Best way to keep ink buckets and area clean?

[Gilligan]

I've seen some spotless ink rooms, I'm not looking to achieve that but man, there has to be a better way than what we have going on.

Spaces are tight so I know that is a challenge but I know it can be done.

New crew, new ways!

What ways do you guys stay clean, we are 95-99% plastisol.

[Prince Art]

Best way to keep plastisol from being messy? Easy, just stop printing.

Seriously, though, my best advice is to teach the crew to slow down & be careful, when loading screens, and especially when removing ink from screens & squeegees. Don't try to move more ink than the spatula can hold, and don't fling it around like it's a race. This doesn't mean that it has to take forever. It's possible to develop a smooth, steady technique that leaves the screen virtually free of ink, and bucket, floor, & counter mostly clean. And if you do it the same way every time, you can do it quickly, but in a controlled manner. Beyond that, wipe up spills as soon they happen. I don't think bucket edges will ever be really clean, but if ink is in an area where you'll touch it, wipe it off.

[CBCB]

We run in a small shop, 800sq/ft. The secret is to make it a priority!

Cap everything and put it on a shelf when you're done with it. We only keep white and black ink out, our most common colours. Mixing stuff is ready to access. Everything else on the shelf. Make sure your team doesn't put a dirty container on the shelf.

Keep rags in key spots so crew can wipe immediately when they get ink on their hands.

We spend time every Monday cleaning up, and cleaning the ink table is part of it. Helps clean up any straggler containers. 

The ink will spread everywhere if you're not careful. Specify dirty areas and clean areas and you'll be set!


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[abchung]

We had this guy, he would make sure everything is spotless before and after every stage... he actually can get things done faster at a slower pace...


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[Sbrem]

Clean as you go, it only takes a second then... and at least one weekly overall cleaning, which will go faster if cleaning as you go is kept up.

Steve

[Gilligan]

Awesome advice!  Going to implement some changes!

Anyone care to show pictures of their ink area so I can show them some inspiration of what is possible if we follow these steps?

Many will think, "it's gonna be messy, no way around it."  Pictures prove otherwise.

[CBCB]

Here's a good one I spotted on Instagram recently:

https://instagram.com/p/BQOz1aihA0p/

I need to take a fresh picture of ours.

The key is definitely cleaning as you go, and making it a priority.

We had this guy, he would make sure everything is spotless before and after every stage... he actually can get things done faster at a slower pace...

Reminds me of a good quote I read recently.

"Timing beats speed, and precision beats power."

We're still small but I find a lot of benefit in working a bit slower to be a bit more clean and dialled. 


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[Gilligan]

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

[CCI]

A clean shop is nice to work in but a spill or smudge will happen regardless. You can keep a bucket of ink wipes around the ink station and give everything (squeegee, spatulas, ink buckets, press, etc.)  a good wipe down once you are done with the job.

[tonypep]

Our ink dept is actually cleaner than the one above however we have a full time Ink Tech from Austrailia

[ScreenFoo]

Well, I'd say leading by example, but it doesn't work that great for me.
Just means everyone thinks I like cleaning.   

[Gilligan]

I'm not looking to keep it laboratory clean, but we have to do better.

Makes more sense to work on keeping it clean vs getting hands dirty right before printing or when you re-ink a screen and then have to fight to get them clean and not transfer ink to shirts, then spot them out blah blah blah.

[merchmonster]

We primarily print stock colors from Rutland. We labeled the shelf in numerical order of the stock color numbers on the buckets. So each bucket has a home. When they're done with a bucket of ink, it goes back in same place every time. Before this staff would spend a lot of time looking for colors, couldn't find colors, which caused us to buy ink we already had but couldn't find.

I have a pic but can't upload from phone

[Gilligan]

Pictures would be awesome

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[merchmonster]

Here you go. We have stock colors & mixing primaries for WB + plastisol organized like this.

The Pantone shelf is the only one not organized this way.