Why?

[starchild]

Most in this thread are talking about the tools materials and supplies used to do the job.

Pierre touched on what the act of screen printing factually is- a technical process based on science and physics.

If we are able to understand and use measured- named properties of each element in the process, the we won't be just speaking in terms of raise tension (why?) use the thin or thick side of scoop coater (why? but what about the properties of the emulsion? and the fact that all scoop coaters have be manufacturerd with varing thicknesses?)

The way we approach the screen printing process is nurtured by our suppliers and manufacturers. We don't need a lab, we need the measured results.

Almost all products, would work well in all shops if we understood all the properties that tie the actual print process together. The variables- that crap means little if we are just scratching the surface of why and how.

Why a particular mesh, squeegee angle and speed important to the print process or really the ink? "Look and see" if the ink is clearing or climbing and adjust accordingly Instead of the ink behavior is due to xyz properties of the ink, so let's coat the correctly stretched screen by this amount being fully aware  that it will cause that specific ink to flow and create the desired opacity  and choose these specific  blades and run it at this speed.


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[Printficient]

Why a particular mesh, squeegee angle and speed important to the print process or really the ink? "Look and see" if the ink is clearing or climbing and adjust accordingly Instead of the ink behavior is due to xyz properties of the ink, so let's coat the correctly stretched screen by this amount being fully aware  that it will cause that specific ink to flow and create the desired opacity  and choose these specific  blades and run it at this speed.


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Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

[ABuffington]

Products are like cars, they have different specs, some work better than others.  Translating the lab numbers to real world performance measures the ability of the printer, but some products do have capability that offer a competitive advantage.  Better prints done faster allows for competitive advantages.  I will totally agree that how well any products are used is subjective.  What works for a shop in one part of the industry may be different elsewhere.

[starchild]

Products are like cars, they have different specs, some work better than others.  Translating the lab numbers to real world performance measures the ability of the printer, but some products do have capability that offer a competitive advantage.  Better prints done faster allows for competitive advantages.  I will totally agree that how well any products are used is subjective.  What works for a shop in one part of the industry may be different elsewhere.

Translating the lab numbers to named properties, gives us tolerances that can be applied as a variables we can work with as a whole.. Why a product behaves swimmingly or undesirablly in the process  should be identified by it's properties and not it's location.

If we appreciate the thermal properties of any given ink, we would know if it's best for my specific zone or should other variable in the process, be adjusted accordingly to work with it.

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[jvanick]

Products are like cars, they have different specs, some work better than others.  Translating the lab numbers to real world performance measures the ability of the printer, but some products do have capability that offer a competitive advantage.  Better prints done faster allows for competitive advantages.  I will totally agree that how well any products are used is subjective.  What works for a shop in one part of the industry may be different elsewhere.

Translating the lab numbers to named properties, gives us tolerances that can be applied as a variables we can work with as a whole.. Why a product behaves swimmingly or undesirablly in the process  should be identified by it's properties and not it's location.

If we appreciate the thermal properties of any given ink, we would know if it's best for my specific zone or should other variable in the process, be adjusted accordingly to work with it.

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And this right here is a major complaint of mine with the suppliers in this industry.

As a general rule it's very hard to get real numbers etc out of them.

Ie my simple question a few months back about uv sensitivity of emulsion and the spectrum of led units.  While I did eventually get my answers, I felt like I was getting top secret  info.

[ABuffington]

Part of the reason manufacturers may simplify or recommend procedures without the 'science' behind it is due to the many variables in screen printing.  Bill Hood has some interesting info on the many variables in the print process, but for most textile screen printers we simply don't have the tools to measure a lot of the variables in our shops.  Just take the squeegee, angle, speed, mesh tension, durometer, thickness, edge quality, mesh opening, ink viscosity, etc., etc. measurements.  If you print electronic circuitry with gold ink, these and many, many more measurements do make sense as well as all the physics that goes along with it, but most of us aren't physics majors.  So much easier to show a product that works and apply it to their shop and develop a recipe for that shop to make money and good prints.  There is rarely a one type product that fits all customers.  What works for one, may not appeal to another company, so we develop products that can create good repeatable results with a variety of products that appeal to the end user's needs.  After all we are printing on a fuzzy very unflat surface where the main key is will the customer buy it and what is the best production method to reproduce it?  Textile printing is very subjective on what our eye likes. Yet medical devices, Photo Voltaic, and fine circuitry require knowing the numbers, very precisely. 

[Colin]

Lets throw one more wrench into this great discussion.....


How many of you would look at your direct competitors and say they produce quality prints?  Remember, they are still in business and have been for years.....

How many of you are printing for pennies and trying to turn product faster and cheaper to increase your razor thin margins?  Is the garment you sell your customer top notch?  Or "good enough" and that's all your printing ever needs to be?

I know almost all of you actually strive to be top notch.  Please let me be clear there

But there are A LOT of shops out there who just need to be "good enough".  And who do not want to spend time and money making things better and possibly more efficient because it aint broke yet/the customer is perfectly happy with what they have been getting/their cash flow is not taking a hit/insert reason to resist getting better here...

Jvanick:  When it comes to ink and "Real Numbers", what you are able to achieve in your shop, is not what another shop will get.  Because of the variables in shop components (screens, eom, squeegee, etc).

When I was in my lab at QCM, I would do all my testing with everything dialed in as close to the same as possible between inks.  Temp/eom/squeegee hardness and sharpness/etc.  Even then I could not tell you with Precise Empirical Data what results you would get in your shop. 

I could give you the results of our leneta card draw downs at specific ink thickness between all of our inks.  That would give you an Empirical Opacity for that ink.  But how would you be printing that ink?  Will you be able to keep all the ink up on top of the ink fibers?  How much of that ink would be pushed into the garment thus reducing its effective opacity?

I can give you 2 different white inks.  Both with the exact same opacity results when tested on a leneta card.  One is a thicker bodied ink, one is very creamy.  Which one will win in your shop?  I can tell you each will fail horrendously in a bunch of shops... but I will also sell a ton of each.


The real Variable in our line of work is not our equipment, our inks, our chemicals....

It is our shop mindset.  It is who ever the driving force of the business is.  That is our real variable.

[Dottonedan]

Colin, thanks!  That's a very accurate statement.

As an example, similar to a good product, let's take seps. One can provide great seps and get 13 different results from 15 different shops. Some can butcher the job and think the seps were horrible. That's not to say that you can't get provided a bad set of seps, but the you have to do your part too, and not expect that just paying a good separator is going to make your print turn out great on its own.  You can get good suggestions from a supplier but you have to do your part. Luckily, I have good customers that are also good printers.

[blue moon]

Lets throw one more wrench into this great discussion.....

I could give you the results of our leneta card draw downs at specific ink thickness between all of our inks.  That would give you an Empirical Opacity for that ink.  But how would you be printing that ink?  Will you be able to keep all the ink up on top of the ink fibers?  How much of that ink would be pushed into the garment thus reducing its effective opacity?

I can give you 2 different white inks.  Both with the exact same opacity results when tested on a leneta card.  One is a thicker bodied ink, one is very creamy. Which one will win in your shop?  I can tell you each will fail horrendously in a bunch of shops... but I will also sell a ton of each.


The real Variable in our line of work is not our equipment, our inks, our chemicals....

It is our shop mindset.  It is who ever the driving force of the business is.  That is our real variable.

that's where you explain the difference between the two inks and explain why the shop is not getting the results they are after. This is the empirical data they lack and the knowledge that will impact their printing ability. Yes, as Colin mentions here, not everybody will care, but I would venture to guess that most would or will at least appreciate the knowledge that can get them better results. . .

science does matter in my opinion (and we all know that opinions are like . . .)

pierre

[Dottonedan]

I truly wish it was that simple. Where it gets hard to convince someone that the "science" matters, are for those who have been doing this their way for 10-20 years and are profiting with 5 mil in sales when a Co doings everything right according to the screen print "science", yet they can be found to not have ever made over half that as another who's never measured eom and has never held below 7% in their art and have never completed a soft hand print.

I don't argue that the science is good for you, "science" seems to be used too loosely, but however we term it, the industry is notorious for being able to do well in it, yet half ass quality and THAT is what makes it so hard.

[Colin]

Pierre,I agree with you.  Most of us on this forum agree with you.

Unfortunately, Dan is correct about what most of the print shops are like.

I am sure he can tell many stories about shops he has done installs at that have close to zero eom on their screens....

I have heard tales from my distributor here in Portland about shops asking about a better white ink.... he walks in and checks their screens.... no stencil thickness.... He tries to steer them in the right direction of starting with creating a proper eom for better white prints....they say "well lets get the ink on press first and see how it does"...

..... Some thing about a horse and water goes through my head about now.

[zanegun08]

I have always felt that this industry has lacked education from vender to printer.

This is true, but I don't think it is strictly the fault of the vendors.  In recent months rather than having vendors come in and just talk about their new products, I have offered to have them come in and work.  I have told them that previous people in my position have spent years talking and rubbing elbows, but all they were doing is making smoke, because the second the vendor leave sthey go back to the same process.  If they aren't willing to come work for a day, and show us how, and why their product will work better, then I just ask that they don't come at all.

I have pinpointed some things that I have wanted to work on, and have had people from Rutland come do a bang up job.  We did an awesome discharge under base print, with soft hand plastisol and foil resist + foil, possibly one of the nicest discharge prints we have ever done.  We learned more in that 4 hours, than the 40 that were spent just talking about things.  We also started a check list for what we would work on the next time they came out.

Even if you take nothing away, at least you can see some new techniques, or get some eye opening revelations about process, or even see that you like the way you are currently doing things.  The vendors are here to help, they want us to succeed with their products not just to make the sale, but to then tell the next guy.  It is what you ask of them, rather than just spending time talk, ask them to start showing and doing.

[tonypep]

Part of the reason manufacturers may simplify or recommend procedures without the 'science' behind it is due to the many variables in screen printing.  Bill Hood has some interesting info on the many variables in the print process, but for most textile screen printers we simply don't have the tools to measure a lot of the variables in our shops.  Just take the squeegee, angle, speed, mesh tension, durometer, thickness, edge quality, mesh opening, ink viscosity, etc., etc. measurements.  If you print electronic circuitry with gold ink, these and many, many more measurements do make sense as well as all the physics that goes along with it, but most of us aren't physics majors.  So much easier to show a product that works and apply it to their shop and develop a recipe for that shop to make money and good prints.  There is rarely a one type product that fits all customers.  What works for one, may not appeal to another company, so we develop products that can create good repeatable results with a variety of products that appeal to the end user's needs.  After all we are printing on a fuzzy very unflat surface where the main key is will the customer buy it and what is the best production method to reproduce it?  Textile printing is very subjective on what our eye likes. Yet medical devices, Photo Voltaic, and fine circuitry require knowing the numbers, very precisely.

Interdependant variables. That's why. There are thousands of them in our industry. And the more there are in any custom manufacturing modules, the more Chaos Theory comes into play. In the end, we have goals and deadlines to achieve and most must balance the ideal model of putting everything under a microscope and the reality of getting good products out the door and on time.

[mooseman]

Couple of thoughts here

first off uneducated consumers create an environment that grows bad sales people. Here is an example you all will get.....

Screenprinter; I can't print white ink that looks good on a black shirt
Salesnman: we have a super opaque short bodied ink that will not climb your squeegee, works great as a fast flash so you can use it as an under base or finish white. it goes down like a lead filled balloon and best of all you can use it on a 230 mesh screen first thing in the morning here in NY before your shop even comes up to 50 degrees because it shears 1/4 inch in front of the squeegee blade

second this screen printing thing is at times a science and at other times an art. The problem is it switches from science to art at will. Here is an example......there is a BUNCH of science that defines how to get white ink through a screen and onto a shirt with good results...it is however an art if you can actually achieve good results on every black shirt on every job on any given day of the week. If you can hold hands with the science and dance with the art you have a pretty good chance of success!

I am not sure I agree with the why question, a smart salesperson can always create a why situation that is uniquely solved by a product that they just happen to have !  Again this comes down to the best customer is an educated customer.
mooseman

[Printficient]

All great responses.  Here is the simple truth.  ANY product can be made to work in ANY shop.  Conversely ANY product can be made to NOT work in ANY shop.  The trick is in knowing Why.