pcg

I am new to screen printing and use a flash dryer to cure and dry my shirts. I was curious as to what is a good starting point for distance away from the shirt the dryer should be and the amount of time the shirt should be under the dryer.
I also do vinyl graphics and just for the heck of it made a screen using a mirror cut on vinyl and applied it to the screen instead of having to coat and expose the screen. It seemed to work great for single color runs but I was wondering if I should not be doing this because it seemed way to easy and I know that if it was that easy something must be wrong.

 

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shirt-maker

I've heard of people making quickie screen prints like this, but read one should be careful not to leave vinyl on screen too long as it is difficult to remove w/o damaging your screens.

My flash unit is about 6-7 inches above t-shirt and I allow shirt to remain under dryer for about 60 sec or so. Final curing wll occur after the ink from top to bottom has reached 325 degrees (varies between inks and manufacturers). I use a infra-red ray gun to measure the surface temp on all areas of my print and add/subtract time accordingly. Drying time is a function of ink type/ink thickness/fabric type.

Only way to know if you've been curing your shirts long enough is to wash them a few times. After awhile you'll get the feel for it.

Jim

 

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