A New Player in the Panel Game

[Homer]

all we use now are Green screen / trax / panelframes -whatever you want to call them and a few statics. we make our own mesh panels because NOBODY makes them for use glorified static frame users that are worth a damn. On the nazdar website, their demo is in the high 20's with their trax panels. I call bs. Is there anyway we can get some sure locs to work with these frame systems? with my own panels, S mesh is at 24n and my regular mesh counts are in the high 20's...


click frames @ 30? not a chance.

[blue moon]

we've been using the EZ frames and I am having a hard time switching to Newmanns. The convenience and quality is just hard to beat.

pierre

[Rick Roth]

"Thump test?"

They are "Ok?"

It is called "screen" printing and you need to use good screens.

Why would any of you settle for mediocre screens?

I don't think for most situations that you need crazy high tension, but you need enough tension that you can't tell by feeling it or thumping it,  you need to test with a tension meter.

You either need a good vendor to re-stretch your screens, or own a very good screen stretcher  yourself, or use newmans. Maybe there are other options but I don't see good screens in shops using much else besides those options.

I would buy new ones from GSF and send them back to be restretched to them or use Newmans.

Your screens basically need to be good enough day in and day out so that they are not a variable in the process. There are enough damn variables in screenprinting without adding any more.

[Frog]

Next you'll be telling us we can't even trust the full faith and credit of the good ol' USA! 

[Dottonedan]

Next you'll be telling us we can't even trust the full faith and credit of the good ol' USA! 

I was going to post something like that. As usual, Frog beat me to it.


I'd say that (most of) print shops around the US print with marginal techniques, and are satisfied with those results. In addition, most of if not al of their customers as also satisfied. It's those that are not, that become THE shops in the industry. The ROTH's. The Coudreys, They Andersons, The Nike's, the GIANT MERCH etc.

When you get feed back from these types, it it most often, (THE CORRECT) answers. It can be done with less, but not as accurate and consistent. Still tho, these answers they provide, are often based on their needs to higher tolerances and larger production runs. Not often a major concern for the young shop that does not have a desire nor a customer base that requires much more.

For example, A thumb test may be a "good enough for now" choice for a shop that has an average of 24-48 shirts and does 10-15 orders a week.


What we offer here on this forum is the opportunity to hear from a wide variety of experiences. We will be hearing the best ways or the most accurate ways as well as various ways others do things. You need to obviously choose for yourself where you will apply what method. In the end, I'm just glad we do have the people chiming in to provide the right or best way as well as hearing from others how they can work around things.


Early on, I would post up info based on my experiences of working at Co's that could afford the best toys (tools) and we used the and researched out the "right way" and when I would pass this info on to others on the net, they would reply to me as if I were from Mars and sometimes even in anger or frustration. Many cannot understand why one would waste so much money on something of so little value to them or why I'm even telling them such irrelevant info (to the masses). But it's only because they just don't know or don't have the need to know or go that far.

[Nation03]

Looks like a Panel Frame without the powder coating, which is a good start. I have 6 panel frames or trax frames, whatever they go by now. The green powder coating was a horrible idea. Stuff flakes off like crazy. Shurloc makes a far superior product no matter what, but these frames are 'decent' for a shop with limited space that needs to frequently change out mesh types.

[ABuffington]

There is a reason that fine artists use red sable brushes for water color and ox bristle brushes for oils.  They work better to create fine art.  They don't go to Home Depot and pick out any brush.  Screen Printers struggle quite often because they don't use products or screens that are the best they can be.  The ease of use of quality mesh and emulsion makes it very easy to print perfectly without all the hassle.  Screens that register well and transfer ink perfectly along with emulsion that doesn't breakdown seems like a far better way than screens that lose tension, don't register easily and emulsions that breakdown or have poor resolution.  I look at a screen this way, If it doesn't hold dot on dot register for the life of the screen (unitl it pops) then I have wasted money, as well as knowing that a press that isn't printing is burning money rather than making money.  Ok it's a Monday, I'm in sales pitch mode.

[alan802]

Using good screens is the difference between one shop that can do an average of 15 setups per day per auto and the shop that can average 7, with the screens being the only difference.  I am friends with many shops that use statics with poor tension and I feel like when I talk about using only good screens that I might offend some but I only talk about it because I know with 100% certainty that if a shop used properly tensioned screens that they'd eliminate about 80-90% of their issues in their shop.  I was skeptical and we used terrible static frames for almost 3 years, then when I started using only our highest tensioned statics (not easy when only 15 of your 100+ screens were 18 newtons) every day issues would not pop up.  The way the CTS users on this site try to convince everyone else how great they are is the way I am with properly tensioned screens. We do this because we know how big of a difference those things make in a shop.  But the difference in making those changes is that one costs hundreds and the other costs big money.  It's easier to convince the powers that be to spend $1000 versus $75K for a machine that they've never even heard of, but the impacts are huge in both cases.  I know the numbers we do at our shop don't always translate because we all have different averages in color count, shirt color, job size, but here are numbers from our shop that will translate:  We worked several hundred hours of overtime between 3 full time production guys to do about 700 jobs in 07', and now with 3 full timers (really only need 2 full and 1 part timer) and zero overtime, we'll do around 1400 jobs this year, and the screens are the biggest difference between now and 07'.  We use properly tensioned screens and thin thread mesh and those two variables eliminated most all of our problems that we had back in 07-09'.  Ok, preaching over, I'll go back to watching that new video from the M&R screen room. 

[tonypep]

Which is very cool. M&R spent some considerable time on pre-press over the last several ys and it shows.
We are practically all wb so tension=non-issue for us. Especially on 30" wide shoulder to shoulder prints!