Thanks again for all the input. It has been an interesting week to say the least and have made some discoveries and changes to the screen making process. I know some of this is off topic but it is all related.
After this thread took off I went back to the shop and started playing again. Adjusted my exposure times with much better results, still need to dial it in a little more. But spending 3-5 minutes exposing a screen is not going to cut it around here. I will be keeping my adjusted times where they are at now until we decide which emulsion will work best for us. I have ordered a pail of the KIWO discharge to try. If this works well it is what I’ll use if not move on to the Aquasol HV. We were happy with our current emulsion but needed to change to work with WB and discharge. If we are going to make the switch now is the time for us to do it coming into our slow season and gives me time to play and get it right before we start humping again.
I have been coating 3/2 for the past 7 or 8 months for a better stencil thickness. Most of the stuff we run is contract work that needs to be turned around quickly and usually one to three spot colors, not real detailed work. So that being said I can usually get one hit light or white ink on darks doing 3/2. This keeps the jobs running faster still achieving a quality product and getting more out the door each day. Most of the screens we use are 150-180 mesh for this work although we have everything from 25 to 355.
This got me thinking why can’t I coat 2/1, others do it so I started looking more in detail what and how I was coating. When we first started printing a friend of ours who did some crazy amazing printing showed us how to coat 2/1 and it worked great. Then someone who will remain nameless told us there was a better way so being naive we started coating his way. This is when the things started going south in the stencil world for us. I wasn’t at the shop all the time and they just struggled with it instead of trying to figure out what the problem was and fixing it. When I came on board full time a little more then a year ago better stencils was my first goal. I did my research, watched others coat, talked to a bunch of people at different shops and started coating 2/1 again. As I got better at coating I was trying to achieve the “Best Stencil” and one hit white so I started increasing my coats first 3/1 then ended up at 3/2 and ending up with better stencils. I use four different coaters, one for each size frame. I looked carefully at a bunch of screens, all different frame sizes. I always had real thick stencils on our 20x24 and 25x36 frames but the 23x31’s were always thinner and the quality less consistent even with the 3/2. First thing I did was lay all my coaters on the exposure glass and noticed the one I use for the 23x 31’s was twisted and the lip was higher than the end caps, the other three were flat. So I coated some 23x31’s using the smaller scoop 3/1 and 2/1, dried and burned them. Using a good scoop coater I able to get good results using 3/1. So I picked up a new coater and started playing again. After some experimenting with the new coater I am happy to say we are now down to 2/1 using the glisten method on the 23x31. I have also started coating the other sizes 2/1 with good results. I believe my whole problem with the stencils was the 18” coater. Since that was the one I used most I applied the same technique when coating the other screens. Trying to achieve a thick stencil I was actually doing more harm.
All the screens get the squeegee before leaving the wash out booth. I have used air to blow water out of screens when we are in a rush but always afraid of messing up the screen or stencil. The same goes for the power washer blowing out the image, afraid of messing up the stencil. I do use the shop vac regularly to suck the water off the screen. I will be trying the power washer this coming week to see what happens. Then will run an air line up to the washout booth and start using the blow nozzle. I do need to be careful if others try using the washer and air they do not harm the screen or stencil. All the screens end up in a rack horizontal in the screen room to dry in the winter, outside in the sun during the warmer months. I will also post expose screens after drying in the screen room for longer runs.
Don’t get me wrong I am not trying to reinvent the wheel and once I find something that works I’ll stick with it. But I am always cautiously trying to improve our operation. Bottom line is I just want to make the right choices for our shop and as painless as possible. There is always something new to learn or improve on. Sorry to ramble on like this but just very excited about the accomplishments I have made this past week.
