Squeegee and Floodbar Clearance in the UP position

[jvanick]

I recently was questioned about the squeegee/floodbar clearance on my Javelin Chopper heads, and I know the Sabre is built on a lot of the the same technology as the Javelin. 

I run winged flood bars, so in order for them to work correctly, I at least need to flood at a straight up and down angle, and I like to print mostly nearly straight up and down as well... in fact, when using double bevel squeegees, you HAVE to print straight up and down.  In order to create clearance, I had to shim my print arms with 1/4" shim stock. 

This got me to thinking tho... what is the 'typical' clearance when printing straight up and down like this?  With my shimming, I was able to get just over 1/4", this seems and feels low, and in fact, does cause me troubles when carding ink.

What type of press are you running, and what's your clearance?

Our new Sportsman is arriving on Friday, so we won't have to deal with this much longer, but now I'm really curious as to what others are seeing on their presses.

[alan802]

RPM, we have ours setup with the pallets and screen hangers so that the screen is a little over an inch away from the bottom of the squeegee blade, and I don't know for sure about the floodbar but we run winged and regular and the clearance should be the same as the squeegee.  I also have ours set so that when I set our off contact to 0.00, the screens are just a hair from touching the pallets and are at a true zero off contact when the shirts are on.

[Screened Gear]

This is the one thing about my MHM e-type that I don't like. I have about a half inch of clearance when the squeegee is up to the mesh. Depending on squeegee angle and off contact it gets more or less. It does not effect anything when printing but when adding ink in the beginning of a run you have to flatten the ink out so it does not just stick to the back of the squeegee.

[Binkspot]

I shoot for blade vertical at least a 1/4" usually try for where I can slide my pinky under it. Like Jon said higher would be better so that first print stroke doesn't cover the front of the blade with ink.

[jvanick]

I shoot for blade vertical at least a 1/4" usually try for where I can slide my pinky under it. Like Jon said higher would be better so that first print stroke doesn't cover the front of the blade with ink.

is there an adjustment on your press for the 'up' position chopper?  Or do you get this by playing with the screen hangers and the resulting platten heights?

[Binkspot]

When I level print heads I shim accordingly. I installed two presses a few years ago I had to add 1/4" shims under each head to get the 1/4" clearance plus longer bolts. I have seen a few presses that came from the factory with shims because the stack wasn't right.

Your new press shouldn't be a problem the way it's built, the stack is set in the proper place before welding.

[jvanick]

agreed on this for me with the new Sportsman.  It's getting delivered on monday... can't wait!

I've been hearing reports of new Sabre owners having the same problem I had on my Javelin, which is sorta what prompted this post, along with curiosity.