screen printing > General Screen Printing

sticky film problem

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ebscreen:
I generally don't reuse film either, except for a few jobs that I store.

I do however put all film "currently in use" in a basket
that says "currently in use" in case a screen pops or was burned on the
wrong mesh or whatever the case may be. In an already rush situation,
it sucks to have to go back and print a film. (typically wasting more from
the roll/sheet)

Never had this problem before Fixxons.

D-Min/Max is the density minimum and maximum of a film. In a nutshell what's important to
us is that there is good contrast between the most dense (printed) and least dense (clear) area.

Fixxons has good D-Max but the D-Min ain't so hot. Makes for less contrast. The clear area
of a film should be crystal clear.

We're at %55 humidity average here, and my cabinet is half that. Just sayin....

Frog:
I just picked up a dehumidifier on Saturday in SF, up in the foggy Twin Peaks area and the humidity was 70%!
Came home, plugged it in and it read 50%

mooseman:
we have this very same problem, not using Fixxons film but we are using a waterproof brand.
We have pulled ink out of the film coating and emulsion off the screen. Times are when the film is so stuck to the screen even soaking it in water will not help.

Have no fear a fix is quick and simple. get some body powder the cheaper the better abscent perfume and oils I guess is best.

Rright before we expose we throw a couple shots of powder on the film side of he scren and kinda dust it around with a towel for a nice even coating.
We end up with a slightly powder caoted screen and the sticky problem is GONE!!!!
We don't see any down side to the quality of the stencil but have discovered the powder tends to retard the penetration of water to the stencil at washout. A little wipe down wth the flat of my hand in the washout booth solves this and everything is good again. Best of all your screens smell good too.

respectfully
mooseman
 

Denis Kolar:
I use Fixxons and have the same issue. In Ohio it gets pretty humid too. I have dehumidifier and I keep it at the lowest setting. I think it is 35 or 40%. I have not noticed that it takes of that much ink so it would be an issue if exposing again. I think that my problem is that I expose as soon as I'm done printing. I think that the films should sit for a while to allow to completely dry.

alan802:
We've dealt with this issue for years now and it's only on pure photopolymer emulsions, and only on those screens where the eom is fairly thick, 110's-156's predominantly.  I've done everything to our darkroom to insure the screens are drying properly, humidity levels are at 32% and the temp is from 80-85 degrees and regardless of how many days the screens are dried, it will still happen.  I'm all about trying to fix the issue instead of putting a bandaid on the problem, but I've spent many hours trying to get rid of the problem and it's just too quick and easy to put a light dusting of baby powder on the screen and wipe it around, 3 seconds and you're done. 

Maybe our screens aren't dry, but I can tell you that they can't get any "dryer" than they are, and we use waterproof film.  We used to flip our images and put the backside of the film into contact with the stencil, but you loose definition and burning halftones is a challenge so I don't recommend using that technique unless it's just big spot color jobs without tight registration.

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