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| emoxfag |
 Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 9:35 pm |
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Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 80
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| Ok so im working on some stuff, and im using union pre senseitized emulsion with plastisol inks. the burns are awesome becuase they take like 4 minutes with a 500 wat blue photo bulb. the prints are sharp and i can do most prints in one pass. the problem is clean up. i scrub the hell out of the screens to reove the ink. i let them dry, clean them again to make sure all the ink is gone, but alas i still get a little bit of residue. mostly around the edges of the print. like a outline of said image. i know somtimes the ink will discolour the screen but this is actual emulsion. any suggestions? (i am currantly using nazdar screen opener to clean the images out and mineral spirits) |
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| Fool's Gold |
| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:33 am |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 284
Location: Ontario Canada
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GET THE MINERAL SPIRITS OUT OF THE SHOP! That stuff will kill you, as well as being a major fire hazard. Never use mineral spirits, there is no place for them in screen printing.
1) Go out a buy a proper ink degradant/screen wash (I use Prochem 430 by CCI)
2) Proper emulsion remover (ER35 from CCI)
3) Haze remover.
Take the screen to the washout tank, spray on screen wash/ink degardant and wash off plastisol ink,
spray on emulsion remover, wait for a minute and pressure wash off
apply either more ink degradant, or haze remover and remove the last of the ink residue. wash out
apply degreaser and washout again. let dry
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What's probably happening is you're not using the right products and as a result your having trouble. The mineral spirits mights be reacting with the emulsion and locking it in, it will also upset the balance of plastisol ink and that will make it hard to reclaim. If you use the proper chemicals (you are looking at spending maybe $80 on chems to do it right) then there should be no trouble. right tools for the job and so forth. |
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| Five Points Skateboards |
| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:00 am |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 12 Mar 2003
Posts: 4167
Location: Columbus, OH
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| you can also take it to a car wash (self serve) and use their power washer. That's what I do to reclaim my screens. Works perfectly. gets all emulsion and dried up ink out of the screen totally. |
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Tim
Five Points Skateboards |
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| Fool's Gold |
| Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:54 am |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 284
Location: Ontario Canada
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pressure washing the emulsion off the screen, without any chems, will eventually cause the mesh to break or separate from the frame.
Just a pressure washer won't remove the ink and emulsion residue from the mesh, eventually you will find that you emulsion will start to peel off because it can't bind to the mesh. Degreasers and screen washs exist for a reason, it's not an elaborate scam, they actually have a purpose. |
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| Five Points Skateboards |
| Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:20 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 12 Mar 2003
Posts: 4167
Location: Columbus, OH
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| works fine for me. I make my own screens, so if by chance eventually, it breaks the mesh, I'll just apply more mesh to the frame. I actually used emulsion remover and then the car wash sprayer to get the leftovers that were not coming out |
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Tim
Five Points Skateboards |
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| Fool's Gold |
| Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:31 pm |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 284
Location: Ontario Canada
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| I run a decently sized shop, so when a screen that may only cost me $30 rips, the financial pain the the rear as far as production goes is way higher. Because with that one screen we may make 150 that week with it, and when it's gone we are down one screen for that mesh count. (I just busted 3 over the holidays and paying for it now.) |
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| emoxfag |
| Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:06 am |
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Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 80
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| thanks. i was told to use min. spirits for plastisol, and haven't found any detergent. but i'll look that up. my problem was i wasn't using a power washer or and de hazer. |
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| Fool's Gold |
| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:19 pm |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 284
Location: Ontario Canada
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ok, well here's the deal.
for like $25 you can get citrus based screen wash. Or for a bit less you can use mineral spirits, spend your time around a fire hazard (working with flash units?) and a product that will do incredible damage to your health in the long run, as well as the short run. Not to mention that mineral spirits destroys your plastisol ink by upsetting the plasticizer/resin balance and causes problems with curing as well as cracking of the design.
So whoever told you to use mineral spirits is totally unprofessional and completely wrong.
but do what you want, I am not trying to be an asshole. it's just dumb. sorry |
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| emoxfag |
| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:01 am |
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Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 80
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no i totally understand. i ordered some detergent the other day. also i print in my basement and clean up eithe routside or in my kitchen. so the heat is never by the min. spirits. im glad you told me about the detergent becuse im sure it will work better.
and i don't understand what you mean by "Not to mention that mineral spirits destroys your plastisol ink by upsetting the plasticizer/resin balance and causes problems with curing as well as cracking of the design" becuse i never use ink that i cleaned to print with or cure that ink. |
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| Fool's Gold |
| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:59 am |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 284
Location: Ontario Canada
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So you are just using it to clean up? not to reduce the ink?
the reason that mineral spirits thins platisol ink is because it breaks down the chemical balance that ensured a cure. The industry invented CURABLE reducer insted of just straight REDUCER because people would add too much and the shirts wouldn't cure because there would be too much plastcizer or resin and they wouldn't bond correctly. Mineral spirits does the same thing: except that the chemical process reverses itself after awhile and the ink stars to become a solid block. There are hundreds of stories of people finding their ink all lumpy and filled with chunks of cured ink . . it's because of the mineral spirits. All those 'retro' shirts that people are sporting these days, with that cracked/distressed look, that 'style' originated because all the printers in 60s,70s and so forth used mineral spirits and 5 years later the ink's brittle and just falls off, it was initially cured correctly, but the MS destroyed the ink over time.
Running ink mixed with mineral spirits through the dryer is a bad thing too. It's also illegal to dispose of MS via the city drains (at least up here it is) and you have spontaneous combustion issues, as well as the braincell/long term damage thing . . .
MS will also lock in emulsion or at least can make it very hard to reclaim |
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