Quickest way to dry emulsion on a screen

[mooseman]

Build a box, go to Lowes / Home Depot buy the smallest space heater with a t-stat build it into or set it into the box operate at 90 - 100 degrees and dry in about 30 minutes even wit a heavy coated screen.
mooseman

[Frog]

Found this old thread on DIY cabinets
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,10214.0.html

[ebscreen]

Interesting.  We blast degreased screens with compressed air knives and dry horizontal in the cabinet.  It's fast due to the air knife atomizing most of the water out, but I don't like how much time degreasing takes and have been thinking about ways to expedite this and also use less air on shifts. 

No streaking or issues with dust using your method?

We never did the air/shop vac thing so you might be ahead of us.  I was always afraid of introducing more problems after trying spending all that
time removing them. Do you have air filters at each station? I'm thinking I might give them a try at least post develop. Couldn't hurt much
there. McMaster Carr is one of the only apps I have on my phone haha.

Streaking and contaminants have gone significantly down, we used to occasionally have issues with chems/water being trapped between
frame and mesh then making it's way out while drying. Not to mention the summer the water co started adding an algaecide.

The way I see it is if it's vertical you're encouraging the residual water to get on down the road with gravity and airflow.
And if mycology has taught me anything it's that dust and particles fall down not up or sideways, less surface area to collect.

[Maxie]

If you follow the rules it takes time to dry a screen.
Break them and you can do it in a few minutes, we've coated screens and put them on the floor under the flash in the lit shop.     Works well but I wouldn't want to try and get fine detail or long runs out of these screens.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Commercial dehumidifier  keeps air dry, ambient temp around 90 degrees, box fans keep air moving dries everything crazy fast.

[ZooCity]

Interesting.  We blast degreased screens with compressed air knives and dry horizontal in the cabinet.  It's fast due to the air knife atomizing most of the water out, but I don't like how much time degreasing takes and have been thinking about ways to expedite this and also use less air on shifts. 

No streaking or issues with dust using your method?

We never did the air/shop vac thing so you might be ahead of us.  I was always afraid of introducing more problems after trying spending all that
time removing them. Do you have air filters at each station? I'm thinking I might give them a try at least post develop. Couldn't hurt much
there. McMaster Carr is one of the only apps I have on my phone haha.

Streaking and contaminants have gone significantly down, we used to occasionally have issues with chems/water being trapped between
frame and mesh then making it's way out while drying. Not to mention the summer the water co started adding an algaecide.

The way I see it is if it's vertical you're encouraging the residual water to get on down the road with gravity and airflow.
And if mycology has taught me anything it's that dust and particles fall down not up or sideways, less surface area to collect.

Yes, wilkerson coalescing filters at all stations.  We also shoot a little clean air at screens before coating.  Jury's still out on whether or not we're helping or just blasting contaminants around.

Until I get us out of a weird, old, wood floored shop I doubt I'll ever get us contaminant free. 

[Wildcard]

You guys are all way too conservative: I have seen some chaps dry a screen with a heat gun... took about 5 min.
Not sure how many screens were harmed in the development of that process though. Yikes.

[Frog]

You guys are all way too conservative: I have seen some chaps dry a screen with a heat gun... took about 5 min.
Not sure how many screens were harmed in the development of that process though. Yikes.

I have seen mesh actually melt through when someone tried to force dry a stencil repair with blockout with a heat gun!

[XG Print]

Well my solution was the old box fan...Coated and set with box fan blowing directly on it from about 6 ft.  Flipped screen after about an hour.  Waited a total of about 2.5 hrs.  Burnt and printed the run nicely.  Had to stay a little late but we got it done.  Will be getting a dry box ASAP.  Been lucky in the 7 yrs I've been printing.  I usually always have extra screens ready to go but not this time!! :-)  Thanks for all the tips

[Wildcard]

You guys are all way too conservative: I have seen some chaps dry a screen with a heat gun... took about 5 min.
Not sure how many screens were harmed in the development of that process though. Yikes.

I have seen mesh actually melt through when someone tried to force dry a stencil repair with blockout with a heat gun!

And when drying screens after developing, these same guys would put the screen on the dryer belt, let it drift a little into the oven and pull it out before it got too far.

Thing is that at the time I thought they must know what they were doing (it was a long time before I started printing myself) but now I realise that reading this would make you guys cringe like hearing nails on a chalk board...