What have you printed lately?

[Rockers]

Printed using MagnaPrint® Discharge AB AW System 120T Mesh

Great stuff.
Would really to see more of you work and your shop too.

[Rockers]

I'd be interested in hearing how to keep the DC base from drying in the screen with those higher mesh counts.  I'm having trouble keeping the mesh open above 225's with underbasing with DC and plastisol on top...sim process stuff.  I've done a few DC base plastisol top sim process but if I go higher on the mesh counts it dries in badly.

I have to say for us it really depends on the dc base we use. The Matsui base is pretty much a no go for us on higher mesh counts, even with retarder at 4-5%. I have to say though the Matsui DC base available in Japan is different to the one in the States.
With CCI base and white we can print the whole day through 225-S without any trouble, no retarder needed.

[SERJ]

MagnaPrint® Discharge ULF system

Color №1 Elliptical dot, 90 lpi, angle 82.5 degrees, mesh count 120.34, Y
MagnaPrint® Discharge Base ULF Ultra (G5983), 94 %
MagnaPrint® Activator M (G941), 6%

Color №2 Elliptical dot, 90 lpi, angle 82.5 degrees, mesh count 120.34, Y
MagnaPrint® Discharge Blending White ULF Ultra (G5989), 94 %
MagnaPrint® Activator M (G941), 6%

Color №3 Elliptical dot, 90 lpi, angle 82.5 degrees, mesh count 90.40, Y
MagnaPrint® Discharge Super White ULF Ultra, 94 %
MagnaPrint® Activator M (G941), 6%

[SERJ]

MagnaPrint HB system

[mimosatexas]

Do you have any closeups of that skull one?

[alan802]

That skull print has dimension to it that is hard to get with textile screen printing.  I've seen lot's of good skull type prints like this, but I don't know I've seen one with that much dimension.  That might be one of the best 3-color prints I've ever seen a pic of.

[3Deep]

I'm right there with Al the skull looks great!, almost like it jumps right off the shirt.

darryl

[ScreenPrinter123]

90 lpi...that is some crazy small dots

[mimosatexas]

Yea I really want to see it close up.  It looks great, but honestly without a closeup it is hard to fully appreciate in my opinion.

[DannyGruninger]

Tony, figured I'd let you know that I'm now running over 75% of my sim process jobs with a discharge underbase!!! I will come right out and say that our printing is BETTER with the discharge underbase and a big reason I have been pushing myself to do discharge is you..... Slowly I'm doing more and more with discharge/waterbase products and thats probably mostly because of you so thanks for that! LOL

I'm a firm believer that discharge base gives us a better print then plastisol base 100%

Same here...

While not quite as good as pure DC color, the DC Base is an excellent consideration. The yield is crisper definition, resolution, and hand of course. That said once you master pure DC color, well...most never look back. Look at what The Mountain does.

Danny (and Tony),

So... we run our sim process jobs on 330-S mesh (and some times 270-T) mesh.  From a recent post by you, Danny, it seems your runs that you're posting are somewhere in the 500-1,000 piece range?  I would enjoy running DC base and plastisol top on our sim process jobs, as I even think you can get away with more colors because of possible needing less cool downs (because ink isn't on top of a plastisol white), but a few questions:

(1) While on smaller runs of 500 pieces I don't see this posing an issue, my biggest concern for us on longer runs (for us, like 6k pieces), is the halftones clogging up.  And, well, you won't know until WELL after you're screwed at the end of the dryer.  So, what's the safeguard for this?  Also, getting through 6k pieces in one day for 2 guys on 20" tall prints isn't going to happen here.  So there's also the cleaning out the screen and hope you got all the small dots cleaned out aspect for the next day's run of printing. 

(2) Danny, have you noticed any difference in build up on the bottom of screens with a plastisol base and a dc base on your sim process jobs?

(3) What about vibrance in print?  At the end of a 6 color sim process job that we ran with a plastisol base, I did a test print with a DC base and the colors were a bit more more muted and the hand was not so noticeably different (so we would've lost a lot more in vibrancy than we would've gained in "hand") -- but we're also running our plastisol base through 330.  Do you find your artist needs to accommodate for the top color seps when you're running DC base as opposed to plastisol base?

(4) Top Colors: Do you notice a difference in speed of running the squeegee?  We're running our top plastisol colors at 14"-25" per second on top of a plastisol white base.  Do you find any need to slow down your squeegees to improve opacity, since you're effectively printing on the shirt itself with the DC base? 

(5) Base Print: What's the speed of your squeegee for your base with plastisol in comparison to that of discharge?  Are you double stroking the discharge base screen like you've mentioned you do sometimes on your base with plastisol?  That would kill our speed in getting the job done if we had to double stroke on our press for 6k pieces.

Thanks for your input.

Hey man, sorry for the delay.... Been too busy to get back to this

Most of our sim process style runs are between 144 pcs and 1000 pcs..... Rarely am I running sim process on more then that however we are running a sim process job right now on 3,000 pcs. I will say on this 3,000 pcs job we will only stop to wipe the screens 1 time. Other then that we are running WOW the entire job. We could easily get away with running wow the entire job but I stop 1 time to catch lint that has gotten up in the screen itself. Not to clean the buildup. Lots of our sim process jobs we do not have room for cool downs so we typically place fans between heads right after the flash if needed. From my experience on sim process jobs(if you have a nice quality ink made for wow printing) the only time I experience buildup is when my pallet temperature becomes too high which then starts to gel the ink from the inside out. For me the key to buildup is controlling pallet temp(there I said it LOL)

When printing on a plastisol base(colors going on base) I rarely ever experience buildup.... The only way we get buildup when printing on a base is when the pallet temp gets too high, other then that we get 0 buildup when printing on a plastisol base. We could run thousands of shirts without buildup as long as our pallets stay manageable. Now with a discharge base, since we are printing on essentially the cotton of the t-shirt we have experienced pretty bad excessive buildup but only with certain brand of cotton shirts. For the most part we can print wow with a discharge base for at least 1000 prints without excessive buildup. The key for me is to flash the base almost to a full cure. When I print discharge base sim process I usually print flash, flash, then all the rest wow. I can run 65 doz/hr this way and we can print at least 1000 pcs without wiping screens. Like I said the key for me is to almost 100% cure the discharge before the rest of the colors... I have had decent luck testing no flash as well as a quick flash but for me if I do not evap most of the moisture out of the discharge I find that it ends up mixing with the other inks and eventually making the back of the screens after it tacky which will then lift the shirt off the pallet. So for me here we run a heavy flash after discharge base on sim process then wow.

As far as vibrancy, to be honest I do not print a pure discharge base on our sim process stuff as I feel if I do then yes the print is slightly more muted then I like.... Most of our clients want their prints to jump off the shirt and be crazy bright so we have a special ink that I have formulated in house to print as an underbase. I'm not ready to share my recipe but I will say it's a combination of discharge base, discharge white, and plastisol.....(yes I have done testing with it, wash tests, you name it).... This combination of ink works wonders as an underbase, anyone that has one of my take er slow printed shirts will see that shirt is very vibrant as it was printed with my special base ink....... But to answer your question for us a straight dbase does result in a duller print. 90% of my sim process prints are done with a 225/40 base screen fyi with top colors on either 272 or 305 counts.

I wouldn't know the ft per second of our squeegee travel, all we go by in our shop is the numbers on the dials 1-10 LOL....... On sim process for squeegee speed we start at "5" on the speed...... Which to me is pretty damn fast - maybe someone can tell us the ft per sec there


In my shop sim process usually requires a double stroke regardless of plastisol or discharge. Our ch3 press double strokes at 55-65 doz/hr so this does not slow us down here. If we are running a large job where we do not have time to double stroke then of course we figure out a way to print with single strokes. Usually this just means a different squeegee blade for us, different squeegee speeds, etc. But for the most part we double stroke underbases - I've learned to print what I want to print it's pretty much the nature of the beast. I'm sure guys are out there doing better work then me and doing it all w/ 1 stroke but I'd be lying if I said we were. Another couple years I know we will be single stroking the underbases but we aren't there yet.


hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions

Danny

[mimosatexas]

Really informative post Danny!  I have a handful of questions, mostly general due to admiring you as a printer and wanting to learn from your experience:

Are you using solid pallets or honeycomb pallets?  I was wondering if you saw issues with heat related to pallet choice or if that is something you have already optimized.

Do you think the buildup you experience when using a discharge base vs a plastisol base is due to the double flash and the resulting extra heat retention or something to do with the difference in the ink itself?

You mention using a 225S base screen, but I believe I've seen you mention using 65lpi for most of your sim process work.  I was wondering if you are using that same LPI for your base and if you have experienced any issues with the lower mesh count?

Is there a particular reason you only switch blades for single stroking your base in some situations vs making that switch all the time?

I know these may be simple/dumb questions. but I always look forward to your prints and would love to know more about your process.  Seeing the Take er Slow print in person was mind blowing...

[DannyGruninger]

Really informative post Danny!  I have a handful of questions, mostly general due to admiring you as a printer and wanting to learn from your experience:

Are you using solid pallets or honeycomb pallets?  I was wondering if you saw issues with heat related to pallet choice or if that is something you have already optimized.

Do you think the buildup you experience when using a discharge base vs a plastisol base is due to the double flash and the resulting extra heat retention or something to do with the difference in the ink itself?

You mention using a 225S base screen, but I believe I've seen you mention using 65lpi for most of your sim process work.  I was wondering if you are using that same LPI for your base and if you have experienced any issues with the lower mesh count?

Is there a particular reason you only switch blades for single stroking your base in some situations vs making that switch all the time?

I know these may be simple/dumb questions. but I always look forward to your prints and would love to know more about your process.  Seeing the Take er Slow print in person was mind blowing...

Glad you liked that take er slow shirt!

We use standard m&r aluminum pallets(non honeycomb) on both of my presses here...... Nothing special there

As for the buildup problems that I have experienced in MY shop, it always boils down to two things. 1. Ink that isn't made for wow and 2. pallets getting too hot/retaining too much heat which then causes the ink to start gelling from the inside out. The key in my shop is controlling pallet temps( we have a certain * that if the pallet gets over we will 100% start to see buildup on screens so it's key for us to keep our pallets under this temp)....... I never run more then 2 flashes on a job and so far we have been successful on large runs(1000+ pcs) keeping our pallet temps under the threshold of being too hot. Usually we setup 1 or 2 fans to keep our pallets at the "happy temp".

If we keep our pallets at this happy temp that I call, it does not matter if we are printing a discharge base or plastisol base we will not have much buildup. Just normal WET ink transfer on the back of the screens. If pallets climb above our threshold here then boom we start to see cakey ass ink on the back of screens. The faster the ink gels the worse the problem becomes.


On our LPI our normal sim process stuff is all 55 lpi, some of it even 47 lpi but if I want to see a better print we go to 65 lpi.... On a 225/40 with a properly coated screen we have no issue holding 65 lpi for a base plate......We do lose a small amount of data but never do I see moire and the small amount we lose on the base does not matter on the finished print. 95% of my sim process bases are printed on a 225/40..... I really don't see the need for anything higher or lower as I feel that mesh makes an amazing base plate.

As for why I double stroke my base most of the time vs running a different blade a single stroking...... While it might sound dumb to some people  I run my production/presses with 1 person on each press/not 2..... My guys are fast operators and can print 45-55 doz/hr by themselves double stroking base plates so the only time I try to speed up the printing to single stroke is when either I can help on the press or I have extra hands in here that can help out. Sure we waste a bit more ink doing it this way but there's a lot less brain damage double stroking a base and running 50 doz and hour with 1 person all day everyday, then trying to single stroke every sim process job we do here....... There's certain jobs I know 100% due to the high mesh counts for base plates that I would not be able to single stroke so for the most part I've setup my printing to double stroke the base and single stroke all the top colors. By doing it this way in my shop we are extremely efficient with the amount of staff I have on deck. For instance I have been comparing production data to the shop that I will be taking over here soon and they have 3 autos, 2 manual presses with double the staff that I have. I run 2 autos and 0 manuals and right now I'm doing 35% more production then they are. If I HAD the work though I would be figuring out a way to single stroke everything, but right now with the crew that I have it actually makes us run very smooth. I know it probably sounds pretty stupid to some but what works here probably wont work in other shops and vice versa.... LOL

to shed some info on blades I use -

discharge base = 65/90/65
top colors = 67/90/67

plastisol base = 70/90/70
top colors = 75/90/75

let me know if you have any other questions.... hope this helps

[mimosatexas]

I really appreciate the insight and I'm sure I'm not alone.  Have you tried the honeycomb pallets?  They are designed to dissipate heat better I believe.  Is anyone on the boards using them?

Not sure if you want to share, but what emulsion are you using out of curiosity?

Thanks again for sharing.  YHet another example of why this forum is invaluable.

[ebscreen]

MHM's use honeycomb pallets.

They do have the benefit of cooling down quicker, but they also heat up faster.
Probably more difficult to control than solid aluminum. Give and take, like everything.

[jvanick]

We have to doublestroke most of our underbases here on sim process jobs too... I really thought that it was something I was doing wrong... maybe it still is, but now I at least feel better about doing so

We just did get some s-mesh statics in tho... so maybe that will change.