design on screen duration

[Fleetee]

when you burn a design on a screen that you know you are going to need for awhile, typically, how many shirts on average do you guys get to print before realizing that you will have to reburn the design?

also, correct me if im wrong and/or add any other factors but the longevity of the burned design on a screen depends on:
- how many shirts that were printed using that screen with the burned design on it
- the type/brand of emulsion used
- the quality of reclaiming
- making sure the screen is completely dry (before and after applying emulsion)
- the technique of apply the emulsion
- the quality of the screen

but most importantly i am wondering how many shirts you guys typically get to print before noticing/knowing that you will have to reburn the design entirely

[mooseman]

That is like asking how far is up as there are too many unknowns.
here is a big one manual or auto printing?
Do your self a favor, if you have a big job burn two screens run one even set up the second if you can and if you decide the print if failing then you are good to go with your second screen.
In time you will get a good feeling of what answers your question.
mooseman

[aauusa]

that is like the old question how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop.   just depends on who it is......could be 50 could be 5000.

[mimosatexas]

We just spent the last 6 months or so doing high volume reprints of about 20 designs.  We use SP1400 emulsion with standard plastisol.  We did have some breakdown due to use, typically on the edge of the squeegees, but tape would fix it usually or act as a bandaid before complete failure.  During this time period we did almost 350,000 impressions with the majority on these set of reprints.  I didnt track it exactly for every screen, but we have a handful that lasted through the whole time and have at least 20,000 prints on them, 2 or 3 may even be in the 30,000+ range on a few of the more popular designs.  Honestly, most of our screen failures were straight up pops and tears vs emulsion issues.  All of our screens are thin thread statics, and some of them even held up for thousands of prints with little holes in the image area that didn't visibly affect the final print.  I was pretty impressed honestly...

[brandon]

Two part permanent hardener. Bake. Repeat for the hell of it. Result is bullet proof. We are primarily discharge and hsa printers but I'm sure for plastisol it would be the same result or even better.

[mimosatexas]

No gardener here, but when I used to do a lot of water based and discharge it was a must.

[brandon]

No gardener here, but when I used to do a lot of water based and discharge it was a must.

I'm talking about the permanent hardener though. A pressure washer can't remove it. Remove with razor blade. We do it for the catalog / long run screens

[mimosatexas]

Gotcha. I've actually never used that, thought until this year we haven't done anything like the volume that would need it.

[BP]

MS Hardener, works good and it still can be removed.

https://murakamiscreen.com/murakami-product/emulsion-hardener/

[Alchemink]

I just got some of the MS Hardener but haven't used it yet. My boss wants to be able to keep screens around for clients that do lots of repeating jobs and we use waterbase and discharge exclusively. Looking forward to trying it out.