most of the time when the master of the one hit white ,  whose name shall not be spoken, posted photos of his wizardry no real close ups were available, at least from what I have seen. I think a proper one hit white that is real opaque might as well be described as a one hit wonder, a single success that will not be repeated  easily or at all.

[Inkworks]

Just a side note, but isn't EOM a complete non-factor in ink deposit once you get about 1/8" away from the edge of the stencil? It'll help with lines, fairly fine text and tones, but in big wide areas of print the stencil thickness is a non-player in ink deposit unless you want nice opaque outlines around the image area. you're better off playing with mesh count/open area/thread thickness and squeegee angle, pressure, durometer, print speed. etc. to get more ink down in one print.

[JBLUE]

I was waiting to see this. I know we talked about this but I never thought it would look that bad. The stencil you made was super thick and the print came out not much better than a standard screen. How many did you print? Was Ink worked up? Did the screen clear?

Some of us just don't have your talent - let's see the magic on your end .

I have never done a one hit white like you did. I know what your trying is very hard. I would not say I have special talents at printing shirts. Most of the time lately I have been running around just trying to get things to work so I can get the jobs out the door. If talent is trying everything you can to get something to work then I am very talented and tired. I guess just knowing what to try to fix a problem is why a lot of use come on here. I know I have learned a lot from you guys.

I didn't mean the "show us your magic" as any kind've jab -- I seriously meant for you to post some pictures of a 1/1 or a 2/2 coat on 150 mesh or thereabouts - white print - on a red shirt. I'd also like to see some people post some prints that use a one hit underbase (in the 230, 180, and 150 range) with a 1/1 or 2/2 coat using a 310 or 230 top coat mesh -- I want to see how opaque you are getting your top colors.  I'm usually quite frustrated with mine.  I was pushing Union's max opaque lemon yellow through a 310 two days ago as a top coat and was not super satisfied -- but am still amazed how such ink whistles through such a high mesh count.

Here ya go. Had to dig for these but I found a few. 230 white base 230 colors, 305 for trans black on the first one. Second one with the cat is 230 base with 230 and 230's for the colors. Both Highlight whites were 230's.

Underbase screens were coated 2/1 sharp edge. Triple duro squeegees.

[ScreenFoo]

123--Manual, 70 single duro--didn't feel like kicking all the gear back on.  This was actually kind of a joke print that turned out better than I thought it would.  No AC heads here either. 
As mentioned in the coating thread, I'm itching to try this type of print out with those S threads--it's calling me from the mesh rack.   
The 86/125 mesh I play with on stuff like this leaves too rough a hand IMO.

Rockers makes a great point.  I see too many 'one hits' I can spot from across the street where I can only assume the printers were convincing themselves with that old line about how "we're the only ones who'll notice this"... Lots of other printers out there sparky.   

[brandon]

One factor of achieving this "Holy Grail" of screen printing is the design itself. As mentioned before, big broad areas of solid coverage are not the ideal candidate, though I'll tell you that in the old days, it was not unheard of to do athletic prints on a manual without a flash, by doing a second hit by sort of finessing the ink out of the flooded (filled) screen with a really light touch rather than a real print stroke.

Heck ya! I call that "babying" the print. Oh, the good old days!

[alan802]

Especially most of the time when the master of the one hit white ,  whose name shall not be spoken, posted photos of his wizardry no real close ups were available, at least from what I have seen. I think a proper one hit white that is real opaque might as well be described as a one hit wonder, a single success that will not be repeated  easily or at all.

I don't understand?  I posted a picture of a one hit white on black on the first page that is about 95% of the opacity of the second picture I posted that was PFP.  The first one is more opaque than about 98% of the shirts I see at retail stores and on the backs of people walking around and I assume that most of those were PFP.  White prints don't get much more opaque than the one I posted and they DO NOT get more opaque than the second picture, at least I've never seen it and I've looked at tens of thousands of screen printed shirts over the years.  In the end we all judge what is opaque a little differently but I am confident that everyone on this forum would give their customer a white print that looked like the pic I posted and be completely happy about it.  I don't know if one hit prints are possible all of the time, but I do know that we achieve it more and more often as time goes by, so maybe we'll be doing it every day at some point in the future.

The manny blade is a little different than the smiling jack, they have a straight notch cut out of the back instead of the "smiling" notch, and it is also a lower duro blade, which I really like.  I like printing with the manny on the auto even though it wasn't designed for it, it actually does a better job than it's auto brother on most applications so far.  I've always wanted a smiling jack that was a 70 or 75 duro instead of the 85 that it has.  It lays down more ink with the straight edge versus the SJ which I think comes in handy, and the beveled side is comparable to the double beveled 85 duro.  Sometimes I don't think the straight side of the SJ puts down enough ink and the manny fills that gap between the beveled and straight edge perfectly.  I've got 4 manny blades for the auto and my printer really likes them and he's very picky about his tools and equipment.  I plan on being out on the press all next week testing some stuff and making sure everything is working perfectly so I will have way more pros and cons on the manny blade by next Friday.  What little I've personally done with it I was very impressed.  And when Carlos goes out of his way to tell me that something is good then I know we've got something special.

[Printficient]

OK in order to get a "1" hit white print with 100% opacity, the critical parameter is pL (pico liters) of ink.  Too much and you push the ink in the shirt.  Too little and you do not get the coverage.  This is the goal of ALL the other parameters in the equation.  Any ONE parameter is not sufficient to achieve the goal, but the proper combination of All the parameters will achieve the goal.  Is it possible?  Yes.  Are the parameters the same for everyone?  NO.  Also atmospherics should be taken into account.  If you lay the ink on top of the garment and not in the garment, then you can achieve the "look" of opacity with higher mesh counts.  Therein is the rub.  Lower mesh count = more ink which increases the chances of penetration of the garment by the ink.  Higher mesh count = less ink and less chance of coverage, yet the higher mesh count is the best choice because of the higher chance of getting the correct amount of pl for the goal.  So a 110/80 mesh at 25N/cm² screen at 1/8” gap prints around 29N/cm².  This mesh uses 231pL [picoliters] of ink [not including the garment].

[jason-23]

Well this is all fine and dandy but what about underbase on a manual? I still don't know what is exceptable, one hit white flash then color or pfpf the white then color. My single hit whites are not even close to most of you guys, maybe it's my stencil thickness at 1/1 is not thick enough. Imh coating screens today and I will try more hits of emulsion to see.