Chemicals...which vendor

[Ron Pierson]

Hi all...I'm considering changing vendors for all our chemical needs. We are using CCI at the moment. We do about 300 screens a day so our usage of chemicals is high. We use all CCI products, from emulsion, press wash, degrease, dehaze, emulsion remover, ect. Which company do you use and why. 

Thanks in advance for all response.

[TCT]

A lot of what we use is Screen Systems. They are local to us and I like the people there. Not sure where you are but they have 1 day shipping to a good part of the midwest.
If you are interested call Ben 612-750-3355

[ericheartsu]

we use CCI and Franmar right now. both are just ok, nothing has blown me away.

i will say xenon nova emulsion is amazing though

[Printficient]

Ron, Having used most all of them in my day including beta testing quite a few the Xenon chemistry is as good if not better than all others.  Disclaimer I work for Xenon and the above statement takes proper use of chemicals into account.  Call me if you want to talk about the chemistry to replace your CCI apples to apples.  404-895-1796

[brandon]

Hey Ron,
Where are you located? If you are on the West Coast and like free shipping and are interested please PM me

[GKitson]

Hi all...I'm considering changing vendors for all our chemical needs. We are using CCI at the moment. We do about 300 screens a day so our usage of chemicals is high. We use all CCI products, from emulsion, press wash, degrease, dehaze, emulsion remover, ect. Which company do you use and why. 

Thanks in advance for all response.

Warning, ranting to follow......

This falls into my pet peeve category, lots of printers who don't understand how to use their screen chemistry properly.  Lots of good products out their but most people waste incredible amounts of time and $ by not understanding how to use the 'stuff'.

We have visitors and clients who simply can't believe our low chemistry cost per screen and high units per hour throughput on screen reclaim.  We just pay attention to the process and save tons of money and more importantly time.

Test the various products and READ THE #*@$ INSTRUCTIONS, they are mostly very similar, and then cut the best deal for your shop.

Done ranting.

~Kitson

PS.  It always amazes me how much people pay to ship water!  If you don't know what I mean, FIND OUT!

OK now I am really done ranting.

[IntegrityShirts]

In my opinion.....

Franmar One-Step for the dip tank (hated eaisway supra)

Easisolv 701 for ink removal AND degreasing in one step (I've never de-hazed screens)

If there's something better out there that does exactly the above in a more concentrated or cost effective manner, I'm all ears!!

[blue moon]

just to make sure we keep things in perspective, Ron is doing 300 screens per day! He has 4-5 washout booths and probably as many ppl dealing with the screens. What works for us at 30 screens per day, might not be relevant to him at all.

Lets think from his perspective when answering. As Greg pointed out, we can get away with shipping water every other month, Ron would have to do it every other day. He is going consuming in a day what some of us consume in a month or more.

Something else to think of is the disposal. What we can possibly dump out in smaller quantities requires different approach at his level.

so what are the issues?
-shipping
-disposal
-efficiency (cost vs performance). When paying 5 ppl to wash screens, slow acting stuff might end up costing more.

Ron am I missing anything?

pierre

[ScreenFoo]

I've been jumping boat on some CCI stuff and going with their bizarro equivalent--ICC.  Their rep is knowledgeable and friendly, and is always willing to compare apples to apples.  They don't make you pay to ship water either.

[Ron Pierson]

Hi All....

You all nailed it. Greg - Pierre.....you guys are on the money for sure here.

We DO pay close attention to ALL costs in the process. For sure - we read the instructions, even cheat a little. We have auto ink removers (just a big dishwasher - LOL) and use a great deal of chem in this thing. At 300 screens a day, thats 300 flood bars and 300 squeeges as well. (well...we reuse the white and blacks alot). The cost of dehaze is getting out of hand as well as the CG-4 we use for the de-ink process. We figured out how to cut our tape cost by 95% however. just the labor alone in taping and de-taping was a cost we really needed to look at. Let's see...30 seconds to apply tape (squeege side) ...45 seconds to remove it....300 screens a day - - you do the math here. We are moving to DTS later this year as well, lots of ROI can be had in this area. The cost of good screen racks is something to look at. Get cheap ones and you will have more issues than you may first see. Good pressure washers are a must!! (we have 2 - one for emulsion removal in its own stainless booth and one for de-haze in sepreate stainless booth). Squeeges have their own stainless booth as well - CG-4 is used for this process.

Yep - we spend a ton in this department. At the end of the day - none of us get paid to "clean up" after our screens, squeeges, and flood bars are done with their job. Managing this "clean up" cost is one to pay close attention to - at any level of production.

Greg - I hate shipping and actually buying water...but delivery every Tuesday is free at this level. (I should re-look at the water thing....)

Thank you all - I learn so much here - the lessons are invaluable!!

Ron

[JBLUE]

Hi all...I'm considering changing vendors for all our chemical needs. We are using CCI at the moment. We do about 300 screens a day so our usage of chemicals is high. We use all CCI products, from emulsion, press wash, degrease, dehaze, emulsion remover, ect. Which company do you use and why. 

Thanks in advance for all response.

Warning, ranting to follow......

This falls into my pet peeve category, lots of printers who don't understand how to use their screen chemistry properly.  Lots of good products out their but most people waste incredible amounts of time and $ by not understanding how to use the 'stuff'.

We have visitors and clients who simply can't believe our low chemistry cost per screen and high units per hour throughput on screen reclaim.  We just pay attention to the process and save tons of money and more importantly time.

Test the various products and READ THE #*@$ INSTRUCTIONS, they are mostly very similar, and then cut the best deal for your shop.

Done ranting.

~Kitson

PS.  It always amazes me how much people pay to ship water!  If you don't know what I mean, FIND OUT!

OK now I am really done ranting.

This rant is so true. Not only not reading instructions but mixing manufactures together and then wondering why they have a problem.

[inkman996]

I stick to one manu only. CCI has always been consistent and works as advertised if you use the right combination. Like white inks I have tried every sample of chemistry ever and rarely do i find anything I like compared to CCI. But even if I did find something decent it usually does not play well with the other stuff. I only buy the highest concentrate emulsion remover so not as much shipped water and cut it about twice as much as the manufacturer recommends.

[ebscreen]

CCI, ships free over $300. We get our discharge base/white from them so that $300 ain't hard to reach.

We use GemZyne in the dip tank. Pound for pound (or whatever the equivalency unit of stripping emulsion is)
it's cheaper than the meta-bi.

CitraPaste for ink removal, stays "open" longer than the harder stuff. Started buying this in 5's, should
have done that a long time ago.

TS305 on press/color change. Don't go through hardly any of this.

RenuIt for stains. (wb black stains are unlike anything plastisol has to offer)

SR97 for spot removal. Don't go through much of this either.

Simple Green for degreasing. I'm a sucker for anything that smells like licorice.


I tried a bunch of their photopolymer emulsions and didn't find one I actually liked. Wish
I did, that would almost have me at one vendor.

So yeah, CCI.

[ericheartsu]

renuit is the only dehazer we've been using, but i believe that also may be one of the biggest reasons for our newmans poppin!

[inkman996]

renuit is the only dehazer we've been using, but i believe that also may be one of the biggest reasons for our newmans poppin!

I very very much doubt renuit is causing that. Renuit is far from those other dehazers that can actually eat the mesh off your frame, in fact you can let renuit dry over night reactivate and rinse out the next day. We do this for the really stubborn stains, if that doesnt work the screen gets trashed.