Tape to protect mesh?

[alan802]

This mesh busting thing is a problem at our shop, well I think it is.  We bust at least one a week, and probably 60 total last year and I've tried a lot of things.  I've yelled, I've thrown things across the shop, I've been super nice, I've been indifferent, humiliating, compassionate, you name it and nothing has worked.  I almost lost a good press operator over one of my tyraids and things are still the same.  I wish I could say it was all the thin thread mesh but the regular thread and newman mesh busts just as often as the Murakami so I don't know what to do.  I'm convinced it's employee mishandling that does it, but nothing I do is working to fix the problem.

[ScreenPrinter123]

Alan,

You haven't caught on -- they do that to give you something to do -- re-mesh a screen :-P.

Brian

[Binkspot]

We had some trouble when I started pushing the Newman's. Found the guy reclaiming was using the power washer to try and get the tape off or a glob of emulsion. When he hit these spots instead of pulling the tape off or hitting it with more emulsion remover the screen would just pop. Also had trouble with him leaning them against something instead of using the rack. Needless to say he is gone and haven't lost a screen in months.

[ebscreen]

This mesh busting thing is a problem at our shop, well I think it is.  We bust at least one a week, and probably 60 total last year and I've tried a lot of things.  I've yelled, I've thrown things across the shop, I've been super nice, I've been indifferent, humiliating, compassionate, you name it and nothing has worked.  I almost lost a good press operator over one of my tyraids and things are still the same.  I wish I could say it was all the thin thread mesh but the regular thread and newman mesh busts just as often as the Murakami so I don't know what to do.  I'm convinced it's employee mishandling that does it, but nothing I do is working to fix the problem.

Double check your shop layout/screen flow as well. Damage can come from unforseen places and doesn't necessarily pop the screen
until other stress is placed on it, IE hard flooding or retensioning. Walk a screen through it's lifecycle.

[ScreenFoo]

^^ +1 Definitely.  I have a few telltale holes (in lines) from floodbars being setup while the press is on contact registering, as well as a few screens with 'crap in the ink' scratches.

That's one of the things that stinks about any of those tapes though, you can start a hole under the tape that you can't see, and it might hold for a day, or it might hold a month.  Makes it hard to track down where the problem was.

Alan:  Pretty rough if S threads AND newman mesh is busting at a similar rate.  Are they still mostly splits near the channels?

[abchung]

I have problems with alignment clips when I remesh 305. If I am not too careful with inserting them or sliding the locking strip, the clip would put micro cuts into the threads.

[BorisB]

I have problems with alignment clips when I remesh 305. If I am not too careful with inserting them or sliding the locking strip, the clip would put micro cuts into the threads.

This same trouble made us go for panels on 305 mesh. They last way longer than when stretching from 305 bolt mesh.

[Evo]

Mindset. It's all in the way you think about the screens, and the way the employees think about the screens.

Offer incentives for "X number of days without a broken screen" and clearly stated penalties for obvious abuse.



I always kept this image in my head: "This highly tensioned screen is actually a shallow pan made of thin glass..." It helps.

[Parker 1]

"This highly tensioned screen is actually a shallow pan made of thin glass..." It helps.
[/quote]

I read this here before and have been using it ever since.  We still bust an average 2-3/month.  I did see a decrease in the number of busted screens when bringing the tensions down to 30-35N from 35-40N, depending on mesh. 

[alan802]

^^ +1 Definitely.  I have a few telltale holes (in lines) from floodbars being setup while the press is on contact registering, as well as a few screens with 'crap in the ink' scratches.

That's one of the things that stinks about any of those tapes though, you can start a hole under the tape that you can't see, and it might hold for a day, or it might hold a month.  Makes it hard to track down where the problem was.

Alan:  Pretty rough if S threads AND newman mesh is busting at a similar rate.  Are they still mostly splits near the channels?

About half of them occur with a vertical rip that is about 6-8 inches from the frame edge that stops just shy of the softened corners, then 25% or so have a hole in them from "something" and the other 25% have such a blatant 4-way split that it's obvious some idiot dropped something into it or leaned it up against something.  My corners are good, if anything too soft.  This has been a problem for well over a year and I'm normally an obcessively observant person and when I'm out back, I see literally everything and then some.  I know how it's happening but I just can't seem to get it through their head how important taking care of the screen is.  I've got a good crew that could be great if this would stop, so I don't want to do anything drastic or make an example out of someone.  I've got at onery printer who is loyal and damn good who is a pain in my butt most of the time but I wouldn't trade him for anyone but myself, and my other two guys are young and could very well be all-stars in the making.

I honestly don't think it's the stretching technique, I can take any mesh at least 3 newtons past it's maximum tension level if I want to but the past year I've been staying a few newtons below the recommended max tension of the mesh just to see if that was the issue.  When I first started stretching, I took every mesh count up to the top number on the spec sheet.  If it said max of 40 newtons, that's where I stopped.  Tension meter is calibrated, and it's been babied beyond belief so I know it's true, corners are soft/too soft, but I'm not to prideful to again look at my technique in stretching.  I sand the channels regardless if there is an imperfection and I've not seen but one or two screens where the rip started at a channel. 

Sorry to hijack the thread here, we can split this thing up if someone wants to continue this discussion, it's a good one to have.

[cvreeland]

"This highly tensioned screen is actually a shallow pan made of thin glass..." It helps.

That's how I approach it with new people. "Handle it like you're carrying a piece of glass." We lose more to spatulas when digging ink out, or from them being stacked roughly, or unevenly, like with the middle of a frame leaning on the corner of another. Whenever I see this happen, I will gather folks around and have a nice, calm 2-minute refersher seminar on how to do a thing, like lift ink out of a screen without slamming the blade into the mesh. We lose very few frames, really. Maybe 1-2 a month.

People who don't do the job the way I nicely ask them to do the job don't last long here. If you'v got a better idea, great -- I'll listen and evaluate. Until then, just do it like this.

I have my screen guy examine them against a light to look for micro-holes before retensioning, and most of the time, we can put a dot of superglue over the hole and it'll survive for a while like that. We'll elect to re-stretch them when the glued holes start to get in the way of being able to image them, but it'll stop a tear 99% of the time.

[cvreeland]

Ha, on-topic, we use the Polyken 2" solvent-resistant white tape.

[Evo]

BTW - I had several screens I always kept at max tension that I used 3" Gorilla tape on. Many many reclaims, zero issues. That stuff rules. You HAVE to wait until the screen is thoroughly worked and re-tensioned though because it's permanent. More so than even the white Polyken tape.

Tape inside and outside on a freshly re-claimed screen, and burnish the tape together through the mesh in the corners. Makes the screen ready for war.