Comments on: A Full Size Guide to Printing Halftones.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:54:40 +0000

You are sort of right about plastisol inkssitting on the surface of the fabric but the reason that you print off contact is still the hard surface. If you didn’t, whether you used a solvent ink, a water based or acrylic it would smudge printing on-contact. The bounce back of the screen allows the ink to stay in place without the mesh squishing it underneath. I have printed with plastisol inks before on my felt table on contact and they work fine. If tried the same thing printing onto paper or plastic, or on a hard surface I would need to do it off-contact.

By: Woki

Woki — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:23:22 +0000

You must be using waterbased or acrylic inks or maybe some other textile medium. When printing t-shirts, you alway have off-contact to ensure that the screen mesh snaps back and leaves a nice even texture to the ink. A few water-based t-shirt printers use no off-contact, but I guess it really matters what type of ink you use. The most popular type of ink in the t-shit industry is plastisol and you must have off-contact for it to work properly. with that type of ink, you are actually laying the ink on top of the fabric rather than penetrating it. I use waterbased because it is more environmentally friendly. Really the difference is that some types of inks are meant to be pushed into the fibers of the fabric, others are not… By the way if you don’t mind me asking, what type of ink do you use?

By: admin

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:58:39 +0000

I have printed off-contact on my felt table before if I’m printing paper or plastic but with fabric yardage you always print on contact. But it’s good for t-shirt printers to have a press- it’s so efficient.

By: Woki

Woki — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:49:56 +0000

Yeah, I have a homemade press, with a melamine platen on it that I bought for like $15 on ebay. But to be honest with you I would use a hard board no matter what you are screen printing, it will save you a lot of headaches. You could even just use a piece of plywood or something… But the hard surface is going to support the piece of fabric and make the printing a lot easier… They sell melamine sheets at home depot for not too much money. Melamine is particle board with white laminate on both sides to give you a nice flat surface. But if want to try it out sometime get yourself a large flat board and lay your piece of fabric on it with a little spray adhesive underneath. Then take your screen and tape a quarter down flat to each corner of the frame. This will give you a little space between the screen mesh and the fabric. This is called “off contact”. Then just put place your screen on the board and line up where you want to make your print, hold the top edge of the screen to keep it in place and pull your squeegee!!! Give it a shot sometime!

By: admin

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:39:54 +0000

Is the platen that you use hard? Generally t-shirt printers use a hard surface platen (on a press) as opposed to the felt or foam tables yardage printers use.
I must admit I don’t know too much about t-shirt printing but I’d like to try it.