Thanks Frog!
I started out printing with cheap speedball ink with their cheap squeegees. Nothing wrong with starting out that way, until you try to print plastisol with one of those cheapo squeegees lol.
I had been printing waterbased inks from ryonet and that cheap squeegee seemed to work fine. Then I had a friend of mine want plastisol on a 100% polyester shirt and of course I'm like "sure, I can do that" :-/ . Talk about a learning curve. Waterbase on 100% cotton or even a 50/50 blend is easy compared to the plastisol on that polyester stuff lol. At least for me anyways. Long story short, tried to print the plastisol with the cheap squeegee with negative results. That's when I found the joy of using industrial squeegees 70 durometer lol.
Anyways, it's definitely been a fun learning experience. Along with all the equipment, the guy gave me 6 roller frames and a roll of 110 mesh. Learning little things like black waterbase ink doesn't do well with 110 mesh lol. Not horrible, but definitely not nearly as crisp of lines as I prefer.
It's all just a fun learning experience. Getting better every day. CANNOT Wait for the conveyor dryer. It's one thing I wish I would have had from the very, very beginning, but it'll be here soon. Cannot wait to pull a shirt off and set it on the belt instead of lifting it off the platen and letting it cure under the flash cure for what seems like an eternity.
*I guess I should also note, I had absolutely no previous experience with screen printing until I started doing my own stuff. Never even been around it. Going to be building my exposure unit soon once I get the dryer. That'll beat the shop light I'm using now
