Let's talk dip tanks...

[Donnie]

Thinking I might give them a go.  I know a tank is a tank but looking for a good reasonably priced tank and what chemicals are the best?

[Inkworks]

We've found the diptank to be about what we thought we'd get after reading all the opinions out there.

Does it save time? Probably, a little.

Does it remove ink and emulsion in one step? Mostly, sort-of.

First let me say we card off all the ink reasonably possible with putty knives, no big blobs or the like are left when it goes into the diptank.

Cons we've found that I never saw mentioned:

-Wet on wet screens don't reclaim well. If there is a skim of ink on both sides the chemical doesn't really get to the emulsion as the ink acts as a barrier. The chemical really needs to be in direct contact with the emulsion on one side or the other.

-Ink comes off with the emulsion because the emulsion is dissolved, but the ink is still mostly the same old wet plastisol that smears everywhere. It makes a mess of the washout tank as it's not water soluble like it is when an ink degradent is used. Consequently the backlit washout tank needs a rinse with ink degradent after reclaiming screens to get rid of all the splotches of wet plastisol.

-Because of the above the frames are more prone to little ink smears which I've found to be showing up on the exposure units. Our screen guy has taken to wiping the frames with a rag after reclaiming and drying, before coating.

I guess I'll look into other chemicals, but unless the new chemical actually degrades the ink on it's own as well as disolving emulsion, I can't see it as being much better. Also it's not cheap to fill a diptank with new chemical to see if it's going to work any better.

If it doesn't dissolve the ink, then, in my opinion, it's just a faster way to apply emulsion remover and probably not worth the cost for us. It makes very little sense if you have to de-ink before using the tank.

I always kept in the back of my head that if we didn't like it as a reclaiming tank that it could become a developing tank. the next few months will see if that's destined to be.

[mimosatexas]

I LOVE mine and would not go back to reclaiming by hand.  The two major benefits to me are making it easier and faster to reclaim hardened SP1400 screens used for discharge, which took substantial effort when just scrubbing on by hand, since they can just sit inthe chemical until soft, which ties into the second benefit: LESS SCRUBBING.  I pull it out of the tank and pressure wash off everything, then apply 701, rinse, and i'm done.  One scrub instead of two or three, and I can reclaim faster.  I use Easiway Supra in my tank, and use Easiway 701 for haze and degrease and have had no issues with screen breakdown or haze since I started using this combo.  Evo suggested it and he has posted some awesome info about dip tanks in the past on this forum.

Developing tank is also awesome and I would not go back to spraying and waiting.

[jvanick]

I LOVE mine and would not go back to reclaiming by hand.  The two major benefits to me are making it easier and faster to reclaim hardened SP1400 screens used for discharge, which took substantial effort when just scrubbing on by hand, since they can just sit inthe chemical until soft, which ties into the second benefit: LESS SCRUBBING.  I pull it out of the tank and pressure wash off everything, then apply 701, rinse, and i'm done.  One scrub instead of two or three, and I can reclaim faster.  I use Easiway Supra in my tank, and use Easiway 701 for haze and degrease and have had no issues with screen breakdown or haze since I started using this combo.  Evo suggested it and he has posted some awesome info about dip tanks in the past on this forum.

Developing tank is also awesome and I would not go back to spraying and waiting.

I agree 100% and will add that I use the same procedure except:

- I use Xenon Plastiwash in the parts washer, with a gong brush, and do a quick rinse BEFORE putting it in the tank.  This gets 99% of the plastisol off and doesn't let it go down the drain or congeal in the bottom of the tank.

- Same Easiway Supra in the tank

- I use the same 701 as a Haze remover

- I use Xenon degreaser after... (even tho they claim 701 works as a degreaser -- we've had much better screens if we degrease after the 701)

(Developing Tank rocks too... would never not have one)

[bulldog]

I got my dip tank from Ryonet. If I had to do it over I would not get the 2 in 1 chemical it came with and go with something more like the Supra. The 2 in 1 it came with does nothing for water based ink, but I use mostly plastisol anyway. That being said it is still great and is 10x as productive for me. I would not give it up. I can get 8 20x24 screens in the tank at once. I cut some pvc pipe to fit in the grooves to hold the screens down since they want to float up.

I card as much ink out and take off my tape and just put it in. When I pull it out and spray it out I still get some ink left in the image area. I spray some Franmar color change on both sides and give it a quick scrub and pressure wash again. Then degrease and dry. If I used the Easiway stuff I could probably be even more efficient but I'm still happy.

I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.

Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?

[ScreenPrinter123]

We use this CCI diptank: http://www.ccidom.com/products.php?product=________EnviroLine%C2%AE___________--------DST%252d1-Dip%27N-Strip%C2%AE--Tank

We also have an easiway diptank but prefer the CCI.  We use Supra, 701, and a dehazer and also will not go back to pre-diptank reclaim.

Once our Supra loses its punch I am going to try CCI's version due to price and I am told it is more concentrated but this is just hearsay.

[jvanick]

For development:

I use an aquarium pump to agitate the water.. (not air tho, just the submersible pump).

I think it helps with the water getting funky.

depending on the emulsion, I leave them in for 2-5 minutes... sometimes longer if there's half tones and I'm using dual-cure emulsion... just makes it easier.

For reclaim with Supra:

3 minutes or so (or about the length of time it takes me to fully clean a screen from the tank)  -- again, this depends on the emulsion you're using.  sp1400 needs to soak longer to make it really easy to reclaim, PP - Nova with no diazo -- 30 secs MAX in the tank or it's falling right off.

[Frog]

I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.

Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html

[Binkspot]

We love our tank, would not even try to have a shop without one.

We have used the Easiway stuff that came with the tank, Saati ER-4 and CCI Microwash II. IMO the CCI stuff works best for the one step ink/emulsion remover. Screens are carded, dipped, power washed then scrubbed with Saati IR-18, rinsed and racked. First set of screens set in the tank for about 15 min then we pull one out, lift the next to drain and add two more. Then we start rolling the draining one goes into the booth, next one is pulled to drain and one is added and keep going until we are finished. I agree with Inkworks about the ink splatter in the washout booth but as we spray the IR18 some gets on the back of the booth and when power washing the next screen clean the booth at the same time. I also add 6-8oz of straight emulsion remover to the tank every week to keep the tank hot.

I would not agitate the tank, if the emulsion starts coming off in the tank it will start killing the solution, shorter life span. We had someone leave screens in the tank over night and it killed the tank.

[bulldog]

I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.

Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html

Hey Frog, I get this message when I try that link:

The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

I get that now and then when I try to look at something. Am I too new here? :-)

[bulldog]

We love our tank, would not even try to have a shop without one.

We have used the Easiway stuff that came with the tank, Saati ER-4 and CCI Microwash II. IMO the CCI stuff works best for the one step ink/emulsion remover. Screens are carded, dipped, power washed then scrubbed with Saati IR-18, rinsed and racked. First set of screens set in the tank for about 15 min then we pull one out, lift the next to drain and add two more. Then we start rolling the draining one goes into the booth, next one is pulled to drain and one is added and keep going until we are finished. I agree with Inkworks about the ink splatter in the washout booth but as we spray the IR18 some gets on the back of the booth and when power washing the next screen clean the booth at the same time. I also add 6-8oz of straight emulsion remover to the tank every week to keep the tank hot.

I would not agitate the tank, if the emulsion starts coming off in the tank it will start killing the solution, shorter life span. We had someone leave screens in the tank over night and it killed the tank.

Oh yeah...I wouldn't agitate the reclaim tank. If I load 8 screens at once by the time I get to about #5 the emulsion is practically gone as it is.

[alan802]

If there is a shop that isn't getting significant time savings from a dip tank versus the old school way then there is a few things to look at.  Maybe you're far beyond most shops at efficient reclaiming by hand which is possible but I'd venture to guess that the dip tank steps could be done differently and you'd see much faster reclaims.  We've used just about every chemical out there for our dip tank and the 2 in 1 stuff doesn't do what most expect it would, and we've gone to using just an emulsion remover in the tank and remove the ink prior to dipping.  A great ink degradent is important.  It should take 30 seconds or less to spray and scrub the ink deg. and then spray it out and then dip the screen.  The more ink you're able to get off the screen the faster the screens will reclaim once you take them out of the tank.  I am always going back and looking at our processes and we have ER and ink deg in spray bottles and I can do it the old school way and get about 10 screens finished in an hour, more if it's high mesh.  With a good ER in the tank and good ink degradent you should be able to reclaim 20-25 screens an hour via dip tank.  I've heard and seen close to 30 screens/hr with a dip tank but a good number to shoot for would be 25 and if you reach 20/hr, then you're doing good.  I think someone could get close to 20/hr by hand but I think that would be a small minority that could get that far without a dip tank. 

[sqslabs]

We switched a few weeks back from One Step Clear to CCI Gem-Zyme and have been really happy with it so far.  It mixes 20 to 1, which is great for us as we have a 80 gallon dip tank and it doesn't even take a 5g of chemical to fill it up.  With what we had leftover after filling it up, we just mix 1 quart at a time of chemical into a 5g bucket of water and use that for topping off the tank.  I can't speak yet for its longevity, but I've heard others reports that its done quite well in that category as well.

[mimosatexas]

bulldog: I believe you'll need 10 posts to view that subforum, so you're almost there

Using the dip tank took me from: 701 (scrubbing then soft rinse), ER (scrubbing then pressure washing), dehaze (if necessary, scrubbing and pressure washing/soft rinsing), degreaser (soft rinse).  4 steps and 3 scrubbing sessions AND a lot more water usage.  My arms hurt after 20 screens and it took forever, especially on those super thick 2/2 coated screens or hardened and post exposed screens for discharge.  I maybe could have skipped one of those steps or a rinse here or there, but quality of the final screen always suffered if I tried to increase efficiency.

I have seen no difference in screen quality with degreasing after the 701, but I am also VERY thorough when I soft rinse after pressure washing off the 701.  I have thought about adding something like the liquid renuit on some of my waterbased screens or on some plastisol colors, or when a screen has sat all week before reclaiming.  The 701 doesnt hit quite as hard as I'd like for some of those tougher hazes, but even with them I have been doing 55lpi halftones on slightly hazed screens with zero issues as of late.

I will also probably try the CCI microwash once my Supra dies just to compare, but supra has been kicking ass for 6 months now without issue.  I am weary of the one part solutions like gemzyme because the supra does absolutely fine on getting the emulsion off and loosening the plastisol enough that it clears with the pressure washer, even if I didn't clear it well on press before deinking and dipping.  I understand and am fine with it not eating the ink the way a classic ink degradent does.

[ericheartsu]

we had great luck with genzyme, until recently. We switched back to easistrip, and have had no issues since switching!