our S-mesh experience

[tonypep]

Hint: Seaweed

[TheGhost]

Care to elaborate? Seaweed?

[tonypep]

Perhaps our Amphibian friend can do a search from a few ys back

[Doug S]

I can't speak for waterbase but of the 100 screens I only had 5 of regular mesh left and they were 156's in perfectly good shape that I scrapped and replaced them with 150's.   S mesh has made all the difference here.

[alan802]

We dabbled in WB inks for a year or so.  I decided to try and become better plastisol printers and that's what we did.  WB inks have a lot of value for many shops, but not ours.  Our plastisol prints aren't heavy handed, of course they are thicker than WB prints.  Our customers like what we give them and the ones we tried to move towards WB/DC didn't really like it.  I don't want to further derail the thread but my advice was to use plastisol instead.  I guess sort of tongue in cheek because I don't expect any WB/DC shop to switch back to plastisol, but I do think about this topic every time I read that someone has an issue with WB inks, or HSA, or whatever.  But that's a whole other thread and one that I really don't have the time to argue about these days.

[ScreenFoo]

I like S-mesh.  Great detail, faster to coat and reclaim, and it has a great opacity/ink volume ratio with plastisol.

If it took as much abuse as T mesh I wouldn't even consider anything else. 
As it is, it's more of a 'magic bullet' for me, but one I would miss if I couldn't get them.


A postscript for the ghost:
Orion found the good post.

[mimosatexas]

I switched over to almost all S-mesh (murakami statics mostly, couple custom stretched statics using Saati's thin thread option as well).  It is incredible.  Improves so many things.  Don't be a dumbass and the screens hold up just as well as standard mesh. (I have had my share of dumbass moments with both kinds of mesh of course)

[bimmridder]

S-mesh. Is that something new?

[3Deep]

Dave you funny , but I know you've been in the game long enough to know S-mesh as been around for many years for a different type of printing and now that type of printng has all but gone digital s-mesh is kind of new to us T-shirt printers.

[alan802]

S-mesh. Is that something new?

 

It is absolutely insane that it has been around as long as it has yet is still being used in the vast minority of textile shops.  I've said it many times but there is no reason why a textile shop should be using standard mesh counts.  The shops that have tried it then went back to standard mesh actually exist (one in my neck of the woods) which makes me even more astonished.  The only thing standard mesh counts do better than thin is durability.  But I've got 5 year-old 180's and 100/71's laying around and if you handle thin thread correctly then there is no way they shouldn't last for hundreds of thousands of print strokes.

[bimmridder]

So now you're calling me old D? (OK, I am)

[ScreenFoo]

I was going to disagree, but instead I'll just add:  Good luck newbs!   

[Orion]

Hint: Seaweed

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,7824.msg79408.html#msg79408

[mimosatexas]

interesting thread.  does the sodium alginate cause any issues with screen open time, vibrance, dischargability, washability, etc?  I can see that solving some issues when manually printing higher color counts of some brands of DC ink.

[IntegrityShirts]

Should I throw a wrench in here and say I use 200s mesh? In between 180 and 225 just gotta be careful with the math on screen moire.