Challenging designs and certain special-effect inks may actually be better printed on a manual screen-printing press due to the versatility today’s manual presses provide. Printing on a manual allows you to make many on-press adjustments as you print, whereas an automatic press operates within a more rigid confine. Manual printing allows the operator to print a color twice (or not), flash whenever deemed necessary, or change the color order on the go. This style of printing is not possible with an automatic press where print and flash sequences are preset.

Don’t get me wrong, automatic presses are the backbone of our industry. But there are some designs that are simply better printed on the manual. Shimmer, puff and high-density inks are good candidates for manual printing, considering the special care needed to handle them. Glitter ink is another good example of an ink that many shops print on their manuals, as multiple squeegee passes may be required as the inks’ flow characteristics change. Sure, you can print all of these inks on an automatic press, but the manual should not be overlooked: It is a great tool for those out-of-the-ordinary jobs.

According to the author, owning a manual press means much more than simply using the only available piece of equipment that’s within your means. There’s a wide range of apparel-printing work that is actually more appropriately performed on a manual.

Tricks of the trade

Learn how to use the rotary load feature on your manual press. Press operators often fail to load garments on all the open print stations on their manuals. When printing a large production run it is always best to load garments on all of the stations and the job will go much smoother and faster. The ideal situation is to have one person loading and unloading, which allows the person printing to print uninterrupted.

All-heads-down

Some press manufactures feature “all-heads-down” capabilities. The all-heads-down feature is great to have when the need to accelerate production arises. All-heads-down printing allows two or more people to print simultaneously on the same job. Consider that the workers at Sportprint in Escondido, Calif., were clocked printing 20 dozen six-color garments per hour on an all-heads-down manual press with four operators—three printing and one loader/unloader. All-heads-down printing is not used in every manual printing shop, but the ones that incorporate this technique can handle more production than the average manual printer.

Some argue that adding extra people on a manual press simply adds cost to the job at hand. This is true, but bear in mind that, while most of the time the press will be operated by only one person, you can afford to print all-heads-down when the need arises. Adding extra people to print on the same job is usually reserved for large print runs and time-critical deadlines.

Manual all-over printing techniques

If you thought those giant “all over” T-shirt prints died when the belt printer went away, think again. They’re back! Seam-to-seam garment printing is as hot as ever and screen printers across the country are scrambling to convert their presses to handle this oversized printing trend.

The innovators at Carousel Printing (Lawrence, Kan.) were faced with a difficult challenge: how to print “INDIANS” . . .

. . . from halfway down one sleeve, across the chest, and halfway down the other sleeve. They used their manual press, and a lot of ingenuity, to solve the problem.

Try accomplishing this unusual job on an automatic press. No matter how sophisticated, its many pre-set routines would make matters more difficult.

By “convert,” I mean that larger designs require the press to accept larger screens and this can pose problems for the standard manual press. Most six-color manuals only accept screen widths of 21 to 23 inches, but oversized print jobs require a 25-inch or greater outside-dimension (OD). In addition to accepting wider screens, the manual press will need to be outfitted with oversized platens, and these are not cheap.

Still, this might be the perfect time to dust off that old four-color printer in the corner and outfit this press with larger shirt boards. A four-color manual press is ideal to convert for printing oversized designs for a couple of reasons. First, most jumbo designs are not more complex than four colors. And a four-color press will accept larger-width screens than will a six-color. A four-color press typically accepts 25- up to 30-inch OD screens, since the screens typically do not collide when raised to the up position on the press.

The next step is to purchase (or build, if you have the capability) your own oversized shirt boards for this jumbo press. It is not uncommon for manual shops to buy extra shirt-board brackets and cut their own platens to whatever size they need. Especially when the print job at hand could be a one-time order.

Color order

When setting up a job on the manual press, it is important to experiment with the color order (print order) to achieve best results. The most common color order for printing on white garments is to set up the screens to print light-to-dark (yellow, orange, red, green, blue, black and so on), but some rules in screen printing are made to be broken.

Making a design work sometimes requires changing the color order. For example, in order to tone down a certain color, move that color to the front of the print order since the subsequent screens that come in contact with this printed color will pick up some of its ink deposit on their backs, diminishing the brightness of the color. Likewise, to make a certain color stronger, move that screen to the end of the print order to avoid this ink-pick-up factor.

An experienced manual printer will have many such tricks up his/her sleeve in the area of color-order sequence. A design that does not look right on the first strike-off can often be improved by simply adjusting the print order.

Off-contact

Garments are typically screen printed with the screens set 1/16" or less off-contact from the surface of the garment. The downward pressure from the force of the squeegee allows the screen to touch the garment only during the print stroke sequence, then the screen snaps off the surface of the garment immediately behind the squeegee stroke. Increasing this off-contact distance (between the garment and the screen) increases the ink deposit, and reducing the off contact distance reduces the amount of ink that is printed on the surface of the garment.

Manual printing on dark garments

Squeegee technique and controlling downward squeegee pressure play a major role in achieving the brightest prints on dark garments. Excess squeegee pressure will drive ink through the garment, exposing surface fibers that protrude through the ink deposit, making the ink appear washed out. This problem is generally known as fibrillation.

Using high-tensioned screens and backing off on squeegee pressure allows the ink to sit on to the surface of the garment yielding the best ink coverage and opacity. If ink residue can be seen on the platen after a garment is printed and unloaded from the press, it’s a good indication too much squeegee pressure is being used. Back off! The goal is to print on the surface of the garment and not to drive the ink all the way through to the platen. Keeping excess ink off platens will also reduce the need to apply spray adhesive as often.

Unconventional printing

Capitalizing on the versatility of a manual press can give you an edge over the competition. Some shops have really stretched the limits of what you can do with a manual. As mentioned earlier, many printers build their own custom shirt boards for printing on items ranging from drink insulators to umbrellas, sleeves to shorts, and everything in between.

One of the most interesting jobs I’ve seen printed on a manual press was at Carousel Printing in Lawrence Kansas where they made a special shirt board designed to print completely across the sweatshirt from sleeve to sleeve including the center of the chest. Another popular trend has been to print across the backside of girls sport shorts. This is being done with a small jacket hold-down device (about 7½" X 7½" in size); this small hold-down allows the press operator to position the shorts on the printing platen without the use of spray adhesive.

Finally, the manual press allows the press operator the freedom to print with the squeegee from side to side on the screen instead of in the traditional front to back stroke path. A great special effect you can perform on a manual press is called a “split fountain.” Around for ages, the split fountain technique was widely used in the 60s and 70s before controlled blends were incorporated into artwork using halftones. A split fountain is achieved by adding two (or more) colors of plastisol in the same screen and printing side to side (left to right) softly blending these two colors together for a great effect!

Whether you are printing traditional spot-color or special-effect inks, explore new ways to get the most out of your manual press. It will pay off in the end with faster production times and more interesting designs. Thanks for reading.