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tdigital · December 23rd, 2008

Greetings all!

Finally finished my exposure unit and exposed the screens for my first 4CP job. I'm still tweaking it (registration, etc) and getting it up to par, but for a first shot, i'm pretty happy with how its come out so far.

I'll also use a 55lpi line in the future for this type of work. I chose 45 because its my first time doing 4cp and I was using my newly built exposure unit and I wasn't sure how well it would hold the 55lpi line. After messing with it, i'm sure it'll hold a 85lpi line if I wanted it to. I can't believe what i've been missing...

Oh yea.. I used a 22.5 degree round halftone for every screen and got no moire.

The exposure unit is 1kw metal halide unit (stadium light off craigslist $75 total) with pond liner creating the vacuum etc. I'm using a shopvac to create the suction for now and its very, very crude. I was in a rush to get it functional before getting too deep into aesthetics

I did all the math to get the proper exposure height and all that other stuff, so if anyone needs any help, feel free to ask. I'll put it in a handy excel spreadsheet over the holidays as well.

Comments & Critiques are more than welcome! (all pics were taken with an iphone so the colors are off)

out da box · December 23rd, 2008

Man that pond liner holds tight! That metal-halide light is a beast ain't it? You can hold 65lpi on a 280-305 mesh with dual cure. I used to use qtx, but it's so fast, it'll close up the fine dots.

tdigital · December 23rd, 2008

I was surprised at how tight it held the screen down! I saw someone made a post about their vacuum breaking the glass and I was hoping that didn't happen.

I'm using tubelite ttx emulsion 1/1 and my distance from the glass to the bulb is 36 inches. It takes about 10 minutes to expose a screen, so I'm gonna raise it up halfway which should get me down to about 2.5 minutes. I don't know what the bulb life is like, so i'll do more testing..

I was hoping to get that 20-40 second burn you get, but I may need to switch to that ulano qtx for that

out da box · December 23rd, 2008

I use chromaline udc-2 now, it holds VERY impressive detail, but it's very sensitive. Even the edge of the film will wash out even when fully exposed.

PositiveDave · December 24th, 2008

If there isn't a good vacuum the light undercuts the mask, vacuum is good and helps you hold detail. Looks good.

Matto · December 24th, 2008

NICE job!!!! make sure you put on the sunscreen before firing that bad boy up

Great results on the shirts as well. did you get the order completed?

neato · December 24th, 2008

Looks great! We use a VERY similar setup. I too was blown away at the quality you can achieve by stepping up to the vacuum top and a single point metal halide bulb.

Nice looking print too.

tdigital · December 24th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matto


	NICE job!!!! make sure you put on the sunscreen before firing that bad boy up Great results on the shirts as well. did you get the order completed?

I'm finishing them up now (only 25 to start). Wanted to spend a lot of time making sure the colors/registration was right first to make sure we're good for the full quantity

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First 4CP Job (In Progress) + New Exposure Unit