Boise Green Living: Green Screen Printing

18/03/2009
A printer scans back and forth, slowly revealing a multi-colored sign that is actually green all over.
Mark Honeck, owner of Boise's All Sign & Post, set up the demonstration to show us how his state-of-the-art eco-friendly printing machine works.
Flashes of UV light dry a special kind of ink within seconds as Honeck explains how, unlike most machines in standard screen printing shops, the process releases no harmful chemicals or volatile organic compounds into the air.
"After five minutes in there I feel like I'm eating screen print ink for the next three hours," Honeck laughs.
The printing machine at All Sign & Post can print on almost any material, fabric, wood and even porcelain tiles. Once printed on, those materials can also be recycled as well.
To learn more about All Sign & Post's "green" printing, click on the Today's Channel 6 News Video Link.
Sources from: http://www.kivitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10022740

Interview: Screen Printer Alana Bailey

Maybe you’ve seen Alana Bailey’s Hideout calendars on the flyer-covered wall at Earwax Cafe, or her sold-out Hideout Block Party print on the door of Boulevard Bikes. Or you wrapped your holiday presents with gift wrap that she designed for Paper Source. Since 2006, Bailey’s recognizable screen printed posters have been decorating Chicago’s bars, businesses, and telephone poles with minimal, dramatic illustrations that balance intricate shapes with scalloped lettering.
Bailey is just one of Chicago’s new wave of screen printers (like Angee Lennard, Ryan Duggan, and the crew of No Coast Collective to name a few) who maneuver outside, and around, Chicago’s mainstream screen printing scene. And she shows no sign of slowing down when it comes to creating art, which makes us pretty happy. We talked with Bailey about her labor-intensive poster making process, the economy’s affect on artists, and wearing one pair of jeans every day until they fall apart.
Oh, and you can check out Alana Bailey’s screen prints up-close at Heaven Gallery‘s “Boombox” exhibit curated by Anchor Graphics / Columbia College, March 13 through March 27, with a reception for Columbia College’s Southern Graphics Council Conference on March 27, 9 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Sources from: http://chicagoist.com/2009/03/12/interview.php

Hot stamped components with soft zones-simulation and validation of material properties and product performance

Hot stamping, soft zones, simulation, validation, microstructure, mapping, crashworthiness
Simultaneous forming and quenching is a method for manufacturing low weight and ultra high strength components.
The process is often referred to as hot stamping or press hardening and is mainly used for producing passive safety components, such as side impact beams, bumper beams and different types of reinforcement components.
Controlling the deformation and avoiding extensive strain localization and cracks around critical areas are important issues when designing an automobile structure for different crash conditions. One method for controlling the buckling and deformation is to use weaker areas by changing the thickness of the component or by reducing the yield and tensile strength of the material.

In this work, a method has been developed to control the cooling rate and, thereby, the mechanical properties of the components during hot stamping. The tensile strength of the material is less than half of that of fully hardened material and the strain-to-failure is increased by factor two. The transition zone from soft to fully hardened material is 10 - 20 mm depending on application. Numerical methods such as the finite element (FE) method are often used in simulations of manufacturing processes and component functionality. A thermomechanical hot stamping simulation has been performed on a beam to predict mechanical properties and the simulated result is compared with measured material hardness. The predicted microstructure after hot stamping is used to estimate mechanical flow stress properties. The estimated properties are exported and mapped to a model with a different discretisation for use in crash analysis. The simulated deformation behaviour during a four-point bending test at high velocity with the predicted material properties from forming is validated by experiments.

Sources from: http://www.steel-grips.com/newsdesk/from_top/g02280.html

Simulation of hot stamping processes

Hot sheet stamping, thermomechanical forming, modeling, simulation Hot stamping is a thermo-mechanical technique that allows to provide a metallic blank with both the desired geometry and properties in a single step, where deformation at high temperature, phase transformations and heat transfer occur simultaneously and affect mutually. They are several variables controlling the quality of the final component and their relationships are, in some cases, complex. Therefore, a methodology capable of taking into account all the phenomena involved is necessary in order to understand the influence of the parameters characterising the deformation system. In this work, numerical simulation techniques are implemented as a tool to evaluate the effect of different process parameters during hot stamping of boron steel, with special emphasis on thermal conductivity of the material of the dies, the cooling system of the tooling and the main features of the contact between metallic blank and tools. A very simple experimental test has proven very useful for the validation of the simulation and for adjustment of the thermal contact conductance, responsible up to a point for the cooling velocity of the sheet.

Sources from: http://www.steel-grips.com/newsdesk/from_rd/g02284.html

Hot stamped components with soft zones-simulation and validation of material properties and product performance

Mar 17, 2009
Hot stamping, soft zones, simulation, validation, microstructure, mapping, crashworthiness.
Simultaneous forming and quenching is a method for manufacturing low weight and ultra high strength components.
The process is often referred to as hot stamping or press hardening and is mainly used for producing passive safety components, such as side impact beams, bumper beams and different types of reinforcement components.
Controlling the deformation and avoiding extensive strain localization and cracks around critical areas are important issues when designing an automobile structure for different crash conditions. One method for controlling the buckling and deformation is to use weaker areas by changing the thickness of the component or by reducing the yield and tensile strength of the material.
In this work, a method has been developed to control the cooling rate and, thereby, the mechanical properties of the components during hot stamping. The tensile strength of the material is less than half of that of fully hardened material and the strain-to-failure is increased by factor two. The transition zone from soft to fully hardened material is 10 - 20 mm depending on application. Numerical methods such as the finite element (FE) method are often used in simulations of manufacturing processes and component functionality. A thermomechanical hot stamping simulation has been performed on a beam to predict mechanical properties and the simulated result is compared with measured material hardness. The predicted microstructure after hot stamping is used to estimate mechanical flow stress properties. The estimated properties are exported and mapped to a model with a different discretisation for use in crash analysis. The simulated deformation behaviour during a four-point bending test at high velocity with the predicted material properties from forming is validated by experiments.
Sources from: http://www.steel-grips.com/newsdesk/from_top/g02280.html

New screen-printing store open for business

March 26, 2009
Hoodies for $18.99, spirit wear T-shirts for $8.99 and shoulder packs with screened prep logos for $8.95 are just a few of the items that can be bought at Dr. J's Print Shop in Monroe.
Owner and operator Jay Junker, 51, of Middletown opened the custom screen-printing and spirit wear shop about a month ago inside a 1,000-square-foot space inside the Monroe Center at 19 East Ave.
"Whatever the customer wants, hopefully I can do. We do family reunions, church groups — and a lot of sports teams come in here. So I've got pricing for sports teams; the typical names and numbers on back of jerseys, we put that on for them," he said.
Other customers include a lot of small companies like landscaping businesses that want their own custom T-shirts, Coney Island, Boy Scouts, 4-H and some prep sports teams from Carlisle, Edgewood, Franklin, Madison, Middletown, Monroe and Waynesville schools.
"When you go to sporting events, how many plain T-shirts do you see in the stands at whatever event it is? People want spirit wear to represent their teams," he said.
Junker previously sold his custom screen-printing and spirit wear items at Traders World in Warren County.
"My son was at Monroe (Schools) and I got asked by the soccer team to do something, and I got my foot in the door at Monroe. It just seemed like I knew this area quite well and it's, like, let's pursue a shop in this area, and see what we can do here," he said.
Junker said screen-printing has been a hobby of his since his days as a student at Princeton High School in Cincinnati.
"After having jobs at Coca Cola for 10 years and General Electric for
10 years and getting involved with the massive layoffs, I just started to going what I do best," he said.
His store's motto is "hobby gone wild."
Sources from: http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2009/03/26/mon032609newbusiness.html