The Horror!

[mimosatexas]

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/for/4074356210.html

Saw this today and felt like sharing.  I cannot believe how filthy that press is, and the shop in general.  There is ink literally smeared on the wall!

[bimmridder]

Tell them not to clean it before shipping and you'll get about five gallons of ink with the deal.

[jvanick]

that press has nothing on how my Javelin looked when I picked it up:





looks real nice now...  (Of course, my press is a 91 and cost only $1000)...

-J

[mimosatexas]

I would pay a few grand for it in that condition without a thought, but not $28k+shipping.  I can only imagine it would need work if they can't even do the occasional wipe down or lint removal.  Makes me sad

Maybe I'll offer him 4 grand and hire a cleaning service to sweeten the deal for him.

[Socalfmf]

and that is why we do not use spray adhesive!

[mimosatexas]

seriously!  I ditched the spray adhesive within a few months of starting.  Tex-Tac is a miracle worker.

[StuJohnston]

My American came like that, a little worse in fact. Some of the adhesive is so hardened on it, it would take off the paint to remove it. So I am thinking about repainting it so that it doesn't look so terrible. Compared to jvanick, I overpaid ($1500)

Oh and WB spread on plus palette tape is the way to go for tack.

[Gilligan]

Nice press, but holy f, that is disgusting...

Yeah, I'm proud that I've never owned a can of spray tack EVER!

[jvanick]

I use the WB pallet adhesive as much as I can... of course, on hoodies and other fleece garments, we have to use web spray adhesive...

platten tape and watered down textac works great.

btw.. I believe it was Rich Hoffman that recommended to someone to use WD40 to cut the old plastisol and adhesive...  that worked great, and didn't take the paint off...  (you can get it in gallon containers that aren't pressurized as well).  Plus, it seems like it's easier to clean up the little mess we make now (the v-squeegees really fling the ink).  Getting my first chopper upgrade kit next week, might not be long before I 'upgrade' the rest of the heads.

-J

[3Deep]

Well at least on that first press the control panel is clean, they need to take a air hose to that thing then wipe it down, just think if that was a car he was trying to sell LOL.

Darryl

[Croft]

we use web spraytac and my press has never looked like that.

Tried the waterbase and it was a pain.

[mimosatexas]

slightly off topic, but what brand of platen tape are ya'll using?  We got some a while ago and it refused to adhere to the melamine we use to line our home built platens, would curl right off.  We just use a razor blade scraper every 1000 prints or so to refresh the glue.  Takes maybe 5 minutes a platen, but pulling off a layer of tape would definitely be faster.

What didn't you like about the waterbased Croft?  We have a little squirt bottle of it by the press, squirt a bit and spread it on with a paper towel, give it a quick flash and every 50 shirts take a moist paper towel and wipe back and forth a few times and literally all the lint comes off and it is good as new.  Spray tac had major issues with flashing, holding up after 10-15 prints before needing reapplied, lint buildup like crazy, and it just gets everywhere.  My gallon of textac has also lasted about a year now and its barely half empty.

[StuJohnston]

I'd have to check it out, but I am pretty sure it's actually application tape rather than tape made specifically for platens. Another difference is that my platens are rubber on aluminum. I think it's TransferRite ULTRA premask and application tape. At least that's what the 4" sample I have next to me says, if not, that should be the right brand.

I've heard of printers applying multiple layers of tape and adhesive so they can pull off a layer as soon as it loses tack, does anyone do this? I am having a hard time imagining how that would work and why it would be better than the wipe off with green cleaner method that I think mooseman had a video of.

When I first tried using wb tack, I couldn't figure out why it was so hard to pull the shirts off the platen. Then I started to dilute it…

It might be worth it to start a thread about tack methods in the general screenprinting subforum.

[3Deep]

slightly off topic, but what brand of platen tape are ya'll using?  We got some a while ago and it refused to adhere to the melamine we use to line our home built platens, would curl right off.  We just use a razor blade scraper every 1000 prints or so to refresh the glue.  Takes maybe 5 minutes a platen, but pulling off a layer of tape would definitely be faster.

What didn't you like about the waterbased Croft?  We have a little squirt bottle of it by the press, squirt a bit and spread it on with a paper towel, give it a quick flash and every 50 shirts take a moist paper towel and wipe back and forth a few times and literally all the lint comes off and it is good as new.  Spray tac had major issues with flashing, holding up after 10-15 prints before needing reapplied, lint buildup like crazy, and it just gets everywhere.  My gallon of textac has also lasted about a year now and its barely half empty.

Wow!! you can use a paper towel to spread tex tac, I use a squirt bottle also but if I tried to use a paper towel it would stick and tear up like crazy, I use a plastic ink card and then to get it back sticky I use a screen brush and a little water sprayer.

Darryl

[ebscreen]

The suggestion of two layers of pallet tape is for easier removal of the top layer.
No glue is applied to the first layer.

Web tac for everything? Yikes! If we use it for registration and a thin garment test print
you can see the webs in the print. Fleece only and the occasional oddball fabric.

We card our waterbased glue out of a mustard bottle. I have several sprayers (and really like
them) but haven't gotten around to setting them up after moving.