Author Topic: Print 2 Colors at one time with 1 screen.  (Read 2023 times)

Offline Prōdigium

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Print 2 Colors at one time with 1 screen.
« on: June 05, 2011, 01:57:23 AM »
Please Note: This trick is for automatic printers , but might be something you could do manually if your willing to cut some special squeegees.

Many years ago , when I was still a printer running an automatic at a very good friends shop, he got a huge order for these youth design shirts that had a bunch of stick figures in 10 colors. The press I was on only had 8 heads (7 with a flash) and at first my friend was going to turn the job down because it was simply too many colors....but as I looked at the art, an idea stuck me that the design lent itself to being separated in a way that allowed it to be turned into a 6 screen job. And that is exactly what we did...as you can see below some of the colors only printed on one side of the shirt. So I constructed some cardboard dividers and used Polyken tape (very sticky) to tape them. I then built some special squeegees with a divider in the middle and used the smallest (4") floodbars we had to ultimately do 10 colors with only 6 screens and NO FLASH!

 
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Offline DouglasGrigar

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Re: Print 2 Colors at one time with 1 screen.
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2011, 03:54:11 PM »
Please Note: This trick is for automatic printers , but might be something you could do manually if your willing to cut some special squeegees.

Many years ago , when I was still a printer running an automatic at a very good friends shop, he got a huge order for these youth design shirts that had a bunch of stick figures in 10 colors. The press I was on only had 8 heads (7 with a flash) and at first my friend was going to turn the job down because it was simply too many colors....but as I looked at the art, an idea stuck me that the design lent itself to being separated in a way that allowed it to be turned into a 6 screen job. And that is exactly what we did...as you can see below some of the colors only printed on one side of the shirt. So I constructed some cardboard dividers and used Polyken tape (very sticky) to tape them. I then built some special squeegees with a divider in the middle and used the smallest (4") floodbars we had to ultimately do 10 colors with only 6 screens and NO FLASH!




Creative ingenuity always makes me smile.

Thanks Lance.

Hey, how about a post about your new adventures, not just about the industry but you personal move to your new area?

Got any neat photos?
When there are no standards, you must make them!