All new (to me) roller frames, what meshes to use

[Rockers]

As we bought our M-3 Roller Frames 6 years ago I considered using only Roller Mesh which can be tensioned to insane levels. After joining this forum I was pointed towards S-Mesh which actually improved our print results. In hindsight I would have bought only MZX frames because you rarely bring S-Mesh to a tension exceeding 30N. Would have saved us a lot of cash.

[Shanarchy]

I'm a fan of the Shur-Loc panels (direct from Shur-loc), they cost a little more but to me it was worth it.

River City has S-mesh by the yard. I'm not sure where they price out towards others.

[jvanick]

for bolt mesh Graphic Screen Fashion is likely less expensive than T&J...

for panels, go straight to Shurloc...

I'd recommend the panels, especially for a new roller frame user... much more consistency, and far easier to 'get right' than doing bolt mesh.

[Doug S]

We've completely swapped to all s-mesh except for the extreme lower mesh counts like 60 and below.  There is nothing like running a process job with a 225 for the ub and 280's for the top colors with them all stretched to 26 newtons.  We buy all of them from shurloc also.

[AntonySharples]

150/45-whites
180/45-colors
280/35-process
All thin thread from Dynamesh, inversed tensioned to 28N.

We are in the process of testing a 90,100, and 135 to achieve 1 hit whites.

Never go with the Newman mesh.  Unless you want to stretch to 50n and achieve crappy prints.

[SI]

I bought around 60 18 x 20 MZX frames for my current auto, done half with shur loc panels and the other half with bolt.  I also am getting the roller master table with these so I think I will be fine with bolt mesh, and it will save me a ton of money.  Heck the shur loc panels cost just as much as i paid for the frames.  I haven't had any issues with bolt mesh on the smaller MZX, pretty sure I will be able to handle these.  A little more time but saves a lot of money.

[DannyGruninger]

150/45-whites
180/45-colors
280/35-process
All thin thread from Dynamesh, inversed tensioned to 28N.

We are in the process of testing a 90,100, and 135 to achieve 1 hit whites.

Never go with the Newman mesh.  Unless you want to stretch to 50n and achieve crappy prints.

My shop has won numerous awards on newman mesh and done some of the best prints out there using that mesh...... FYI....... We have since started using different mesh but I wouldn't agree with that comment above by a long shot.

[ScreenFoo]

I haven't used a bit of it, but Newman's 380 mesh is rated for 60N max.  50 was probably on the low side. 

SI:  Best way to get a discount from anyone is quantity.  Usually a pretty good break around thirty yards.

[AntonySharples]

150/45-whites
180/45-colors
280/35-process
All thin thread from Dynamesh, inversed tensioned to 28N.

We are in the process of testing a 90,100, and 135 to achieve 1 hit whites.

Never go with the Newman mesh.  Unless you want to stretch to 50n and achieve crappy prints.

My shop has won numerous awards on newman mesh and done some of the best prints out there using that mesh...... FYI....... We have since started using different mesh but I wouldn't agree with that comment above by a long shot.

I retract, but in our experience unless the newman mesh was stretched to 40+N, the prints were crap because the ink wouldn't flow due to such small openings.  Once we went thin thread, it was night and day.

[Colin]

Newman mesh was designed to be stretched at 70+ Newtons in order to have proper sized mesh openings.

It was all about having high tension for super low off contact and precision printing.  And it all works if your press is perfectly in plane and has few to no hiccups.  The peel rate is amazing, dot control etc...

But its not needed anymore

Multiple ways to make award winning eye popping prints out here!!!

[willy35]

I used newman mesh, I prefer S mesh now, mainly because I don't need to print 1800 units per hour.

As for precision, 25 Newtons is enough for my 50 doz/hour press in my opinion.

[ZooCity]

For primarily spot color work look at these S meshes:  150/48, 180/48 (drops ink similar to a 225 but at a little higher tension for better "snap off" on thicker inks/bigger spot color areas), 225/40.

I think I've said it before but about 80% or more of most spot color work can be done, and done very well, with 150/48 and 225/40.  Go heavy on these mesh counts. 

Reducing your mesh counts (and coating methods/EOM types) gives you precious flexibility and throughput with a smaller screen library.

***

I have also ran the Newman Roller Mesh and agree with Danny and Colin.  It is designed to work very specifically with the stronger M3 frames and is just regular old "T" mesh, or maybe worse, if you don't use it right.  Ultra high tension, everything 45n/cm and up, sometimes way up.  Think screens approaching S mesh like open area but at crazy high tension with fairly durable mesh.  I know they don't publish open area percentage but I got ahold of a copy back then.  On paper, it's ideal. 

Personally, I don't think the machines we use to print ink are capable of netting the benefits of an ultra high tension system such as this, at least not the machines I've worked on.  Colin is correct and the tolerances required on a press are very serious with this mesh as the whole point is to achieve good snap off and clean ink release at very low off contact.  Our presses struggle to hold parallel within 1/16" and they are paralleled weekly, toss in deflection, warped or aged platen rubber, chopper cyls that are slightly off to each other or not set at identical depth and it's just not feasible.

To put it in perspective, if your off contact is 1/8" and the press is off 1/16" in parallel then you are 50% "wrong" in those spots you are out of parallel.  If the same press is off just 1/32" that's 25% variance across the plane.  Now, drop that off contact down to 1/16" or less with your ultra high tension screens and now you are 50% off at 1/32" and 25% off at 1/64".   That's 0.03125"=50% out of plane in this scenario.  Not aware of a press that can hold the tolerances needed to make this work.  It's hard to even adjust a fine thread bolt/nut to this tolerance, let alone 3-4 of them on the platen mount, and way too many on the print head, i.e., most of the presses used in North America.  That's all assuming the print head arm and platen arm are mounted to perfection and their various bolts never loosen, which is a generous assumption.  Even if you somehow nail all that you have practically zero wiggle room for deflection which is a major variable on most machines.

But I have to tell ya, when I was manually printing I printed a multi color, spot color job with some halftones and blending and it all went down wet on the UB....yes, a non flashed plastisol UB.  That blew my mind.  They also registered and repeated unlike any other screen you will use.  Too bad it can't translate into automated production.   Perhaps it's diminishing returns, just stick with the normal tolerances on the presses and run thinner, lower tension mesh for nearly the same result.

[Rockers]

I have also ran the Newman Roller Mesh and agree with Danny and Colin.  It is designed to work very specifically with the stronger M3 frames and is just regular old "T" mesh, or maybe worse, if you don't use it right.  Ultra high tension, everything 45n/cm and up, sometimes way up.  Think screens approaching S mesh like open area but at crazy high tension with fairly durable mesh.  I know they don't publish open area percentage but I got ahold of a copy back then.  On paper, it's ideal. 

Here you go, it`s all online. http://www.stretchdevices.com/newman-roller-mesh-yard. Take the N115 with 42% open area and then compare to a 120-S with a whopping 60% open area. Of course you can`t crank it up to 75N but you would not need to anyway.
And yes we didn`t like the Roller Mesh that much either.

[alan802]

I'd go with yellow mesh whenever possible, especially if you have an LED expo unit.

River City carries the S thread Shurloc panels if anyone is interested. 

We use a 90/71 for one-hits, 120/54 for some bases, 150/48 for bases and one color spot (dark ink on light garments), 180/48 for some top colors and one color spot just like the 150 when we need to hold a little more detail, and then we have the 225/40 for top colors and some basing for sim process work.  I have some regular thread mesh in 280/34 and 300/34 and will likely go back to thin thread in those higher counts as soon as I have a crew that can handle them.  The 310/30 in the shurloc panels would not hold up under normal production conditions.  Even the 330/30 didn't fair well here.  I prefer the 280 over the standard 300 and 305 as it will hold the detail but not require the higher squeegee pressures to shear. 

The benefits of thin thread have been told hundreds of times over but I'll keep adding to it.  At first I loved them because you could print with very little pressure and keep the ink on top of the shirt, then we got into printing using fast print strokes which is impossible to do with standard thread mesh under most circumstances.  The difference between printing slow (4-10"/sec) versus fast (20-30"/sec) is about as equal to the difference (quality/opacity/ink usage) between standard thread and thin thread.  I would plead with many of you reading this to start pushing the limits to your print stroke speed and reap the rewards.  Spend an hour after work one day with printing an image at different speeds and only add a little bit of pressure as you get up in speed to compensate and then put the images side by side and see which is smoother, more opaque.  I've posted pics but they don't do it justice.  I've got prints where one was printed at 4"/sec next to a 30"/sec and there is such a huge difference that even someone that's never examined a test print can see how much better the fast print is.  After a few months you'll no longer need the roller squeegee unless you just like to have it for peace of mind.  It all adds to the goal of getting the ink to stay on top of the garment and not in it.  Printing fast has as much of an impact on that goal as thin thread mesh does.  And the bottom line is your production speeds will increase, ink usage decreases, times that over an entire year and it adds up to something meaningful, mo money, less time/labor.

[shurloc]

Hey guys,

As much as we love selling you all panels, if you ever want yardage on raw mesh, we do sell that as well. Just shoot me an email on what you are looking for and we will get you some pricing.

We currently have Sefar, Saati, Murakami and Dynamesh in stock.