defstarsteve
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screen printing question (= attn defstarsteve)
okay your question is a little unclear....
what do you mean by screen loss/screen gain?
do you mean dot gain?
and what do you mean by shirt artwork?
do you mean as you are printing the shirt?
I will be flying all day tomorrow (thursday) so i'll be around friday if I don't get back tonight
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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Well, I'm not defstar, but I have done screenprinting for some years now - and - if I understand your question correctly, this page here might help
you (or might not):
http://www.holditbags.com/screen_printing_specs.html
With certain artwork, screen gain seems to be more of a problem than screen loss (in my particular cases - Defstar probably has much more experience
than I do since I'm an engineer first, screen printer second and only VERY part-time these days).
White ink on black tee with a lot of screen gain can make the ink feel very rough and feel too "raised" on the tee, vs. smooth and soft like I prefer.
Whereas with screen loss (a good example would be artwork I did for an old Atheist "Piece of Time" white ink on black shirt) seems to make things look
very "gray."
I'm sure I probably did NOT answer your question correctly as when it comes to printing and the jargon involved in it, I am definitely not on top of
the game, but I thought I would throw in what I "think" I know at the very least - and maybe that link will answer your question. Basically, I just
prepare art and then print out of habit. I have a good feeling for what will look good and what will not through many years of trial and error and
that is pretty much what I go by.
My apologies if this post just wasted your time though 
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defstarsteve
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well that al ldepends on the screen mesh
I'd say a good 75 percent of what we do is on screens that are 230 mesh or higher
as most of my clients don't want a heavy feel to the shirt....
but it all depends on the art, the customer, and the and circumstances
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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| Quote: | Originally posted by defstarsteve
well that al ldepends on the screen mesh
I'd say a good 75 percent of what we do is on screens that are 230 mesh or higher
as most of my clients don't want a heavy feel to the shirt....
but it all depends on the art, the customer, and the and circumstances |
Yeah, I used 230 mesh on the Atheist
shirts and I thought they turned out terrible. Very gray looking and I even hit them with 3 passes. I dropped down to 180 and it turned out much
better. The ink was a "little" heavy, but not too heavy. Probably too heavy for a very particular "Roger Jennings" schooled printer, but not so heavy
that it felt 3-D.
I've actually never used anything beyond 230 mesh - what's the highest count you have ever used (assuming they make higher than 230)? Also, on your
180/230's, do you use the yellow mesh? I'm not really sure what the differences are, but Jennings always highly recommended me to use yellow mesh 180
and beyond....
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defstarsteve
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i have 4 meshes that we use
110, simple basic designs...
156 for a little more detail
230 for higher details
305 high details
the greying may have been from the ink you were using, or your off contact was set too low...
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defstarsteve
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this was printed all on 305 mesh
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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| Quote: | Originally posted by defstarsteve
i have 4 meshes that we use
110, simple basic designs...
156 for a little more detail
230 for higher details
305 high details
the greying may have been from the ink you were using, or your off contact was set too low... |
305 - yes, I
now remember trying 305, though using Newman roller frames I found that I ripped it SO easy when getting the tension correct. Most of my artwork is
230 at tops, thank goodness as now that you posted it, I remember 305 from about 4 years ago (trying it out).
I remember when I first got into it (screenprinting) after much conversation with a lot of so-called pros, I thought 110 would be useless - it always
amazes me however what turns out GREAT on simple 110 mesh.
Great examples by the way....you know your shit, no doubt about that.
As for the ink, I always followed Roger Jennings formula (mainly talking about white on black tee) - maxopake mixed with ultrasoft (in certain
percentages). The formula works really damn good with most tee's though some I think would end up doing much better with more maxopake.
Screenprinting is so much a science, it's crazy. There are so many variables. I don't think I will ever master it.
Also curious DefStar; what kind of exposure unit do you use? I use one I built with a metal halide lamp. Basically, some years ago, Jennings sent me
his blueprints but they called for a halogen lamp (worthless IMO). After about a month with the halogen lamps, I used the same blueprints and just
replaced the halogen with the metal halide and I get absolutely amazing results. 30 second exposures and excellent detail.
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defstarsteve
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i have a black light exposure unit
35 seconds for 2 screens at a time
I use an emulsion made for that specific light spectrum.
it's all science...
and I don't use roller frames, static aluminmum...
my whole time printing some, 12 years since I pushed my first bit of ink, it has been about experimentaion and trying to do the best work as simply as
possible...
the "pros" wont give you every answer, they are too worried about losing it all and R.Jennings is right up there with them.
tHey seem to know what they know but if you bring a new idea to the table, forget about it...
I'm not in this to be like them, I print for the bands I like, and some I don't but this is for me, my friends, and my family.
fuck the pros
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defstarsteve
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yes and no the artwork could be the problem
only if the art had grey shading and they didn't know how to print it from their computer
if it was supposed to have half-tones and ended up solid...
but it sounds more like the guy fucked up burning the screens,didn't notice and is trying to get out of it...
ink where there shouldn't be is either using too low of a mesh and the detail being blown, big time dot gain,
or him burgning dust into the image, and not using tape or chenical to block the out...
not enough ink in place could be the mesh being either too high and him not being able to push ink thru it,
or an underexposed screen, and the detials never burgning correctly i nthe first place.
the first mistake was going anywhere other then to me :>
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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| Quote: | Originally posted by defstarsteve
i have a black light exposure unit
35 seconds for 2 screens at a time
I use an emulsion made for that specific light spectrum.
it's all science...
and I don't use roller frames, static aluminmum...
my whole time printing some, 12 years since I pushed my first bit of ink, it has been about experimentaion and trying to do the best work as simply as
possible...
the "pros" wont give you every answer, they are too worried about losing it all and R.Jennings is right up there with them.
tHey seem to know what they know but if you bring a new idea to the table, forget about it...
I'm not in this to be like them, I print for the bands I like, and some I don't but this is for me, my friends, and my family.
fuck the pros |
I definitely agree with you for the most part about the "pros" and even Jennings - though
Jennings gets a break for actually saving me money. I had a very strict budget when starting my printing thing and he saved me from spending hardly
anything on an exposure unit and also saved me from buying a conventional "cure" unit. He sold me one of his flash units for a damn good deal and it
will cure shirts in about 10 seconds apiece. Which for the amount of work I personally do is absolutely perfect. It has a temperature dial on it, so I
can set it up to flash cure between ink coats and then turn it up to do the final ink cure and things turned out great just using the flash to do both
jobs.
He also sent me his blueprints for the exposure unit when I was close to buying a very expensive unit from another company. His blueprints call for a
1000 watt halogen lamp, which I personally think was worthless. But when I replaced the halogen with the metal halide lamp, the results amazed me.
Of course, the emulsion he HIGHLY touted was about 3 times as expensive (if not more) than what I currently get and what I currently get works every
bit as well, so I do take what he tells me with a big grain of salt.
Another regret I personally have is buying a 6 color press. Over 90% of the orders I fill only call for one or two colors. Since I only do it part
time, I really wish I had just purchased a 2 color table-top press. But of course, I had to start out bigger than what I needed to 
Thing is, I've found that for multi-colored shirts, it's not as economical for me to print those and it's actually better if I send those customers to
a pro-shop. But for one to two colored tee's, I can beat the pro-shop's prices and still make a good profit.
West Coast Choppers came to town to promote one of their products and all they wanted was a certain design of one of their new products, white ink on
black tee. Every pro-shop near here gave a quote of $7.00 or more. Someone they spoke with knew me and I told them I would prep the art for free and
only charge them $5.00 per shirt. The art took me about 2 hours to prepare so I was making some DAMN good profit per shirt (especially when taking in
quantity). So I have no idea why the "pro shops" pass up such an opportunity when they can "probably" get their blank tee's and supplies even cheaper
than I can 
Anyways, DefStarSteve - I wish you the best of luck, from examples I have seen, you're DAMN good at printing - better than me for sure. Hopefully this
new bullshit industry of "auto-presses" and all that computerized bullshit won't affect your business. I hate all that shit and hope that the guy with
the manual press still has a long career ahead of him/her.
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