squeegee angle/pressure for cmyk?

[rusty]

Hey, we are starting to do more CMYK and was curious on other peoples squeegee angles and pressure. As of now I am at around 55 pressure and almost straight down for squeegee angle. Doing 400 pieces today so any suggestions is helpful for best results.

I am printing on a diamondback on 305 screens

Thanks in advance

[Dottonedan]

High pressure bothers me. 55 to me is on the higher end.  I’d like to be down near 40 with 1/16 off contact depending on the garment type. This is part of the recipe for printing up on top of the shirt and not down into it. If high pressure, you are losing Image definition by smashing the print and dots into each other. May be blending (too much) IMO.

Tight screens (all very similar in tension).

[rusty]

High pressure bothers me. 55 to me is on the higher end.  I’d like to be down near 40 with 1/16 off contact depending on the garment type. This is part of the recipe for printing up on top of the shirt and not down into it. If high pressure, you are losing Image definition by smashing the print and dots into each other. May be blending (too much) IMO.

Tight screens (all very similar in tension).

I'll give that a shot

[3Deep]

Very loaded question, that has too many answers, but the best advice I can give you is very sharp squeegee's 70/90/70, very tight screens 25n's and up, 230 mesh ct and up, good art seps, good inks other than that trial and error,  good luck to ya

[rusty]

yeah, I am not expecting specific answers, just kinda looking for references to save some time

[Doug S]

Another thing Rusty is the squeegee stroke speed.  I run ours as fast as I can possibly get away with and it still clear the screen.

[blue moon]

try 5 degree angle, twice as fast as your white ink and minimum pressure you need to clear the screens (start at 25psi and keep adding until it clears). Youll also need a sharp and hard squeegee, 70 durometer or more.

pierre

[blue moon]

p.s. and as Darryl mentioned, you need the right inks. Union CMYK is supposedly the best. For it to work right, it HAS TO BE translucent!

pierre

[SERJ]

For printing CMYK I use the squeegee 80

[Prince Art]

Don't forget that speed & pressure, by affecting ink deposit, affect color outcome. I remember running a repeat design awhile back that included a lot of gray. In order to avoid any color cast, you had to dial in the the speed & pressure per screen less to meet a certain spec, and more to get the right color.

[MAYB TMRW]

We just went automatic (Sportsman EX) and had our first CMYK job since moving into auto of an image of a plaster sculpture. Colors were suppose to look very tan with white, light magenta, and grey tones on a white shirt... They wanted to barely see the image. We could not for the life of us get it right. The print came out very color casted and unprofessional. I told them I really didn't want to let this job out the door however, these guys whole branding is based around imperfections so they loved the fact it's what I would call unacceptable.. 1 in a million bullet dodged.

Regardless of our terrible print.. I will say, I can't wait to print a proper CMYK or Sim process on the Sportsman as the consistency over manual printing is nuts. Spend the time to dial in your settings, test, test, test, test, then run it! But overall agreed.. 70/90/70 & back off on the pressure! I also find dropping my chop down to 7/8"-1" helps. We try not to exceed 50psi as a standard.