Impressions - March 2014 - 74

Screen Printing Technique
When trying to
add a ﬂat screen,
a roller squeegee can
be used in place of a
standard squeegee to roll
across the blank screen
to ﬂatten the inks below.

3. Add some soft-hand additive or clear
gel in the screen to act as a lubricant for the
squeegee as it cycles across the non-imaged
screen. A roller squeegee also can be used in
place of a standard squeegee to roll across
the blank screen to ﬂatten the inks below.
Interchangeable shirt boards also constitute an important feature of automatic
presses. Leaving the ﬂash cure unit over a
print for an excessive amount of time (1015 seconds) leads to major dye migration
and bleeding problems. The ideal ﬂash
temperature is in the 190˚F-230˚F range.
A solution to speed up ﬂash times on
an automatic press is to cover the shirt
boards with a thin sheet of 70-durometer
neoprene. This cover insulates the shirt
board, directing the IR energy into the ink
ﬁlm instead of absorbing it into the mass
of the shirt board. Most shirt boards for
automatic presses are covered with neoprene rubber and using this covering can
cut ﬂash times in half.
74

Impressions | March 2014

MULTIMEDIA MUSTS
Multimedia printing is another area
where the automatic press offers advantages. The fashion world dictates the types
of designs that will be screen printed in
the coming season and multimedia designs
are gaining popularity each year. With
this in mind, it is important to choose an
automatic press that has extra print heads
and open loading stations to allow for
non-conventional printing processes to
be added.
A good example is having a spare
print head station for adding an inline
heat press to allow for foil application in
register with the print. Screen printing
press manufacturer MHM, a subsidiary
of Hirsch Intl. Corp., Hauppauge, N.Y.,
recommends having an extra open station to make room for adding a direct-togarment (DTG) printer - like the Kornit
Paradigm II - to the press. This is an idea
that most likely will gain in popularity as

the DTG and screen printing worlds align.
DTG ink still is expensive compared
to screen printing inks, so why not print
the detailed photographic design elements
with the DTG print head and leave the
big block areas to be printed with the lessexpensive screen printing inks? It represents the best of both worlds.
Another way to achieve multimedia
looks is by adding a direct ﬂocking attachment in place of a print head. Direct ﬂocking on garments has been around since the
1950s, and was widely used for numbering
and lettering on team uniforms, including
baseball, football and bowling teams, to
name a few. Today, ﬂock is a very desired
texture in the fashion printing world.
With this process, a screen is used to
print ﬂock adhesive directly onto the garment and, while the adhesive is still wet,
a Plexiglas "hopper" ﬁlled with rayon ﬂock
ﬁbers shakes the ﬁbers over the wet adhesive. The ﬂock print head also emits an
electrostatic ﬁeld over the entire image
area, which makes the ﬂock ﬁbers stand
directly on end into the wet ﬂock adhesive. After the ﬂock adhesive is dried, the
ﬁbers are very plush and tall.
The incredible speed and accuracy of
today's automatic screen printing presses,
combined with the low cost of screen
printing inks, has secured a place for automatics in our industry for many years to
come. Consider the above tips when purchasing or running your auto press.
James Ortolani has more than 30 years
experience in the decorated apparel industry,
specializing in hands-on direct screen printing and heat transfer production. He has
worked for main industry suppliers, and
currently serves as R&D project manager
for Stahls' DFC. For more information or
to comment on this article, email James at
james.ortolani@stahlsdfc.com.

Suggested

Reading

Like this article? Read these and
other screen printing articles at
impressionsmag.com:
* "Entry-Level Automatic Presses"
* "An Automatic Decision"
* "Automatic Press Maintenance"
impressionsmag.com

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Impressions - March 2014

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