Goal - wet on wet.

[JBLUE]

Plenty of good info here but the one factor that really needs to be addressed..

The guy pulling the squeegee has no clue what he's doing and until he learns WHY he's doing what he's doing, all he'll ever do is mash ink into a shirt.

You need him to take the lead on learning how to be a better printer and start reading technical publications. Best place for that is screenweb.com which is the online database for screenprinting magazine.

What he said. A good printer can still print well, in fact better than most even with sub par crappy equipment.

[alan802]

The lower your tension levels are the more buildup you'll have.  If you use statics make sure they're quality and as tight as you've got.  You can do fine printing with statics as everyone has said but this is one of those areas that low tension screens add to the buildup problem.  I can't really tell you where the magic mark is for tension that buildup begins to get better but we used to have terrible issues with buildup and most of our screens were under 15 newtons.  You also need to use higher mesh screens.  When using an ink that is not really formulated for WOW printing the buildup is directly related to the amount of ink being deposited onto the garment and the best way to regulate that is with proper mesh selection.

As far as mesh specs go, thin thread mesh is typically better at everything except durability.  Thin thread mesh will deposit a thinner deposit of ink yet it's usually more opaque because of the pressure needed to shear the ink is much less and more ink ends up sitting on top of the shirt rather than in it.

Another benefit of printing with higher tension is it allows you to print faster, therefore the mesh isn't in contact with the substrate near as long on subsequent screens leaving less time for buildup to occur.

A lot of these tips are subtle and may be hard to see happening and it's all up to the shop doing the work as to what you're willing to put up with and what is acceptable.  You can see I'm a proponent of high tension but I recognize you can do fine work with statics.  You cannot do great work with 10 newton screens (plastisol) in my opinion but I'm sure someone will try to say they can.  15 newtons...yeah, you can pull some quality stuff off and at 20 newtons you can absolutely do great work.  You just can't do the work quite as fast as you can with 40 newton screens.

[Stinkhorn Press]

Thanks for everyone's input so far. Good stuff.

Bang for my buck - next week I'm taking Pierre up on his generous offer to walk me around his operation. I'll try and stop by and annoy Dennis at DK as well. Looking forward to that.

SCREENS:
Let's assume I am sticking with statics for the meantime:
Our screens need to be higher mesh count. Ok.
And they must hold decent tension. What exactly is decent appears to be relative to personal experience/equipment/requirements. Ok. With statics - under 15N is not great, but holding over 20 after a couple of jobs is also rare?
I've never measured the tension levels of new screens as they come in.
What's the best tension I can expect coming in? (150/180/230)
How far should I expect that to drop after a couple of jobs?
What suppliers can consistently delivers decently high tension, or does it require bugging someone/anyone extensively? (suppliers I am familiar with/have used - multicraft, rhino tough, nazdar, richardson, ryonet, ace)
Should pretty much any supplier be offering thinner mesh thread options? Murakami S is the only branded thinner mesh I've heard named specifically, is there a reason for that?
Does sending frames back for a remesh save much more than pennies after shipping?
Alan, I think I saw you have a list of combinations of mesh count/diameter - some higher counts/ thinner that are pretty comparable (print-wise) to lower count/thicker meshes and specifically some combinations that you thought just didn't work at all - is that something I should be aware of, bad or less than helpful combinations? Any rule of thumb to get to those conclusions or is it just test test and test some more?
On another thread I saw it suggested that even if the screens aren't super high tension, it helps to have them all within only a relatively small variation in tension to eliminate different tensions as a variable while trying to figure out everything else. Seems sound.

INK
I talked with my One Stroke rep, Mark on the phone and asked a couple of questions.
He tells me the 480 series we mostly us won't be great for WoW, but shouldn't be as bad as a straight up poly ink.
He said they have an older series, the 700 series that is thinner and should work better, but that it IS just 480 with more base and recommended we just get some base and mix our own to try it out.
I'm dumb when it comes to ink. What properties am I looking for in a good WoW ink? Will the ink that I use printing color over a plasitsol underbase be the same I would use if I was printing without an underbase on a light color shirt? Is there any good articles on the different ink properties that I should be considering? I feel I'm over my head here.

Underbasing with discharge doesn't sound insurmountable. I cut my teeth as a printer in a WB/Discharge shop using Matsui products.
Mostly we print on 50/50 (many direct consumer instead of re-sellers so the initial size staying the same is one of the most important aspects) - Can discharge white on a blend get the garment light enough to be a great underbase?
Our main problem with discharge is we have a small electric 8-element workhorse dryer and it simply can't get even a basic lightweight 100% cotton shirt to discharge fully with one pass. Second problem is ventilation. Fumes. The technical aspects of discharge printing I think I'm comfortable enough to start with, but without fixing those two things I don't want to tread too deep.

Plenty of good info here but the one factor that really needs to be addressed..

The guy pulling the squeegee has no clue what he's doing and until he learns WHY he's doing what he's doing, all he'll ever do is mash ink into a shirt.

You need him to take the lead on learning how to be a better printer and start reading technical publications. Best place for that is screenweb.com which is the online database for screenprinting magazine.

Agreed. In the last month I've been working on setting up responsibility for each employee position mostly involving education/improvement. I will probably insist the printer make use of this forum soon too boot. Just a little juggling of expectations of meeting due dates and still having the time to do the other stuff (cleaning the shop, education/training improvements, cross-training).

TL;DR:
- what am I looking for in a decent static? where from?
- what properties of ink am I looking for?

I appreciate all the help and advice. Thanks.