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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: mjrprint on May 11, 2012, 10:17:54 AM
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How do you handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?
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Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.
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How do you handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?
for $100, Rick Roth will send you the sample material you should get and tell you all you need to know to make it happen! But even with all the info, it is a pain in the behind. Printing is easy, but the prep and tear down are just too time consuming for small runs.
pierre
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Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.
We have 8 of them. There are still issues with them. If the inside zipper lining isn't exactly the same size as the small metal piece on the palette you get a gap still.
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Heres a pic of our zipper boards when they were new in 2006
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Ideally, you would have dedicated pallets for this with your rubber adhered with high temp contact cement (although I have done all right with both standard contact cement or spray flash adhesive in the past)
The best zipper boards even employ a two level stepped groove.
Action, of course, makes and sells specialty boards like this, but one may need some significant orders to justify and offset the expense.
We have 8 of them. There are still issues with them. If the inside zipper lining isn't exactly the same size as the small metal piece on the palette you get a gap still.
same here. We bought one and it is not really universal. It works well with some hoodies and it has issues with others. Eric did say that they improved the groove, but after printing with foam, it did not really make any sense to go back to it.
here's a pix of over the pocket print on a hoodie to show how well the foam works.
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3359.0;attach=2909;image (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3359.0;attach=2909;image)
pierre
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How do you handle cross zipper prints with plastisol? I am not happy with our current method. I have some soft top rubber that works for one color prints but I cannot flash that. I have found some high temp rubber that I am going to try. Now I have to figure out how to secure that to the palette and how to adhere the garments to it. Any ideas?
for $100, Rick Roth will send you the sample material you should get and tell you all you need to know to make it happen! But even with all the info, it is a pain in the behind. Printing is easy, but the prep and tear down are just too time consuming for small runs.
pierre
Well that was an interesting diversion from work. Just read a pretty great article on the guy. Seems like a great place to work. I really like his philosophy on employee compensation and taking care of the people that keep his business going. Don't find that attitude a lot these days.
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Hate to use a word oft mentioned by the one who shall not be mentioned but.....shims.
There I said it. Seriously though we use the Action boards and have a variety of these to compensate for different brands. Also use the foam boards. Each job is a bit unique.
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Hmmm never thought of shims. I'll try that.
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Hmmm never thought of shims. I'll try that.
we have also used a piece of rope and laid it in the groove then covered with masking tape. It raised the area to match the particular zipper type. Our biggest problem has been the wide gap as it seldom matches the zipper width or depth. Some shims n there could fix that too. Neoprene foam might be a good choice instead of something hard.
pierre
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The Action platens work pretty well for us. ITC, AA, Hanes, whatever hoodies. I do admit though we run them with the carpenter tape stuff from Home Depot in the grooves since all of the hoodies are different. We used to do the rubber platen thing but we have the change over pretty quick with these. And the art helps as well. This is when I love distressed art!
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a related question;
Do you guys cut the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?
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a related question;
Do you guys ct the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?
I always pull the zipper apart before sending it down the dryer. On hoodies with exposed zippers I use car pinstriping tape and tape the zipper so the ink doesn't get in the zipper. I take the tape off before it going in the dryer.
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a related question;
Do you guys cut the ink where it crosses the opening, or do you leave that to the client or end user?
nope, don't touch it. Leave the ink and everything right on the zipper. It either peels off or stays on permanently depending on the zipper type. Some customers want the ink on the zippers.
pierre
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I think it looks better on the zipper. Just my opinion.
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I have four home brew ones with steps like the action ones. works ok, not great and much better with the foam as the second step if that makes sense.
I either tape the screen to block out the zip or tape the zip and pull before curing. our otz prints are almost all AA, which have the open zip
Sent from my intelligent phone-a-majigger.
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What worked best for me are Independent hoodies with the "kissing zipper" these are designed for easier over zipper printing. Before printing I heat press the front of the hoody so everything is flat and smooth , a I also repeat this after the print to smooth down any ink build up. Printing was done on a platten with the zipper grove routed out.
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Greetings:
Allow me to offer some additional advice for using the Zipper Hoodie Pallets. First let us agree that not all zipper are the same. However - there is a great deal of agreement to the different brands. We machine the grove to be just slightly wider than the zipper. There has to be some play so that the zipper will locate into the slot in a reasonable amount of time without too much ministrations while loading. Also - we machine the slot to be very slightly deeper than necessary. It is expected that there may be some taping required in the channel to bring the print area to the perfect height.
It has been reported to me by a number of people that they compensate within the artwork for the area that goes over the zipper. There are many ways to do this. But if you restrict the amount of ink over the area in question, it helps greatly. This works well because the zipper is located in the channel.
We do offer the 1/4" neoprene rubber that can also be used for this application. It helps but has poor flash compatibility.
Hope this helps.
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Greetings:
Allow me to offer some additional advice for using the Zipper Hoodie Pallets. First let us agree that not all zipper are the same. However - there is a great deal of agreement to the different brands. We machine the grove to be just slightly wider than the zipper. There has to be some play so that the zipper will locate into the slot in a reasonable amount of time without too much ministrations while loading. Also - we machine the slot to be very slightly deeper than necessary. It is expected that there may be some taping required in the channel to bring the print area to the perfect height.
It has been reported to me by a number of people that they compensate within the artwork for the area that goes over the zipper. There are many ways to do this. But if you restrict the amount of ink over the area in question, it helps greatly. This works well because the zipper is located in the channel.
We do offer the 1/4" neoprene rubber that can also be used for this application. It helps but has poor flash compatibility.
Hope this helps.
I think my problem was that I assumed it was quick and easy solution for everything that has to do with zippers. That is not the case. It is on the other hand a solution that needs a little tinkering with to produce very good results. If you (Action) could put some suggestions on the web and on the paperwork that accompanies the plattens it would go a long way. Maybe even get some insight from the ppl using them and include it as best practices (what to do with what brand of hoodies for example). I did not even know about the neoprene you offered. It is a great idea!
pierre
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Thanks for all the suggestions guys. After some web digging I found a high temp foam I am going to try on the pallets. A little pricey but if it works I'm ok with the price.
http://store20.prestostore.com/catalog.php/rsrstore/pd2143856 (http://store20.prestostore.com/catalog.php/rsrstore/pd2143856)
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ah, silicone, sounds like a good idea!
Sent from my intelligent phone-a-majigger.
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Now the problem I have to figure out is how to cover the foam with something I can them tac so that the hoody stays put.
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Now the problem I have to figure out is how to cover the foam with something I can them tac so that the hoody stays put.
why can't you just brush/roll/spray the foam?
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Now the problem I have to figure out is how to cover the foam with something I can them tac so that the hoody stays put.
why can't you just brush/roll/spray the foam?
The inside of our fleece is super soft and sticks to the palettes like crazy as it is. I would want to avoid that kind of build up on the foam.
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That's a major problem for all of us, with any board and/or rubber.
My thought was maybe that the soft top rubber may be too delicate to hold up to sticking and unsticking.
That was a problem I had with my first soft tops from Advance 15-20 years ago.
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When I use foam on my boards I just put pallet tape over the top and then wrap it under the board to hold the foam down. I then brush on tack to the pallet tape. You don't want to put tack on the foam, especially if you want to reuse it.
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Going to order the foam today. I will let you all know if it works out.