printing white on black cotton hoody's

[midnite]

Hi:
I am hoping someone can give me some insight on my problem. We are screen printing a white base on black cotton hoody's, we can't seem to get the ink to lay down flat on the garment, its like the fibers are sticking up and causing the print to be rough, I have thinned the ink a little, it is a nice consistency. when i print on a t shirt, or, paper, it looks just fine. any ideas?

 

[onedge]

how thick is your emulsion on the screen, is it putting enough ink down

 

[onedge]

I have to thin the white ink down a good bit

 

[ThePrinter]

What mesh count are you using?

What kind of ink are you using?

Are you manually printing or are you using an automatic press?

What is the temperature of you pallet?



I typically print white on hoodies using a 110 mesh. I heat my pallets to about 140F before I start printing especially in the colder months. I never have to thin my ink down. Thinning ink down you can start to lose the opacity.

You also need to check your offset from the garment to the screen is good.

 

[onedge]

I agree 110 screens are the best to use and since we have changed to the meteor white we done thin either and it is a bright white

 

[midnite]

What mesh count are you using?

What kind of ink are you using?

Are you manually printing or are you using an automatic press?

What is the temperature of you pallet?



I typically print white on hoodies using a 110 mesh. I heat my pallets to about 140F before I start printing especially in the colder months. I never have to thin my ink down. Thinning ink down you can start to lose the opacity.

You also need to check your offset from the garment to the screen is good.

we are using 110 mesh
we are manually printing
we are using chromatex white (supper thick) and excaliber (a creamier) consistency.
we pre heat the boards, and we also keep the ink warm (close to the flash dryer)
I did increase the off contact, and it helped quite a bit.

Thanks to all who responded ... it's all good info, and it's nice that people are willing to help.

 

[ThePrinter]

Since your manually printing I would take some time trying different durometer squeegees and play with the angle and speed you push the sgueegee. It is the little variables to fine tune or that are out of thought that make the difference.

Also on a side note. If the humidity is really high or is raining, I will run the hoodies through the dryer before printing. Especially if it is multiple colors. Cotton can hold moisture and when you flash between colors or hits/swipes it can cause the garment to shrink sightly causing it to be out of alignment. Plus it warms the garment too.

 

[phototec]

Thanks to all who responded ... it's all good info, and it's nice that people are willing to help.[/QUOTE]

Yes it is, this is the whole premise of what Signs101 should be about.

I just love it when people come together for the benefit for all!

 

[d fleming]

Screen tension and offset with a sharp squeegee. My first guess would be screen tension

 

[midnite]

Since your manually printing I would take some time trying different durometer squeegees and play with the angle and speed you push the sgueegee. It is the little variables to fine tune or that are out of thought that make the difference.

Also on a side note. If the humidity is really high or is raining, I will run the hoodies through the dryer before printing. Especially if it is multiple colors. Cotton can hold moisture and when you flash between colors or hits/swipes it can cause the garment to shrink sightly causing it to be out of alignment. Plus it warms the garment too.

Yes, we are trying the different angle and pressures. My wife and I bought this business a year ago, our printer walked out on us a couple of months ago, so we are trying to figure things out. We are wondering what you guys are thinning your ink with, we have Chromotex and excaliber inks.
So this is my question here, what do people thin the ink with?

 

[reQ]

1) Screen mesh count 80-110-125 its what we are using when printing white (unless design contains high details)
2) Screen tension - old piece of crap screen will only give you headache, and won't bounce back after you strike it with your squeeqee
3) Screen off contact - old trick what most new screen printers using. Get 3 penny coins, tape them together and put the on them edge of your screen - usually thats perfect off contact for printing white.
4) If you want, you can make your emulsion thicker on the screen. Double coat it on t-shirt side.
5) Speed. How fast you are going with you squeegee? Take a moment and see how fast is your mesh releasing the ink. If you are going to fast, mesh will pop all at once and will give you rough surface results.
6) Squeegee durometer. 60-70. To me, 70 works as good as 60, but lot of ppl prefer using 60 duro squeegee.
7) Room temperature. If its cold in the room where u r printing, ink won't be smooth and you will have harder times printing it.
8) I would never recommend adding any thinners to white ink because it will lose its density, and because of that you will have to print extra layers on top.

 

[midnite]

1) Screen mesh count 80-110-125 its what we are using when printing white (unless design contains high details)
2) Screen tension - old piece of crap screen will only give you headache, and won't bounce back after you strike it with your squeeqee
3) Screen off contact - old trick what most new screen printers using. Get 3 penny coins, tape them together and put the on them edge of your screen - usually thats perfect off contact for printing white.
4) If you want, you can make your emulsion thicker on the screen. Double coat it on t-shirt side.
5) Speed. How fast you are going with you squeegee? Take a moment and see how fast is your mesh releasing the ink. If you are going to fast, mesh will pop all at once and will give you rough surface results.
6) Squeegee durometer. 60-70. To me, 70 works as good as 60, but lot of ppl prefer using 60 duro squeegee.
7) Room temperature. If its cold in the room where u r printing, ink won't be smooth and you will have harder times printing it.
8) I would never recommend adding any thinners to white ink because it will lose its density, and because of that you will have to print extra layers on top.

I understand what you are saying, and appreciate a;; comments, but I would still like to know what you thing white ink with.

 

[reQ]

Curable Reducer

 

[tim99]

Glad Im not the only one who had this problem. I ended up giving up printing on the hoodys directly and made transfers for the them instead.

 

[reQ]

Glad Im not the only one who had this problem. I ended up giving up printing on the hoodys directly and made transfers for the them instead.

Avoiding problem is not the right way. If you are in screen printing business you need to be able to do it all. It took me a while to learn to print nice white but now its natural and i don't eve think HOW to print it.

 

[tim99]

Avoiding problem is not the right way. If you are in screen printing business you need to be able to do it all. It took me a while to learn to print nice white but now its natural and i don't eve think HOW to print it.

I completely agree amd I will defenetly be practizing and attempting this again however not on customers shirts. My choices where simple master the print within the next few hours, make plastisol transfers or call the customer back and turn down the work. Don't worry I have thick skin so I'm ready for the comments that are going to come from me posting this.

 

[reQ]

I completely agree amd I will defenetly be practizing and attempting this again however not on customers shirts. My choices where simple master the print within the next few hours, make plastisol transfers or call the customer back and turn down the work. Don't worry I have thick skin so I'm ready for the comments that are going to come from me posting this.

Lol, no one is going to say anything bad. At least you made plastisol transfers, not cad cut ones. At the end of the day customer got screen printed product. You just spent more time doing it that way

 

[d fleming]

Soft hand additive for white plastisol ink reducer. I have never seen a white plastisol ready to use straight from bucket.

 

[reQ]

Soft hand additive for white plastisol ink reducer. I have never seen a white plastisol ready to use straight from bucket.

really? what brands of ink did you use?

 

[d fleming]

Union, Rutland, whoever. They all of course say their white is ready to go but invariably I end up spinning some soft hand reducer into it to get that nice smooth peanut butter consistency. Print, flash, print, boogie.