Hats off to Murakami

[alan802]

I bought 4 murakami smartmesh 330S panels from shurloc a while back and those things lasted around 4 jobs a piece and they started busting for no damn reason.  I saw one bust when my guy was taping one up before production, it fell about 1" when he was spinning the frame around to tape the other side.  Those were super fragile and I haven't replaced them yet.  I was thinking of going down to a 310 S thread, or something similar.

[JBLUE]

You will love the 305 S It is fragile under too much tension. Any little burr on the frame and you hit that spot it will pop. For everyone that has popped I have been able to locate the source. Usually a little burr on the frame that got missed or on the locking strip. Even the clips can damage it and you wont know.

[ZooCity]

The 330/30 is more durable in my opinion than the next one down, the 310 of 305 or whatever it is.  The 310 is badass but were always getting remeshed whereas the 330 hangs tough.

Like JBLUE says, 9/10 times you can trace a pop to a rough roller edge.  You need to be super anal with the high TPI s mesh frames and polish those edges as well as the face of the roller, anywhere the mesh will touch needs to be glassy smooth.

[ScreenFoo]

Some easy math would place a 310S at 94% of the strength of a 330S....

(edit:hopefully you knew what I meant )

[Gilligan]

Alan at Murakami USA said that 330 is stronger than 310 and recommended it for us over the 310.

[Admiral]

I decided not to touch S mesh above 225 and also not to use 135LX or similar very fragile mesh but will be buying 10 or so frames worth of the 135S mesh next week. We have gone a long time without busting any mesh at all and I just don't want a decent size risk of it happening on press or just before.  I want it only at the reclaim booth and very rarely.

[alan802]

We never bust screens on press.  Maybe one because of a nicked flood bar in 6+ years. All our screens end up busting while not being used for some reason. Ha stow bust this week and the guys thought they could hide it from me by ripping out the mesh and stripping all the markings. They then put them in a huge stack of empty frames but they didn't know I counted that stack on Monday before I went to work in the receiving department. You should have seen their faces when I walked up to them with the two frames that once held 150/48.  I don't know if they're just honest or if I caught them off guard and they couldn't make something up because they weren't expecting it.  So I need to buy a few yards of 150 this next week and somehow get some screens stretched.

[JBLUE]

We busted a screen on press about six months ago from a flood bar by coming loose. Other than that  we we have not busted an S mesh on press. It's usually from falling on something or carelessness. The benefits of the mesh even in the higher ranges far out weighs the negitives for us.

[Admiral]

3 total screens have busted for me on press.  2 were on a full size back print of a 10,000 piece job, happened very close to the end, less than 400 shirts left for both.  Last one was on a polyester job large print as well...I think 500-600 piece job happened after 400 at some point.

I think it was more due to having a few squeegees that didn't have their corners worn down for the whole life of the mesh.