Need Help Just started screen printing again

[EZ Ink]

Just started back to screen printing after three years. Have a small 4 screen with one pallet. Started practicing on bunch of old t shirts, was using some green speedball (water based) I had for a couple of years, in fact still sealed in jar.

The issue came up is that when I pulled and push, the ink was going through the screen,
but after a couple of pulls, the letter on the shirt started to smear and blur as if the ink all the way through the screen.

When I lifted the screen up, I noticed the stencil on the screen, that portions of the ink were still impeded in screen in some areas of the lettering and not in the others. So took some water and washed out the stencil area. Some improvement, but not much. Any one have this experience and a remedy for it. Thanks.

Glenn Combs
E-Z Ink Promotions

 

[dale911]

If you had just made that screen for this run, I have found that sometimes, you think it's washed out but it will have an extremely tiny, thin layer of emulsion still in the holes. It actually looks to me like water in the screen when I check it but it's emulsion or extremely diluted emulsion in th screen (or water) that impedes your ink. I would recommend heading over to t-shirt forums and post the question. Tons of screen printers over there that would be happy to give you a ton of solutions.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[d fleming]

Did your first or second print look proper?

 

[cy6designs]

on water based you have to keep the image area flooded or the ink will dry in there, just making sure you remembered that.

 

[bpfohler]

Like cy6designs said, with water base you need to keep the screen flooded between passes, also unlike plastisol there is no off-contact