Platens - with or without tape?

[Maxie]

For years I printed without tape on my platens.      I recently started using water based adhesive with tape on the platen.
To change the tape on 12 platens takes quite a while.       I am thinking of going back to printing without the tape.      I think cleaning the platens is a lot faster than changing the tape.
What is the advantage of using tape?      How does the WB adhesive work on aluminum?

[Frog]

For years I printed without tape on my platens.      I recently started using water based adhesive with tape on the platen.
To change the tape on 12 platens takes quite a while.       I am thinking of going back to printing without the tape.      I think cleaning the platens is a lot faster than changing the tape.
What is the advantage of using tape?      How does the WB adhesive work on aluminum?

Using tape makes it quicker (for most of us) to clean the platens because, we don't ever clean the platens except by peeling the tape!
The waterbase stickum remains for weeks sometimes, merely requiring a rejuvenation with a wet brush or something similar to remove lint.
You can also re-apply new stickum over the old if you need to, still without removing the tape until it gets crappy.

If you are having problems peeling the tape, it's usually either too aggressive a tack, or it's been on too long.

[TCT]

We found it easier to have a layer of platen tape on and then WB adhesive on top. Not WB adhesive directly on aluminum pallets. It seems to take more time to fully clean the aluminum pallets without tape than it does to just scrap the tape and lay new stuff down every few weeks, or after fleece. If you get 2 guys going at the same time I bet we can switch over 12 pallets in 10min. or so....

First guy peals old stuff, then applies new platen tape.

Second guy applies pressure to platen tape, trims it, and applies WB adhesive. By the time 12 have gone around your first one is dry and ready to go!

[Homer]

4 layers of pallet tape, one as a main base, 3 layers for quick removal...trying to find a better way but this does it for us.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Multi layer tape will make your life easier

[Inkworks]

For years I printed without tape on my platens.      I recently started using water based adhesive with tape on the platen.
To change the tape on 12 platens takes quite a while.       I am thinking of going back to printing without the tape.      I think cleaning the platens is a lot faster than changing the tape.
What is the advantage of using tape?      How does the WB adhesive work on aluminum?

Great post, you're going to make me re-evaluate if I'm actually saving time using platen tape. The dip tank is already getting the boot and becoming a post-exposure tank because it was costing time for us, maybe platen tape will be the next false-economy item to go. We'll try the multi layer approach first though.

[mimosatexas]

I'm still baffled how a dip tank that does all the work for you takes longer than scrubbing screens manually then pressure washing. It easily cut my time in half, especially on thick low mesh stencils and hardened discharge screens.

I know putting on tape takes more time that just scraping aluminum, but i look at the tape as insurance. I use rubber topped platens though and you cant really scrape those. I do occasionally print with too much pressure or on an empty platen and the ink just comes off with the tape rather than ruining the rubber.

[Inkworks]

I'm still baffled how a dipntank that does all the work for you takes longer than scrubbing screens manually then pressure washing. It easily cut my time in half, especially on thick low mesh stencils and hardef discharge screens.

It's just a really expensive way to apply emulsion remover since there really isn't any ink degradent in the chemistry. Removing the emulsion with wet, sticky ink on it makes for a real mess and leaves wet ink all over everything making for extra clean-up in the wash-out booth , screen frames, and eventually vacuum blankets in exposure units. Also saturating the locking strips in retens. with chemical makes for extra rinsing required or risk contamination from run-out.

We use the stack method and factoring in cleaning up wet ink all over everything and the extra rinsing we're faster and cheaper without the tank.

Maybe if we were doing 80 screens a day and using statics I might like it, but everyone in the shop hates the thing.

Now I'm going to do a time-test between de and re-papering 14 platens on the auto vs. saturating with eco-solvent and wiping lint off. I suspect we'll be much faster than a re-paper. Another possible eye-opener for false economy.

[Frog]

Now I'm going to do a time-test between de and re-papering 14 platens on the auto vs. saturating with eco-solvent and wiping lint off. I suspect we'll be much faster than a re-paper. Another possible eye-opener for false economy.

In my reply to the OP, I made the distinction between actuually cleaning off the stickum (either via pallet tape or scraping nude boards) and merely wiping off the lint to rejuvenate otherwise good stickum.

Are you doing this a dozen or so times before solvent and removal?

[Shanarchy]

I clean the pallet tape with a spray bottle of water and stiff bristle brush and a flash or two before printing every day. This activated the adhesive and warms up the pallets.

I generally only change it after printing hoodies as I use spray adhesive for those.

I do find it a kind of time suck changing the tape. It comes off quick and easy, but then re-applying, re-applying adhesive, etc.

There is always the 2 sided sticky tape. This would probably get you up and running a lot quicker, but that does cost more and I'm pretty cheap. Depending how much your down time costs you, maybe that's worth the added expense.

I think you can also get the pallet tape in 16" width which may shave a little time putting it on.

How often do you (and others) have to change your tape?

[mimosatexas]

I card off all but a thin film of ink while on press and supra breaks that down well enough that i never have to clean up ink in my booth. The second step is using 701 to get any remaining ghosted ink or anything on the frame itself and thats it. Two steps with a quick pressure wash after each and a soft rinse before the drying rack.

I know all shops are different and may not use high eom or hardened screens, and you may have used something other than supra and 701, but man would i never go back to so much scrubbing.

Sorry to get off topic...

[Inkworks]

I've never "scraped" a platen, we use the same solvent as what's in our parts washer for squeegees and flood bars, use a sponge to wet the mat of lint/glue on all 14 platens, by the time we get back to platen #1 the whole mess wipes right off, a quick dry with a rag, re-glue and you're off to the races. I hate having to repaper, it takes a long time to do 14 16" x 22" platens so we put it off for as long as we can.

As of right now we use 90% web adhesive, and 10% mist. An average day sees us doing cotton, fleece and performance poly or tri-blends so a varied glue arsenal is a must and we have never been happy with bulk adhesives for the wide range of products that have to stick through flashes, short runs, not fully warmed platens etc.

I'm happy to look at WB adhesive next, whatever bulk adhesive we have certainly doesn't fit the bill of "water based"

[Inkworks]

I card off all but a thin film of ink while on press and supra breaks that down well enough that i never have to clean up ink in my booth. The second step is using 701 to get any remaining ghosted ink or anything on the frame itself and thats it. Two steps with a quick pressure wash after each and a soft rinse before the drying rack.

I know all shops are different and may not use high eom or hardened screens, and you may have used something other than supra and 701, but man would i never go back to so much scrubbing.

Sorry to get off topic...

(please move if we're hijacking this thread too much Mr. Frog)

We have a tank full of Supra and use 701. We often have hardened stencils, but the reclaimable hardener. We found screens that had been used for wet-on-wet prints to be particularly problematic as the thin coat of ink on both sides of the emulsion acted as a barrier to the supra and prevented it from softening the emulsion and often requiring a second trip to the dip tank. We found a high incidence of chemical run-out from the locking strip areas with what used to be a completely adequate rinse-off for us before we had the diptank. We also found the washout booth was a bit of a mess with wet ink residue after a screen run, even though we do card off as much ink as possible before they go in the dip tank. We also noticed a much higher incidence of ink smudges on the frames from being sprayed all over the booth, this has found it's way onto the exposure blankets and glass. My main screen guy is ex-military and likes things neat and efficient. The diptank was a huge miss for him, and we gave it a 4 month run with as much fiddling as we could to make it work as advertised. Our screens and frames are very nicely maintained, no tape, no ink, no old emulsion on any of them.

From what I've seen most people who love their diptanks have never seen a good, efficient stack-method of reclaiming in use. Our frames  are Hix' retens so they lend themselves to stacking more than Newmans, among many other advantages over Newmans.

[jvanick]

We have run just over 8000 fleece hoodies with waterbased tac over the last week... still on the same platen tape we started with the previous week.

a few notes that seem to help us with waterbase tac with these hoodies...

1. don't use webtack or spray tac on your platens if you want the waterbase tac to stick well... for some reason they don't react well to each other.

2. we reapply after 250-300 hoodies...  before it gets too 'untacky'

3. flashing and pre-warming is mandatory.. keep those platens warm... we start the press spinning with the flash running about 20 or so minutes before we start printing, apply a fresh layer of tac, and you're good to go...

[Inkworks]

What brand name of wb adh. are you using I'd love to try it.

Here's my shop's challenge. probably 1/3 of my jobs have less than 20 minutes of printing, so 20 minutes of preheat isn't really viable. We're not big enough to do a day of fleece then a day of cotton, then a day of poly/triblends. Big print days tend to be a hodge-podge.

Add to this printing WB/DC, plastisol, and even other exotic inks like epoxy etc. Heck next Wednesday I'm running vinyl ink on the auto with 3 flashes and two cool down fans and a material that doesn't like any adhesives (think waterproofed woven polyurethane... don't ask...)