Images_Digital_Edition_November_2019

www.images-magazine.com NOVEMBER 2019 images 39 TIPS & TECHNIQUES L et’s set the scene: it’s Friday, the last day of the week. The next job on the press is a simple three-colour print on mixed shirts – a total of 82 pieces. It’s 2pm and the customer is calling at 5pm to collect. No problem. As you pick the screens up and start to place them into the press your mind is already racing to the time when you can turn off the lights and finally go home after another chaotic week. You start to click the screens in the correct order and select the correct blades, but when you run your fingers down the rubber edge you notice a small nick. No problem. You can swap it out and you’ll be ready to go. In goes the underbase screen and, after trying to find a scrap of shirt to print on, you produce a print of the first screen in this ‘simple’ three-colour job. The white is a little dull but that’s probably just the first print, the ink is still a little sticky. You notice that the next colour is on a 43t mesh, but it should be okay as you’re only printing 82 pieces. The stencil department should have known to put this on a 90t, but you can cope: just flash it and it’ll hold, or use a harder blade, straighten the angle and back that pressure off. You’ve been doing this for years, you’re a good printer, you have skills. You’ve got this! The third colour presents a different problem: the mesh is too high. It’s obvious that the stencil guy has got these two colours the wrong way round and this top white is not going to look too bright. The screen is taped really nicely for a change, but as you try to set it the micro adjusters reach the limit of movement. It needs to go just 1mm more to the left, but, as hard as you try, it just won’t go. After several attempts at bending things that shouldn’t be bent and exercising your extensive knowledge of swear words in various languages, it finally dawns on you that you have to move the other two screens. So the base is unclamped, moved 25mm over, a new scrap shirt is printed and the second colour lined up. It’s taken another 30 minutes, but you still have two hours left – loads of time to print 82 pieces. The press salesman says this Pre-press describes every- thing that happens before a job hits the press Poor pre-press skills cost money As the fifth test print comes off the press, you’re finally happy that the white is opaque, the second colour is clean and the print is looking good. But the ruler tells a brutal truth: the design is now 24mm off-centre. But you have the skills, you can do this; just load them all to the right a little, no problem, you’re a great loader. A seventh test print now gives you the correct position and, after marking up all the pallets, you can finally start this ‘simple’ little job. But, 20 shirts into the run, the second colour starts to bleed and it no longer looks as great as the strike off. So you stop the press, wipe under the screens, apply a little silicone spray. A quick preheat cycle keeps the flashes warm and off you go again. Five shirts in and the sick feeling hits you: after the restart you forgot to load off-centre and the shirts you just printed are closer to an underarm print than a chest print. You stop the press and search the warehouse: what are the odds of a job for next week having the same colour shirts and the right sizes so that you can steal/borrow five replacements? You get lucky, and you have five new shirts ready to print. That’s when the sound of the second colour ripping off strikes a cold chill in the pit of your stomach. But you have the skills, you’ve got this. No problem. Sending the shirts round the press again makes the ones with a ripped off colour look great – too great! They look so good that you realise you need to Vibrant, accurate prints are easier to achieve if the pre-press team is on the ball press prints at over 1,000 an hour! The first sample print comes off and it’s very close to being in register. So you do one more print just to clean it up. The white needs more punch, so you set a double stroke. It’s still not very bright, so you swap out the blade and hit it again. The second colour rips off and you use words that you would never repeat in front of your mother. The third sample print is looking good, but the edges are a little rough – that mesh is really too low but a flash cleans things up and the white looks better with three strokes. It’s only 82 pieces, it won’t take much longer.