Screen Printers Wish List

[Printficient]

my biggest:

A solvent dishwasher.  A place I can put all of my squeegees, floodbars, ink knives, mixing trays and so on in and get them all cleaned.  This is more important for ink knives frankly, but something that would take 15-20 minutes maybe to clean ink off a load of stuff.  I am a huge fan of automation, something that an employee can start, walk away from and come back to them ready to use.  Something similar for screens would be great too, i know they exist, but the price tag is just a little too high for most shops.

Working to include this with the thing-a-magig youlwill be getting in Jan.

[TCT]

my biggest:

A solvent dishwasher.  A place I can put all of my squeegees, floodbars, ink knives, mixing trays and so on in and get them all cleaned.  This is more important for ink knives frankly, but something that would take 15-20 minutes maybe to clean ink off a load of stuff.  I am a huge fan of automation, something that an employee can start, walk away from and come back to them ready to use.  Something similar for screens would be great too, i know they exist, but the price tag is just a little too high for most shops.

There is a automated screen washer from Screen Systems that removes ink from screens. We have had them make modified shelves that can drop in it, you can put squeegees and what ever in that and walk away. Since it is made to take ink off screens it would have you covered there too. If you are interested you can PM me and I can get you the sales guys info.

[Inkworks]

The automotive painting industry has auto solvent washers for paint guns.

[starchild]

E

My wish list?

It's short:
1) Standards.



No more mystery. Industry wide standards for color, registration systems, substrate suitability, etc etc.

Offset and digital printing has had this sh*t down for decades. Heck we stole (and for the most part badly implemented) their color standards.

You can arrive at a result fifty different ways at fifty different screen printing shops. It's never a question of what, it's always a question of how. Gimme standards.

I agree.. A Certificate Of Analysts for all inks, emulsions and mesh readily available to
all printers (Not just the large accounts) so that there's no guessing when putting together a print production.

And put me down on the web app team for the screen print supply super store..

[mk162]

standards for this industry will never happen.  there are way too many variables.  i was talking about this with the great Greg Kitson and the variables are what is preventing our industry from turning into a vistaprint or other bulk printing company that turns stuff out cheaper than just about any local company.

[starchild]

Well the standards would be set in your operation and having all measured and tested data on materials will help in putting these standards in place.. We will approve or disapprve of a particular ink for instance, but did we not pick the correct mesh/stencil combo for that ink and that's why it didn't work or did we get lucky through trial and error/R&D and that's why it did.

The most effective screen is stretched by percentage of elongation but that is based on it's stress/strain curve (wait what?  how am i supposed to get it's SS curve?)  And it gets worst when it comes to the inks values.. So we try and try..

The CoA is available to all printing industries except the garment decorating industry (The industry that has the most variables to contend with).. and thats because the other industries carry larger accounts. You should and supposed to request a CoA from your suppliers.. (Ok let's just look at your acc.. Yea ahh no..)

[Evo]

Yep, this would be a big one. I wonder how much pressure you'd need to remove white plastisol from an ink
knife?

Basically a Safety Kleen heated aqueous solution but pumping through a dishwasher. That's blast white ink right off.

You're biggest issue would be filtration maintenance.

[DannyGruninger]

my biggest:

A solvent dishwasher.  A place I can put all of my squeegees, floodbars, ink knives, mixing trays and so on in and get them all cleaned.  This is more important for ink knives frankly, but something that would take 15-20 minutes maybe to clean ink off a load of stuff.  I am a huge fan of automation, something that an employee can start, walk away from and come back to them ready to use.  Something similar for screens would be great too, i know they exist, but the price tag is just a little too high for most shops.

Maybe this will do..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CkzqDTQaA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[jvanick]

adding that (and a screen washer) my wish list... for sure...  tho with how many color changes we seem to go through here, I'd buy the 'tools' cleaner before the screen washer.

Of course that's after a LED UV exposure unit and gas dryer....

-J

[TCT]

As long as we are wishing, it would be nice to have no supplier be more than a 2-day ship away. Yes this could probably be taken care of if I was a better planner, but who has time for that!

[mk162]

planning is not a forte of screen printers

[mimosatexas]

not true. I have backups of basically every consumable in my shop, sometimes multiples.  I have materials on hand to fix and fabricate equipment.  I have a fairly comprehensive production schedule, though obviously rush jobs and certain clients can mix that up at times.  I found that a bit of time planning makes everything a hell of a lot faster and less stressful.

I do agree it would be nice if suppliers were better at shipping quickly.  Suppliers like Ace transfer will two day ship to me from wherever the hell they are located, yet texsource is 3 hours from me and simple in stock items can take a week and a half at times.  I buy from my local shop as often as possible, despite not always being the best deal, because I find that when you really need something quick, they often can press the issue better with manufacturers.

[broadway]

Less Goverment involvement. Here is a thought to help cleaning, someone should coat their flood, squeegees with Rust oleum's "never wet" and see if it works with inks.

[GaryG]

Funny as can be "with sound effects" wishing away...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leYzdc00jKE

[ebscreen]

not true. I have backups of basically every consumable in my shop, sometimes multiples.  I have materials on hand to fix and fabricate equipment.  I have a fairly comprehensive production schedule, though obviously rush jobs and certain clients can mix that up at times.  I found that a bit of time planning makes everything a hell of a lot faster and less stressful.

I do agree it would be nice if suppliers were better at shipping quickly.  Suppliers like Ace transfer will two day ship to me from wherever the hell they are located, yet texsource is 3 hours from me and simple in stock items can take a week and a half at times.  I buy from my local shop as often as possible, despite not always being the best deal, because I find that when you really need something quick, they often can press the issue better with manufacturers.

Under my desk I have a gallon of emulsion, 6 rolls of tape, 2 boxes of gloves, discharge agent and a quart of Yellow WB pigment. Basically everything we need to get through a day or two if the kids forget to tell me we're out of something. The longest we've ever been down was about 2 hours once, due to the flame
rod on our dryer going out. We have two of those now, among other things.

I don't stand for lazy suppliers. I just don't stand for it. You tell me when your shipping cutoff time is and as long as I order before that time I expect
it to be shipped that day. I mean, no offense, but "go around and put the stuff in a box and ship it" is a darn sight easier than "take the stuff out of the box
and somehow make printed shirts happen". Not to mention that me placing an order for specific items is a hell of a lot less complex than me divining what
the hell our clients actually want. Maybe a purple longsleeve. Yeah.