How I feel trying to use dischage and understand it

[ebscreen]

We've picked up more than a few clients due to discharge.

They don't know what it's called, or what it does, but they know how it looks and feels.

[GraphicDisorder]

The good thing about a DC base is flashing and heat is not an issue. That has been 100 percent of my issues here with 5 plus color jobs. That would make printing a 7 color on a 8 color press easy. You really just need to mess with this stuff. I have been doing it for 3 months and its not as easy as they say but it has advantages. You have to stop wanting it to be something else. Its a tool. Its not perfect. White is not white, get over it. You can't print one white screen and have it be your showing white and underbase for plastisols. Screen prep is more time consuming and its alot easier to make reject shirts. I have yet to have a customer complain or even point out the print as a bad thing. I personally think its a better product to wear.

I think as a under base it will certainly improve the product.  No doubt there.  I am certain we probably migrate that way, I wanna see some real world prints from some of the guys that are sending me some and ill make some choices.  Adding time to screens doesn't sound fun, thats probably where our shop struggles the most since we dont have dedicated people for screens. 

[Screened Gear]

Its not alot of time depending on your emulsion. I just ran 100 shirts with out doing anything more then taping the top of the screen. I usually only tape the bottom. Each shop will be different about how much extra time it takes to do DC. I already have been using CD emulsion so there was no change there. I used hardener as a just in case but then decided not to on this 100 1/1 discharge run to test for breakdown without hardener. Not one issue at 100 shirts. (Aquasol HV)

[cvreeland]

Here's how I look at discharge -- it takes longer and is more difficult that plastisol, but it yields a superior print. So... I charge more for it, and market it as a premium product.

That said, I have never been too happy with discharge "white."  It's never really white, & the thicker the ink gets trying to make it opaque, the worse problems I've had with screen dry-in, etc. I gave up with that pretty quickly. Now, if a client wants a pure discharge print, I disclaim it, letting them know upfront that it'll have a superior feel, but will not be bright white. Only a small subset of clients want this. Exact Pantone matches with straight discharge are impossible. I also warn clients about this upfront, & of course even the educated ones will occasionally balk at a press check.

90% of the time, we use discharge as an underbase. We use the Sericol Texcharge & I add just enough white to the clear base to be able to see what I'm doing, maybe 5%. I add a bit of water to thin it down & I use a hard squeegee & double-stroke it & drive it deep into the fabric, then flash that before overprinting with plastisol. The premium factor here is that I can generally run the white highlight & colors on 230 mesh & hold superior detail. We do a lot of 7, 8 & 9 color prints on top of discharge underbases, and we can keep the lines crisp by running the colors on fine mesh, & they wash & wear pretty well.

You do need to measure your activator carefully -- if you add too much, it thickens up & dries in too quickly. It's not like more=better infinitely. With the Sericol, I usually go a percent or two below the max. recommended amt. just to avoid it getting gooey & drying in. It's hard for the press operator to catch that when it begins to happen gradually.

You'll want a water-resistent emulsion, & we harden our screens. They're a pain to reclaim, but that's a sunk cost we recover in the upcharge.

Recap: Yes, it's more difficult. If it were easy, anyone would do it. Charge more, accordingly.

Once I got good at it, I found that on long runs, a 6 color print on a discharge underbase was appreciably faster & easier to run that a 6 color print on a big blob of plastisol printed through a 110. You don't have to tell the client this if it comes to that, because again, you're now charging for your expertise.

[JBLUE]

^^^^^^^^^^Well said^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

We do pretty much the same here as above. Nice post cvreeland!

[GraphicDisorder]

Nearly everything we print is 3-4 colors per job, often per side.  Many times we are doing 3/5's 3/6's 4/5's 4/6's etc.  So ya its a big deal if anything helps the process along.  Its also a big deal if it screws with the process.  I will asses things when I see some prints from real world operators that I know can print....rather than someone pushing a product on me (supplier). 

From there I am sure I can make a choice.  I know one thing, I can't have it adding much time at all to our screens, at least now how we are currently set up.  We do not have a dedicated team to deal with screens.  We have re-claimers, but Shelly still coats and burns all screens. 

[cvreeland]

It's not a whole lot more work to replace your plastisol underbase screen with a discharge one. It takes a minute or two to add hardener. It's a 1/1 trade with a couple minor extra steps. I feel like I more than make up the few extra pieces of tape with the increased productivity and margin I get out of discharge. There was a learining curve, but it's worth it, really.

Also, If you're stopping your presses to make screens, you really should do the math. Keep close track of the time you spend NOT printing because you're making screens instead, figure in how many shirts you could have made in that span of time, & see if the potential profit is enough to cover the labor of a full-time screen-maker. I've always had a screen guy or gal, even when we had one auto, or when we were running 3 manuals because it eased traffic flow enough to justify the cost because we gained that much productivity at the press each day.

[GraphicDisorder]

It's not a whole lot more work to replace your plastisol underbase screen with a discharge one. It takes a minute or two to add hardener. It's a 1/1 trade with a couple minor extra steps. I feel like I more than make up the few extra pieces of tape with the increased productivity and margin I get out of discharge. There was a learining curve, but it's worth it, really.

Also, If you're stopping your presses to make screens, you really should do the math. Keep close track of the time you spend NOT printing because you're making screens instead, figure in how many shirts you could have made in that span of time, & see if the potential profit is enough to cover the labor of a full-time screen-maker. I've always had a screen guy or gal, even when we had one auto, or when we were running 3 manuals because it eased traffic flow enough to justify the cost because we gained that much productivity at the press each day.

In context we are designers, so of course our press doesn't run every day.  Our business isn't a typical screen print shop at all.  We do massive amounts of design work here every day.  We also do embroidery, and we are just 3 persons full time, 3 part time.  We are unlike most shops, most shops on this site print every day, we even go a week without printing at times.  Other weeks we may print 4-5 days.  But generally we print about 3-4 days a week.  We embroider 5 days a week almost always though.

[Gilligan]

6 figures in each division!

We aren't ones to let "doors" get in the way of or dictate growth. 

But yes it feels great to grow WELL into 6 figures in a year

Nah, just $35 dollar scales.  You work on that scale and I'll work on defying the laws of physics.

[GraphicDisorder]

6 figures in each division!

We aren't ones to let "doors" get in the way of or dictate growth. 

But yes it feels great to grow WELL into 6 figures in a year

Nah, just $35 dollar scales.  You work on that scale and I'll work on defying the laws of physics.

A $35 dollar scale isn't standing in the way of anything around here but at this point it is actually FAR more entertaining to NOT have a scale.

[RICK STEFANICK]

6 figures in each division!

We aren't ones to let "doors" get in the way of or dictate growth. 

But yes it feels great to grow WELL into 6 figures in a year

Nah, just $35 dollar scales.  You work on that scale and I'll work on defying the laws of physics.

A $35 dollar scale isn't standing in the way of anything around here but at this point it is actually FAR more entertaining to NOT have a scale.

BRANDT, the only thing we use our scale for is adding activator. any other mixing is done by eye.. hope that makes you feel better..your not alone.

[GraphicDisorder]

6 figures in each division!

We aren't ones to let "doors" get in the way of or dictate growth. 

But yes it feels great to grow WELL into 6 figures in a year

Nah, just $35 dollar scales.  You work on that scale and I'll work on defying the laws of physics.

A $35 dollar scale isn't standing in the way of anything around here but at this point it is actually FAR more entertaining to NOT have a scale.

BRANDT, the only thing we use our scale for is adding activator. any other mixing is done by eye.. hope that makes you feel better..your not alone.

OH NO, HOLD THE PRESS!  LOL

[alan802]

BRANDT, the only thing we use our scale for is adding activator. any other mixing is done by eye.. hope that makes you feel better..your not alone.

Same thing here.  I was using our scale to measure all kinds of stuff, like ink deposit and anything else I was wondering how much it weighed, but now all we do is weigh our discharge ink and activator.

[patfinn]

Haven't read through everything but. Saw u guys talking about a 35$ scale. They're ok. I went through about 5 of the cheap ones until I found this..
 http://balance.balances.com/scales/262/

Great scale not to expensive and works great! Highly recommend getting one.

[GraphicDisorder]

Got some samples from some very kind people on this board.  It gave me a great idea where I should be and honestly our first go was very close to what I am seeing in these samples.