[deltsigjoe]

I am screen printing a simple design with black ink on a 158 mesh screen. After 3 or 4 prints, I notice that the ink is building up underneith on the shirt side of the screen. I also checked my off contact clearance and I have a nickle taped there to give it clearance. An suggestions?
joe

ps - I had the same problem with white ink, but the problem was fixed with the off contact clearance.

 

[Smokestack]

a couple of sure fire ways to get bleed like that is to push and pull stroke on the same print.. The print strokes need to go in the same direction for each shirt u print.. If you want to switch it up a bit, throw a test rag on the pallet and take a print with the opposite way u had just been printing. If it isnt too badly gunked up.. one test print should clean it up a bit.. another sure fire way to get that bleed is if you are not using any spray adhesive on your pallets to hold the shirts in place. Those shirts move.. bleed on the following prints for sure... also.. are you pre flooding the screen? if you are it is possible that you are smearing the ink thru the image and not flooding correctly.. If you do pre flood the screen, make sure it is off the shirt when doing so.. Make sure all shirt pallets are tight.. if they are loose, especially with the screen in the down position.. Loose pallets = bad registration and bleeding..

Hope that helps

 

[VinSanity]

I am screen printing a simple design with black ink on a 158 mesh screen. After 3 or 4 prints, I notice that the ink is building up underneith on the shirt side of the screen. I also checked my off contact clearance and I have a nickle taped there to give it clearance. An suggestions?
joe

ps - I had the same problem with white ink, but the problem was fixed with the off contact clearance.

I had that problem this wekend. What I did was lay down a piece of cloth on my pallet, lay the screen down and then pull as normal. It cleaned it all off and I was ready to go for the next.

Thing is.. I had to do this a few times. Out of the 10 impressions I did, I think I had to clean the bottom off about 3-5 times... but it worked great.

Also, I found it much easier to flood my screen with the screen down. With it up, it was just kind of awkward for me. But with it down and with the amount of ink I had on , I was able to flood using the blunt tip of my squeegee without making any contact with the screen

and yes, I use adhesive on my pallet as well

 

[deltsigjoe]

So basically, I should flood with the screen down, on a test cloth or shirt?
is this normal?? I have tried other colors on other meshes and the bleeding is not the case... I'm new at this, so I don't know if the way I'm doing it is correct.

 

[VinSanity]

So basically, I should flood with the screen down, on a test cloth or shirt?
is this normal??

I saw a guy do it in a video.. tried it myself and got better results than I did when I flooded with the screen up

I have tried other colors on other meshes and the bleeding is not the case... I'm new at this, so I don't know if the way I'm doing it is correct.

Im new at this too

 

[deltsigjoe]

I'll give it a shot. I'll keep you posted.
thanks for the tip.

 

[splathead]

1. Raise your off-contact a bit. should be at least 1/8 inch. If you are using nickels, you should try 2 (or 3) stacked on 4 areas of your screen.

VinSanity is using waterbased ink, where flooding is more critical than plastisol. If you are using plastisol, and you want to flood, you should get in the habit of doing it with the screen up. Plastisol has a harder consistency than waterbased and you could end up pushing more ink onto your just completed shirt.

 

[deltsigjoe]

correct me if I'm wrong (also, don't forget I am new to this), is flooding passing ink through the ink side in order to get a consistant amount of ink on the shirt? Is there a technique to flooding just like there is a technique for the print stroke?

 

[splathead]

Think of flooding as the opposite of a print stroke. Once you have done your strokes on the shirt, you lift the screen half way, and you push any excess ink still on the squeengee (and ink still in the front of your screen) in the opposite direction on the screen so the ink ends up back where you first started. This causes ink to "flood" your design so you would need less ink on your squeegee for the next print.

Flooding is very important for waterbased ink printing as the flooding helps keep ink from drying in the screen. Plastisol ink does not air dry, so no worries there about your screen getting clogged.

I don't flood with platisol inks. But some do.

 

[deltsigjoe]

I don't flood with platisol inks. But some do.

How is your stroke when you print?

 

[splathead]

How is your stroke when you print?

check out this video [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRS79DauAl8[/media]
describes in detail how you should be stroking.

Also, look for the 6 minute mark of the video to see a description and demo on flooding.

These guys make excellent how-to videos. They have over a 100 on youtube.