Ok, after dabbling in screen printing for quite some time I purchased a flash dryer and plastisol last week. I printed 30 shirts last night and seemed to have great results. I printed with Wilflex extreme white, and flashed until I saw a lil smoke. I then cured each shirt for 40 seconds with my heat press at 350 degrees. I have a few questions.
#1 is : how in the world do you clean this stuff up without making a mess? I use A xylene type screen wash and a pan and brush. It is messssy. I know there has to be a better way!! Help!!
#2: I have a Raytek gun that I used to check my heat. I DID wash ALL the shirts and everything stayed on nicely with no deteriating of the ink at all. It has that nice cured feel too. Can u actually "overcure" the ink? Attached is a pic of one.
#3: After printing 30 shirts, the next shirt tried to come up with the screen and caused a mess on the back side of the screen. Is there a rule of thumb for how often to use spray adhesive on the shirt platen? I feel that the adhesive had worn away and caused this.
Thanks,
Jeff
Last edited by racerx37335; October 29th, 2009 at 10:27 AM.
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
1. use a screen wash...I use screen wash 147 from HERE or I think a paint thinner might work....
2. yes you can overcure the ink.....as a general rule I "flash" for 5-10 seconds ...not until I see smoke..if you see smoke thats to much for a flash.
3. if your using a spray type adhesive I would respray after 4 or 5 shirts maybe even sooner..depends on how much you are spraying before the shirt goes on......I use a waterbase pallet adesive...a tablespoon will last 50 or so shirts before I have to apply more and my press doesn't get all the over spray on it...
4. why would you wash the shirts before the customer gets them....most people like to get a new shirt not a washed one.......JMO
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
Quote:
Originally Posted by InkedApparel
1. use a screen wash...I use screen wash 147 from HERE or I think a paint thinner might work....
I do use a screen wash as stated in my post. I am more asking what kind of a clean-up container do you use? slop sink, parts washer etc....? [/quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by InkedApparel
2. yes you can overcure the ink.....as a general rule I "flash" for 5-10 seconds ...not until I see smoke..if you see smoke thats to much for a flash.
What are the effects of "overcuring"?
And thanks for the answer on the spray adhesive. I just need to rememeber to use it more often.
As far as the washing of the shirts, they are basically gonna be "give-away" shirts i which the customer is going to basically pay for the shirts and ink. I HAD to see if the ink was going to stay on them since this is my first experience with Plastisol. Except for tags wrinkling you really can't tell that they have been washed anyway. I don't plan on washing them after I have gained confidence in my methods.
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
Hide the tag inside the shirt. The heat makes them wrinkle. If you do the "pull test" pulling the shirt and see if the ink splits or "pops" off, it it doesn't...then you are good to go.
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
Remove tape, spray press wash on screen with spray bottle, wipe with paper towels. Flip screen over and do it again, repeat until clean.
If you are seeing smoke, you are curing the plastisol, not flashing it. You probably don't need to heat press them on top of this. You can't really overcure plastisol, but you can scorch the shirt.
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
Using a plastic putty knife or something of the sort, almost all of the ink can be removed from the squeegee and screen. After that, use paper towels to wipe more out. For what little residue is left, wash out in the sink using an ink degrader and water. I recommend Franmar soy based products (pleasant to use and work well) for all prepress, on press, and post press chores. - Scotty
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
#1 My screen cleanup routine:
throw a pellon under the screen (replace as needed) (Newspaper would probably work too)
use squeegee to get most of the ink up
scrape from squeegee with scraper/putty knife/whatever
repeat
press wash on paper towel wipe screen. I don't pour on the screen, but use enough on a paper towel to really liquify the ink.
wipe off excess
squeegee the screen hard
wipe again as needed
The key is scraping off most of the ink with the squeegee first. If I'm cleaning up a screen to put away it takes about 5 minutes to cleanup, and the screen is CLEAN.
#2 I've tried about 10 different white inks, and a few brands of colors. I've learned that the 1 thing overcuring will do especially with white (because there's more on the shirt) is turn glossy, and rubbery. If your application is perfect it might not look bad if that's what you want. But if it's uneven it will show. Again, more noticeable with white.
#3 Just keep an eye on it. When you feel the shirts coming off too easy feel it, and reapply. With spray adhesive I got between 10 and 50 shirts between applications. With paint on waterbased stuff I seem to get a lot more.
Re: First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice
In my last post, I totally forgot about getting the extra ink off... Use an old gift card/credit card from wherever to scoop it off the screen back into the container. Old plastic cards also work well to get most of the ink off squeegees.
First Plastisol Experience, Need Clean-Up Advice 
