Degreaser

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

i degrease after EVERY screen cleaning...i dont use haze remover unless i have a serious haze image in the screen which is next to never...I was taught, told and read that u MUST degrease after every reclaiming of the screen.

[tonypep]

Not necessary. Sometimes what we are "taught" is not necessarily accurate. Doesn't hurt but why bother?

[Grumpy Ole Artist]

I have been told this recently also...So, what causes, and wadda y'all do about "fisheyes" ?
My reclaimer is having a serious on-going problem with this (amongst her other job quality issues)
I tell her to make absolutely sure that no drips are coming from "ceiling" of washout tank, or to hold it out to front of tank (past "drip line") while doing final rinse. I think a lot of the problem is her lack of attention to detail, I never had this many problems when I was doing it. Ideas?

[cleveprint]

we have not degreased in years. was told we do not have to.

[Grumpy Ole Artist]

Along the same lines, what are y'all using for pressure washers? (brand, psi, gpm) I have been kvetching for years about the cheap, low gpm flow units, the cheap bosses keep bringing in every 10 months or so.
I keep burning them up, and they keep on a' buyin em! "It's ok, we got an exended warranty!"
AAARGH!

[tonypep]

The most common cause of fisheyes is backsplash. More common with single sink scenarios. If one has the luxury of multiple sinks then a simple water rinse should eliminate the issue. In the screen room less chemicals=better.

[Gilligan]

Along the same lines, what are y'all using for pressure washers? (brand, psi, gpm) I have been kvetching for years about the cheap, low gpm flow units, the cheap bosses keep bringing in every 10 months or so.
I keep burning them up, and they keep on a' buyin em! "It's ok, we got an exended warranty!"
AAARGH!

AR620, not a big fan of the wand, but it works well.

[mooseman]

We are pretty small 1 person shop, we reclaim about 6 - 10 screens at any time and always degrease, simply enough we use Dawn dish soap & water and a car wash brush that we keep away from other contamination. Takes only seconds to soap them up and hose them off, we do not get fish eyes unless we post wash splash the screens.

Also we also have found that when we have to spot hit a washed screen with the pressure washer to blow out a stubborn spot there is a noticible difference in the way the water drains off the reblasted area....we hit it again with the soap brush.

i have been thinking about testing Cascade dish washer soap for my degreasing stage just to understand the benefits offered there relative to draining / drying but have not got to try that out yet.

PS my pressure washer is a couple years old so it is not a result of contamination from a new machine and we are on municiple  water.
mooseman

[balloonguy]

We degrease EVERY time. Many years ago I was having trouble exposing low mesh screens. I was burning Ulano ProClaim for 40+ minutes on my 40w BL exposure. My screens were still showing signs of under exposure. I spoke to tech support from all the chemical companies that I was using, tested the bulbs and timer... I was going crazy. Doug Grigger asked me what I was using as degreaser. Well I wasn't. I never knew I should. Next screen exposed at 6 minutes and it have been smooth sailing for the last 10 years.
In my opinion it is well worth the extra 1 minute per screen.
Matt

[ScreenFoo]

I think it's cheap insurance.  I don't degrease if I'm reclaiming and screens are going right back to be coated, but once they sit for a day, they've turned into pumpkins as far as I'm concerned.  A couple of specks of dust, and your halftone screen is a reject--and you may be contaminating your emulsion as well, if you don't run two buckets.

[Inkworks]

Our screen rack/drying box blows filtered air into the box creating positive pressure so any door opening results in air coming out, not dust going in.

Zero fish-eyes here, but then we have a meticulous screen guy.

[ZooCity]

We only seriously, actually degrease when mesh is brand new.  There are lanolins/conditioners that need stripped off. 

After that, we just spritz 'em with degreaser and rinse it around on the mesh right before final flood rinse and going in the box to dry, no scrubbing. Takes about 5s and less than a penny's worth of degreaser.

I don't see a need to scrub the screen with degreaser every time if the reclaim is done right.  I do see a need to soap up a little and ensure the reclaim chem's are neutralized and rinsed clean of the mesh. The milder dehazers we use all seem to "stick around" a little in the mesh, especially since we rest them overnight with dehzer on.  Also, screens stored out on the floor need a rinse/dry again before coating anyhow from the dust/lint accumulation. 

So that's why we do it.  I say if in doubt, degrease.  If you test and you don't need it then screw it, rinse and straight to drying.  We've always seen fisheyes when not doing it.

[Homer]

I think it's funny, some guys -HELL NO, and others -all the time...haha. very last step for us is a mist of simple green or this other stuff called white lightning or some damn thing. deluded by 75% water and it takes all of 5 seconds to spray it on. we do a heavy rinse anyway so why not. I was reading some labels the other day and I do see that a ton of the haze remover are also a degreaser but we don't always haze...

after degreasing, we were hitting with compressed air and that stopped the fuzz but my in-line filter got a bit of oil in it...guess how awesome that batch of screens looked?! ...

[Shanarchy]

Dip tank, power wash, haze remover, power wash, rinse, coat (cap film) in the drying cabinet.

We have used degreaser in quite a long time. And we use capillary film. I haven't noticed any issues. We use either easisolv 701 or Franmar dehazer.

[mimosatexas]

We get fisheyes when we don't degrease, regardless of how carefully we rinse.  I literally never dehaze though as no amount of ghosted image has ever affected one of our prints.  Any idea why?

We use aquasol hv, easiway 500 to reclaim, pink stuff to degrease.