cies

I purchased a very simple, single colour manual screen press. The aluminium screen is clamped in and folds down into position firmly. There appears to be a fairly large space between the screen and the board in which the t-shirt is placed. Roughly 5mm. I'm imaging the screen should sit nicely on the surface of the shirt that I am printing on? Is this right?

 

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printing40years

Check your press. It should have a way to lower or raise the height of the screen. You want the screen to snap up right behind the squeegee as it moves across the print pushing the ink through.

Bryant

 

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cies

Ah I see! Thank you both for making that clearer for me.

 

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tomgrin

Question about Proper off contact height: (Trying to write this so it will be searched in the future for other newbs too). When people use the "quarter method" or or as someone mentioned a silver dollar (nice idea, larger contact area, slightly higher, etc.); do you guys tend to measure this so the quarter so it touches the close end of the platen without a shirt on the platen? Or do you load a shirt, and then make the quarter just kiss the shirt, which would actually add an 1/8th or quarter inch to the actual off contact? Also how far do you go on a manual press to make sure that not only is your off-contact correct at the close side of the frame, but does anyone get nutty about making sure the screen is close (eyeballed) to level at the far end of the screen too, so it's not on any slight angle?

The reason I ask about such specifics, is even w/ a 20x24" frame and 156 mesh; and white low bleed plastisol stirred well and with some extender mixed in to soften it up; we're still having clearing issues.

 

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splathead

Quote: Originally Posted by tomgrin do you guys tend to measure this so the quarter so it touches the close end of the platen without a shirt on the platen? Or do you load a shirt, and then make the quarter just kiss the shirt, which would actually add an 1/8th or quarter inch to the actual off contact?

The off contact should be determined with the garment on the platen. Otherwise you'll have issues with say a sweatshirt vs. a tee. I do a lot more than a quarter too. I do 1/8 inch, which is a stack of 3 quarters.

Quote: Also how far do you go on a manual press to make sure that not only is your off-contact correct at the close side of the frame, but does anyone get nutty about making sure the screen is close (eyeballed) to level at the far end of the screen too, so it's not on any slight angle?

As long as your platen is level, your screen bracket is flat and your screen isn't warped, then this issue takes care of itself.

 

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Screenanator

This is what I do...I use a sheet of plexiglass a lil larger than the size of the screen....it's an 1/8 thick...I put it down on the platten then put down the screen on top.....the plexi sheet allows me to set off contact all the way around the screen...front to back and side to side.I check each platten like this to determine if I may have warped plattens also.You can use an alumninum sheet also thats an 1/8 thick.I've also got 1/4 for thick sweatshirts.....good luck !!!!!

__________________
The Shirt Shak-TSS Grafx-TSS Sporting Goods...Gettin it done since 2001

 

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tomgrin

Thanks, so you guys are actually setting up off contact as 'not too high'; appx an 1/8" or so off of the substrate or using plexi right on top of the platen w/ no shirt (killer idea) and leveling it from there? Then still adding a few quarters or something for bumpers at the close side of the platen I assume? Hmm. Maybe we were way off and too high.

Currently have a tricky job, white on darks, mix of small detail and thick letters all on the first screen pass. We had shirts lifting; even w/ good flash-safe spray adhesive. And we still were not clearing the screen. The screens are mint; so take that out of the equation; and we were still getting shirt lift. Stroke angle and squeegee are all good.

We pretty much closed it into we clogged our screen either from spray adhesive mist or more likely, overflashing on the platen and reverse curing the ink back into the screen. That would resolve our issue of a clearing the screen; and the off-contact being a little high probably contributed to that a hair.

We weren't using any platen tape, (on order now!), and used too much extender in our plastisol white, so it was taking too long to flash; so I'm pretty sure we were cooking the adhesive spray onto the platen because we were getting ugly adhesive chunks ripped up onto test shirts. Ugh. We've got screen opener spray on it's way; hoping that and a few tweaks gets things moving again on this job.

thanks for the tips and sorry to hijack the thread; same topic though.

 

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