Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
I have two issues I need help with if you would #1 I did a job this weekend that was simple - I thought.... Its a word in red with a white outline in a charcoal shirt. I approached this job by making the white a full underbase and just making sure that the red was centered in the white outline. I used a 110 screen for the white and a 160 for the red. Both colors are a solid hit. After I got started I noticed that the red was not "sharp". I may have done my last coat on the wrong side of the screen. So I was thinking that might have caused it. I could feel the thickness of the emulsion on the ink side of the the screen... any way...This issue caused me to stop ever so often and wipe the underside of the red screen to clean up the "blow out" that was occurring occasionally. Thats where the problem began. After the job was done I inspected my shirts and some were noticeably pink in the outline. I have a jewelers glass and looked closely at the white and saw red ink. Even though I used screen clean when wiping down the red somehow the red transferred to the white. What did I do wrong and how can I avoid this?A thin stencil could cause this as you need a wall to keep the ink from squishing outside of the stencil. I would also suggest a higher mesh count with a fast squeegee stroke with a near vertical squeege. Try something around a 230 for printing on top of a white underbase.#2 I did another job this weekend. This job would certainly be easy! Its only white ink on a sapphire colored shirt. One hit per side 160 shirts. Easy right? Wrong... The one hit wasnt working. The logo is a schools name and a large solid white paw in the middle. When doing just one hit of white I could clearly see the shirt color under the ink. The school probably would not care but I wanted to do my best so I tried just doing two hits without a flash. In hind sight this would have been the way to go I think, however the shirt color was still visible. So I decided to hit flash hit. The shirts looked great. I used a shitload of white which I underestimated using. The PROBLEM.... After I got going my plattens starting heating up. I have a 6/2 so I was doing one hit, rotating to the flash loading, doing one hit, rotating, doing the second hit, unloading, loading and doing a first hit and rotating to the flash, etc.. WELL after a while my screen clogged up. This kept happening over and over again. Of course every time I opened the screen up it made a big mess and the ink would get messed up and the shirts etc.... I ended up using what screen opener I had left and had to stop. I had run out of screen opener and white ink! I still have 60 shirts to do. It took me 3 hours to do 100 shirts. at the last minute I decided that a fan would help and it did, but I still had issues. The fan which was over sized for the task, would cause ink "stringers" and make more mess...I guess it was too close and too high speed for the job. The screens still clogged a bit. I also see that now my plattens are just a wee bit dish shaped from the heat I imagine What did I do wrong and how can I do it better next time??When you clean a screen I would suggest doing a test print to make sure there is no haze or smudging around the edges of your design indicating the screen was not fully cleaned. It also sounds like your shirts are spending too much time under the flash. Try turning down the heat of the flash, adjusting the height of the flash, or decreasing the amount of time the shirt is under the flash. It should only be there long enough to gel the ink. The ink should be dry to the touch after flashing, but if you over flash it will become tacky which you want to avoid.Thanks for your advice everyone! I do love this place!
making the white a full underbase and just making sure that the red was centered in the white outline. I used a 110 screen for the white and a 160 for the red.