[GRARSO]

Hi, I’ve been printing t-shirts for about 8 months now, mainly one and two-color designs. Today I printed a three color and ran into some problems.

I am having trouble with ink bleeding. The first layer I am printing—white—is printing just fine. The red and blue printing on top are bleeding all over the place.

The shirt is dark grey, the white is printed first, then the blue and red. The blue and red images have text reversed out so that the white shows through. This text is 12pt. The red and blue inks are bleeding so much that reversed text fills in completely.

The inks I’m using:
White- Wilflex Epic Warrior LB White
Blue- Union Ink EF Ultrasoft
Red- Sorry, forgot to write down the brand.

The press:
Vastex 4 color manual

The mesh: 110 count

I am flash drying between each color. The bleeding is happening before drying.

I’m thinking that maybe if use a higher mesh count, less ink will be deposited, which might cut down on the bleed. Is there anything else that could be causing the problem?

 

[keepitspinning]

Without knowledge of how you are printing, a few things that could be the issue is;
you may be overloading or pushing excessive ink through the screen with your flood stroke,
It could also be your off contact is not adequate,
The pressure of your print stoke may be excessive and you are squishing the ink under the screen. It could be anyone one or a combination of all of the above.
The final thing is you may try a higher mesh could. it could be the 110 is just printing excessive ink for the design you are printing (in combination with the above mentioned things).

 

[59graphix]

Hi, I’ve been printing t-shirts for about 8 months now, mainly one and two-color designs. Today I printed a three color and ran into some problems.

I am having trouble with ink bleeding. The first layer I am printing—white—is printing just fine. The red and blue printing on top are bleeding all over the place.

The shirt is dark grey, the white is printed first, then the blue and red. The blue and red images have text reversed out so that the white shows through. This text is 12pt. The red and blue inks are bleeding so much that reversed text fills in completely.

The inks I’m using:
White- Wilflex Epic Warrior LB White
Blue- Union Ink EF Ultrasoft
Red- Sorry, forgot to write down the brand.

The press:
Vastex 4 color manual

The mesh: 110 count

I am flash drying between each color. The bleeding is happening before drying.

I’m thinking that maybe if use a higher mesh count, less ink will be deposited, which might cut down on the bleed. Is there anything else that could be causing the problem?

If you are printing on a white under-base, use a 200 mesh for the overprint colors. We use a 160 to 200 for our under-base, then print 200, 230 or sometimes 305 mesh on top.
Lose the 110 except for heavy athletic prints or puff or 1 color, no detail prints or something. Small text like the 12pt. will actually be able to be read if you use a higher mesh.
The image below is only 3 inches tall so you can see how small the fine print is. 200 mesh.
Also make sure your white is made to be used as an under-base. Not all LB high opacity whites work well as an under-base.
You don't need to kill it with pressure either. We print with or without a light flood, print, flash, print. Color is only 1 stroke with flash between colors. (watch your pressure and angle for a clean screen after print).
Hope this helps