Puff Printing - Resident expert?

[Get Shirts]

Does anyone print with puff on a regular basis?  I'm looking for some help achieving a nice white puff print, ideally without a p/f/p.  Our current results are less opaque (white) than we need and they are also ROUGH.

Thanks in advance!

[3Deep]

Not an expert here, but when I do a puff job I start with a 110 screen or 137 and us a little puff to start and sample print and add puffing agent until it looks like what I want, I don't p/f/p I just double stroke what ever color ink I'm using and I try to stay away from thin or small fonts.  Some white inks has puff already in them so that's why I would add a little and sample.

darryl

[Frog]

Similar disclaimer here, in fact, haven't puffed in years!
But...
What mesh are you using?

Union, recommends from 33-76. Now, realizing that many of their specs and suggestions are pretty old school, let's assume that they are all at least relative to each other, and they recommend 86-230 on regular Cotton Whites.

So, big holes and a pretty fat EOM are your friends here.

As for rough, I don't know how rough is your rough, but when they puff, they definitely gain "texture"

[noortrd]

Water based or plastisol?   

[Colin]

If you want to get away from the roughness.  You want to print the puff ink onto a plastisol base.  Typically white.

This allows the print to be much smoother and also keeps the print from puckering up as much.  The puff will tend to travel up more than around.

Otherwise, as was stated above, a really thick stencil and a very open weave is your go-to screen choice.