Badly need anyone's help.
I've been trying to print white or yellow on black shirt, but the result is too bad. The printed ink on the shirt is so thin that some of the shirt's "darkness" are partly seen.
* ink- textile ink intended for dark shirts
* screen - well cleaned. free of dust and dirt
* printing table - none. just inserting a carton box inside the shirt, then placing them on top of a flat table.
* off-contact - placed coins on all 4 corners.
* printing - did flood stroke then print stroke
* printing speed - slow, but not as crawling slow
* printing angle - about 80 degrees towards me
What else did i miss or where's the culprit? please help. thanks
When printing white ink, you really need to flash cure the first layer of ink and print a second layer of ink. When printing yellow, you should print a white base and then print the yellow on top of the white. Without a press to hold the shirt and screen in one position this will be very difficult to do.
Good luck
Ken
__________________ 350tees.com Talk Is Cheap, Especially On Our Shirts
Agree with ken. In order to print a dark shirt you will need to either print flash print or print a white underbase flash print in order to get a good high opacity print.
Your set up is not one that I would try this type of printing due to all the variables. Might want to stick to dark inks and light shirts until you can get a true press that will enable you to print correctly.
having a press is indeed a great help. but i still got no money yet to buy one. and im still on the process of learning through experiments. im doing shirts for personal use at the mean time. once ive mastered printing, then i might start to do it for business purpose.
another thing, i was once told that the printing board should be covered with leather or plastic cover with 1/4in foam inside. which one is more suggested - just keep it flat and hard or the one that was told to me? thanks again
My platens are wood with a "formica" veneer...hard as a rock. I've seen and heard about rubber covered platens, but have no experience with them. Maybe Richard knows more about those.
__________________ 350tees.com Talk Is Cheap, Especially On Our Shirts
We have palette rubber on all out palettes. Gives a sooth, flat surface for printing. Since you dont have money for a true press you might think at least about making a little better one that the one you have. Take a look at these palettes and maybe you can make one. You can purchase the palette rubber and glue from most suppliers. Build a hinge press for better printing. Action Engineering-Home
U.S. Screen Print & Inkjet Technology and Amazon I believe sells T-Shirts for fun and profit. There are diagrams for building your own press and other equip. Might be a good idea to check ths out. I also believe there have been some diagrams posted here in the forums.
I haven't printed on a wooden palette in about 10 years so its tough to say.
Usually the rubber is placed on aluminum palettes. The wooden ones will eventually warp due to exposure to heat (flash). the aluminum ones will not warp and displace the heat better (honeycomb palettes)
You could just get some rubber and glue to your current palette. Might also be able to find a used palette that someone has lying around
thin ink on black shirt 
