The Use of Soft Top Rubber on pallets has many advantages:

Better Quality of Print – The primary Advantage is that The material – “normalizes” – the inaccuracies of the printing machinery. That is, all the three printing planes should ideally be in alignment. The Three Printing Planes are:

• Travel Vector of the Squeegee
• Screen Plane Alignment
• Pallet Plane Alignment.

The compression characteristic of the rubber acts to reduce the effect that plane misalignment has on the quality and density control of your product.

Easy Control & Consistent Image Density - There is a noticeable difference in the consistency over both long & short runs. The Rubber acts to reduce mesh degradation and emulsion breakdown and will require less overall screen attention during the run.

Reduced Costs & Flashing Times and Increased Production - Very, Very Important Benefit.  But First - some background...Solid Aluminum is the worlds best material for printing. It's cost efficient, flat, durable, heat resistant, and very rigid. Also important is that it dissipates heat very quickly. This is sometimes good but usually not when flashing.  The addition of the rubber to the aluminum dramatically increases the heat dissipation time while effectively 'blanketing' the aluminum to trap the heat in.  Now finally to the real question of why that is good - Heat Costs Money & Time to Generate. Keep the pallets warm and they will require less heat to keep hot between flashes. That means that not only are you saving money on the cost of running your flash cure unit, but you are also producing faster.  More on this subject.

Better Adherence of the Print to the Garment - The compression of the rubber allows the garment weave to flex and stretch when the squeegee presses it into the rubber. This stretch behavior allows for better penetration of the ink into the garment. Let's remember that an ideal print is ultra smooth to the 'Hand' and can withstand being washed a million times. These are usually trade offs.  The better penetration of the ink into the material will increase the 'hand' quality and durability of your print.

Over the years, we have conducted numerous tests using many types of materials and laminated combinations. Controlled conditions and data documentation were performed to help us understand how our products are used and what their limitations are. Because we manufacture these Soft Top Rubber coated Pallets for every manual and automatic, I feel that we are in a unique position to state our conclusions with the greatest certainty.

Our findings are that solid aluminum by itself will dissipate heat quickly, while the addition of rubber acts to insulate the aluminum, reflect the heat and lengthen the time of heat translation.

Why Soft Top Rubber Increases Production During Flashing

Scenario 1 – Solid Aluminum Only – a Printed Shirt is Loaded and put under the Flash – What happens is that the flash's radiant energy is incident upon the shirt where it is partially absorbed by the fabric and ink and then translated through to the pallet. Aluminum is an excellent heat translator and will absorb heat quickly. A Majority of the initial heat is translated and until the solid aluminum pallet reaches it's own critical point you are spending a majority of the time and energy to heat the pallet up. During this period, the ink is gelling, because it's experiencing incident heat and continuing to take it's own energy at a steady pace. Once the pallet is up to that critical temperature, then the pallet no longer is acting to absorb the heat and absorption is reversed making the solid aluminum pallet radiant itself. Here the energy of the flash is not being absorbed and the ink and shirt increase temperature quickly. When the shirt is indexed past the flash, the aluminum begins to dissipate it's heat very quickly. The next time it's loaded, it will once again take a lengthy period to gel the ink.

Scenario 2 – Solid Aluminum and Soft Top Rubber-– a Shirt is Loaded and put under the Flash – What happens is that the flash's radiant energy is incident upon the shirt where it is partially absorbed by the fabric and ink and then translated through to the rubber. The Rubber makes and excellent thermal reflector/ insulator . Consider that, rubber and plastic are used on many cooking utensils for this same reason. They don't absorb the heat well and allow you to pick up the spatula that you've been stirring your spaghetti with J . So, initially, right out of the gate, most of the energy is being reflected by the rubber and into the fabric/ ink thus effecting much higher heat density. But wait, there's more to the story. Some of the heat does translate through to the pallet. This energy is absorbed, of course slower than before, and acts to increase the temperature of the solid aluminum. If left under the flash for a certain length of time, the solid aluminum will eventually reach that critical temperature where it becomes radiant. In actuality, the gel of the ink is accomplished well before this occurs. If the solid aluminum becomes radiant, you're actually flashing it much more than is necessary and risk burning the rubber. Lastly, the shirt is indexed past the flash and the pallet begins to cool. Because the solid aluminum is now insulated with rubber, the normally radiant heat is partially being absorbed by the rubber and mostly reflected back into the aluminum. This is the reason that the pallets stay hot longer.

We've tested many different materials including all forms of solid aluminum and aluminum laminates. We've tested Dupont Corian and several other exotic plastic materials. They all warped very quickly. We've tested Wood Boards, MDF Boards, all forms. Nothing compares to the aluminum and rubber combination. While we didn't invent this material combination, I believe that we can unequivocally state that for the purposes of screen printing, it's the very best thing available.