Hi all, I decided to try out screen printing couple of weeks ago, went out and got a "Speedball Fabric Screen Printing Tool Kit" from my local art store. From what I read, it's pretty much a beginner's beginner's kit, very bare bones.
So I burn the screen with my design (My band logo) and it came out pretty clean.
I taped some regular cardboard (around 1/8") on the back as spacers, and used the supplied "squeegee" (really just a hard piece of plastic) and used "Speedball Fabric Screen Printing Ink" (water based ink, didn't add any water or thinner)
Here are the results:
On paper:
It showed up fairly good, except the tip of the plug (left most part of logo). I could actually see the dots of ink.(I can see the texture of the mesh as oppose to a smooth,even line)
Now I print on a T-shirt:
It generally came out ok, except the lines at the tip of the plug didn't really come out:
To my very limited understanding, could it be that the mesh is too fine? Even though it allows JUST enough ink to go through for paper, its too little to deposit on the fabric?
Now my questions:
Given that this kit is called "Speedball
Fabric Screen Printing Tool Kit" key word being
fabric, how can the mesh be too fine for printing on t-shirts? For those that have experience, what is the mesh count in this kit?
Could it be that my spacer (around 1/8") is too high?
Am I completely off-base and it's something else all together?
And more importantly if I get another frame (say, this time I get 110 mesh count) will the detail show up?
Just for reference, here is the area in question with a penny for scale:
Hope the info I supplied was specific enough.
Thanks in advance for the help...