screen printing > Newbie

Printing on fleece?

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RICK STEFANICK:
Dennis, first off you picked a good quality hoodie and they are smooth and print nice.I flood usually when i print fleece as it really helps with clearing the image. also a firm sharp squeegie is necessary. also fleece tends to flash quicker as they hold the heat. be careful. an obviously get them flat in the dryer.. its  really important to get that first white to lay down super smooth. I always double stroke  without flooding the second..

mk162:
I am working on some experiments around here.  it will be perfect for fleece like this...

discharge or plasticharge in the first screen, no flash and then a highlight plastisol white to finish it.  it eliminates the flashing of a fleece and controls the shrinkage.

otherwise, everybody else here nailed it.

JBLUE:
Run them through the dryer or pre flash them first so you get them to shrink up a bit before printing. Since you are using a manual raise up your flash a bit and turn it down. If you try it with the same setting you use for a T it will flash before you start to pull the squeegee.

mooseman:
make sure you have them securely stuck to the platens especially if you are printing a large design.

make sure you renew the "stickum" on the platens, don't get lazy or the garment will move on the lower end of the print stroke.

make sure you have on extra clearance between the garment & your flash

make sure the hood ot the strings do not get hung up on your flash unit when you rotate the press...oops no more registration with just a slight tug.

make sure you raise up your dryer so the hooded part, It will stick up,  doesn't get close to the element or worse yet touch the element

pre flash the garments if you can to shrink them and then recheck the tack down before you print.

On thicker garments we sometimes feel it necessary to dry print the garment. That is tape off a scren completely, add some lubrication we use a silicone spray and print stroke the garment once or twice to get it slammed down and flat.

do not flash the garment while printing on another garment. save the flash process until you have all prints down then falsh one at a time. reason is these will heat up fast & deep, you will burn way sooner than a tee shirt and if you linger on a print stroke whil you have another under the flash you may find you stayed there too long ...shrink, burn, smoke or other bad things.

other than that pretty much a walk in the park.
mooseman

Shawn (EIP):

--- Quote from: mooseman on November 29, 2011, 01:31:16 PM ---make sure you have them securely stuck to the platens especially if you are printing a large design.

make sure you renew the "stickum" on the platens, don't get lazy or the garment will move on the lower end of the print stroke.

make sure you have on extra clearance between the garment & your flash

make sure the hood ot the strings do not get hung up on your flash unit when you rotate the press...oops no more registration with just a slight tug.

make sure you raise up your dryer so the hooded part, It will stick up,  doesn't get close to the element or worse yet touch the element

pre flash the garments if you can to shrink them and then recheck the tack down before you print.

On thicker garments we sometimes feel it necessary to dry print the garment. That is tape off a scren completely, add some lubrication we use a silicone spray and print stroke the garment once or twice to get it slammed down and flat.

do not flash the garment while printing on another garment. save the flash process until you have all prints down then falsh one at a time. reason is these will heat up fast & deep, you will burn way sooner than a tee shirt and if you linger on a print stroke whil you have another under the flash you may find you stayed there too long ...shrink, burn, smoke or other bad things.

other than that pretty much a walk in the park.
mooseman

--- End quote ---

Great tips!

Make sure to adjust your gates on your dryer (both ends).  A snagged hoodie in the dryer with mutiple hoodies piling up and burning isnt much fun.

Keep an eye out on your drop off bin (shirt catcher) at the end of the dryer, doesnt take to many to overfill the bin.

Adust your temp and belt speed. Easy to forget if your printing t-shirts in that same run. 

I made it a habit to grab the hoodie before it falls into the bin incase the print sticks. Time consuming but better than replacing expensive apparel.

Double check with the customer for back image placment, some like to see the print with hood down others want it higher up like a t-shirt print.

Still to this day I'm a bit nervous when printing hoodies,  take your time and dont rush!

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