"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
If it makes you feel any better, my first job on an auto was a 6 color front, 6 color back on dark shirts with two flashes. 400 pieces, and about 100 of them weren't passable. I drove 6 hours to deliver, then drove 8 hours back stopping at two suppliers to pick up f'ed up shirts, came back to the shop, printed the replacements and drove 6 hours back to deliver them. It gets better quickly. Took me about two weeks to get somewhat comfortable printing on an auto...and even to this day, I find it more difficult than manual printing. But thats mainly because mine is out of whack right now.
Sorry your having such trouble..most of the people hear are right. You should have underbased. I set the machine up quite a bit, but usually James ran it. Im pretty sure turning the controls on top clockwise lower, or increase squegee presssure. Must have had a lot of ink on bottom sending them around 4 times .. and all that flashing would make those pallets hot enough to semi cure the ink on contact .Donnie Miller runs the same machine..maybe he can help more than me. But not UB was the problem and printed and flashed too much. Your agjustable squegee works just like a manual, straight up, less ink put down, more angle, more ink. Slower speed will put more ink down. sorry you had problems, but try something easier on next job. You'll get it..
Screen printing ink is designed to stay put - this is why you can turn a bucket upside down, and the ink won't pour. Slow shearing force doesn't help the ink spread across the shirt to produce a uniform deposit.Many drug inducer printers grasp for a chemical additive that reduces viscosity - BUT that defeats what the ink designer was aiming at because the ink will penetrate the shirt and you won't get a film or coating.Fast blade speed, low off-contact, high mesh tension and a blade that stands up to the resistant forces (thick ink and mesh tension).
so you guys are saying MORE ink deposit with a faster print stroke? we have always thought faster print stroke = less ink deposit and less dot gain. I have to try this out Monday. Or tomorrow if I can't wait. I am switching back to Quick white and that is pretty thick compared to the xenon white we were using, I will have to play around with squeegies again, I hate like hell to add some reducer to it. This squeegie from Pierre seems to be badass so far.