sf1150

Hey everybody...after printing my first t-shirt with a very basic setup (speedball fabric toolkit, speedball waterbased fabric ink, cardboard between the shirt & pushpins to hold the frame in place while squeegeeing) it came out not so good and the second was even worse so I've been reading the forums for hours trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I purchased all my stuff and created my screen and ruined 2 shirts before stumbling across these forums...

Since reading around, I tried putting 2 pennies between the screen and the shirt & tried a flood-print-flood technique and that didn't seem to help. I think it's more an issue of technique than my stencil exposure because it seems each shirt (I've ruined 4 so far) is under-printed in a different place (or too much ink in the case of my 2nd shirt).

One thing that might be a problem with the stencil is that the design is too big for the frame - it's only a half inch from the edges...but I don't have another frame. - if there's a way to get around buying a bigger frame, any info would be appreciated (i.e. tricks or if you don't think that's the problem) I don't think the ink is clogging the frame because it was very well washed out before my first shirt today and it was still bad.

Also, I am seeing that the type of squeegee and mesh count matters but I don't really know the specs of what I'm using as it's just from a kit (Speedball Red Baron Squeegee and pre-fab Speedball 10x14 screen frame)

This is a picture of my 4th bad shirt...the image is blurry because I tried to put it back down after picking it up and realizing it had only partially printed. I know, bad idea, but I didn't know what else to do to salvage it. Is there a way to tell if the entire image is printing without lifting up the screen?

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Greg Hamrick

Your screen is way too small, but, try just one stroke with the squeegee. Those speedball screens are a wide thread count so you shouldn't have to push hard or double stroke the print. Your artwork looks to be detailed, so maybe a tighter screen is needed.
You can find screens at www. victoryfactory. com. you might want to go with a 156 or a 230 mesh count. If it has lots of little half-tones, go with the 230.

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sf1150

Quote: Originally Posted by Greg Hamrick Your screen is way too small,

Thanks for the tips. For artwork that almost fills up a 10x14 screen (it's probably 9x13), what size of screen do you suggest? I don't want to get too big or I won't have any room to work

 

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