"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
I thought that high tension is not nearly as important a trait when we are diving WB ink into the fabric as when trying to get a thin deposit only on the surface as with plastisol.
Thats correct about tension. A typical belt screen is 52"x65" and high tension can cause penetration issues. I've probably run about a dozent belt printers from Precision Screen Machines to M&R and even used to demo them at trade shows when they were all the rage. At Precision and elsewhere we would make our own WB inks as the manufacturers mostly didn't care about us. Their main business was and arguably still is for the roller print factories printing yard goods. You had to buy the pigments in 5 gallon containers and yes, back the certain ones were prone to molding. Some may remember pole dryers wher towels and cut pieces were draped over poles that wre drive via chain and sprocket. This was the only way to achieve sustainable production. Laying pieces flat would require such slow belt speed to cure all that WB. This was often overlooked when companies would invest in cut piece equipment. Also overlooked were screen prep issues such as coating, burning, stretching, sinks, etc. And lets not forget labour. A typical press crew was up to six people. Most belt printers were contract shops servicing the cut and sew businesses. Careful time studies revealed that many were actually losing money yet retail could not bear the brunt of severe price increases.So at the end of the day U.S. printers (at least the smart ones) got out of that niche and watched it migrate south of the border when NAFTA opened that door.Good Times
It can be but what killed it for US anyway was cost of equipment over 1/4 million dollars (with sinks, exposure units, dryers, etc), in some cases double the labor at half the throughput and increased off quality; well, you do the math. Cut and sew was more efficient but thats all gone south where labor $$ make more sense. All over printing platens run slower, require an extra loader, same OS screens/squeegees, can have deflection issues due to weight, and generally you'll need one set of platens for every two shirt sizes (thats often overlooked at Point of Sale!) and at around $800-$1,200 per platen thats a lot of beans. Plus many of them have a nasty habit of pinching the armpits. We were the Beta site for these at Harlequin and Oats.Thats why I'm putting together a sigle station oversized manual table. One color allover WB/DC, one person, with a dedicated dryer. Using stuff we already had laying around like old school kick stands this actually will cost nothing