LEARNING NEW THINGS EVERY DAY

Today I worked on printing white ink on dark garments.  Mostly I worked on my stroke.  Lately I've been pushing the squeegee instead of pulling it which is much easier on my wrists and arms.  Today I wanted to work on my pull stroke.  I hit youtube and watched quite a few videos on printing white on black.   There are so many different opinions on how to do it.  I have printed white ink on dark garments before.  They turned out fine but I am not consistent with how I do each shirt.  I want to get my stroke down so it is the same each and every time.

Because printing white on dark usually takes print, flash, print, I decided I prefer to pull the squeegee when I do white.  Today I wanted to see the difference in prints when I changed the off contact.  I worked with 1/16th" (thickness of a quarter) off contact as well as 1/8" off contact.  They both looked good but I think I got better results with 1/8" off contact.  I was printing with a 156 mesh screen coated with a 1 x 1 layer of emulsion.  I may have gotten even better results with a 110 mesh and a 2 x 1 coat of emulsion.  I will test that theory next time.

After a few hours of printing I went back and watched a few more videos.  One video in particular talked about squeegee PRESSURE.  How much pressure do you actually need to put on the squeegee?  This is what they suggested.  Set the off contact for your screen.  Then take your finger and press the screen until it touches your platen.  How much pressure did that take?  Not much at all.  That is ALL the pressure you need to put on your squeegee during printing.  I went back to my shop and followed their suggestion.  Wow!  I realized I've been putting way too much pressure on the squeegee.  Instead of laying the ink ON the garment, I was driving the ink INTO it.  That is probably why I need do so many strokes.  I learned a few other tips so I am going to do more test printing tomorrow.

Thanks,
Jeanette