a left chest design..having some issues...mesh counts???

[3Deep]

Mark, my statement like I said I know I'm being a jerk, but I would really like to help you as everyone on here would.  I know you are a newbie and eager to learn...like Alan said post a pic of your prints, and I'm one of the worse for not following the directions on the box, I do trial and error, your print might be great and you just don't see it so please post a pic.


Darryl

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I had to post as a PDF...ive tried 10 times to load as jpeg and for some reason it isnt working...and the the file size of the jpeg is half the allowable size so I have no idea what the problem is...anyway...here is the PDF..im posting the bad ones first..this is not the jagged edge issue..these are just all around bad prints....is this a sign of a flooded screen?

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

here is a PDF of the jagged edged ones....and you can se ein the grey oval at the top there is a consistant little part of grey going into the white...i dont know if this is bleed thru or in the screen itself..i will have to look when I get home from work.

[Denis Kolar]

You might be pushing too much on the squeegee?

One time I gave my brother to try printing, that is how it looked. In the mean time, I was afraid that my palet arms were gonna snap in half

[inkman996]

I think the problem is he is printing the white first and from the look of it in the pic the white is thick. Then he prints the grey next and since it is not underbased he is trying to get the grey to fall perfectly inside the white. In his situation I would print the maroon, grey first flash it then the white. He probably needs to back off on how much white he is laying down as well as the grey. Maybe he is using to much angle on the squeegee and flooding to hard?

[mk162]

I agree, it looks like there is too much ink going down.  I would thin my white slightly to get it to flow better and worst case change my mesh counts on the colors to a higher mesh.

Also, with butt register designs like this I choke back my white slightly to let the colors fall in better.

Also, if the colors aren't underbased, I would print the white last.

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I have ordered three 200's meshes and three 230's meshes. I plan on trying all 3 colors with the 230's first.

As for too much white on some of them..you are right about that because I'm not that great at "cleaning the screen" when printing white so I have to do more than one pass sometimes..if I don't, I get a lot of shirt fibers poking up and looks crappy.

My print order was white (no underbase); grey; maroon...I printed the white first because I figured if it was last it may cover up some of the thin grey oval line thats on top and bottom....it gets thin in those areas so I figured if I did white first, and flash then the grey would lay on top of the white at the edges and be more prominent.

[dave58]

I agree with the last two comments.....

As best I could see in the image it does not at all look like jagged screen stencil or art.

Screen mesh, print order and pressure.....experiment.

Most of all remember.....it's just shirt printing...it's not life and death......if you are feeling pressure about the guy wanting his shirts, give him a call and buy some time. I am sure he will understand.

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I agree with the last two comments.....

As best I could see in the image it does not at all look like jagged screen stencil or art.

Screen mesh, print order and pressure.....experiment.

Most of all remember.....it's just shirt printing...it's not life and death......if you are feeling pressure about the guy wanting his shirts, give him a call and buy some time. I am sure he will understand.

there is pressure hahah...he needs them by Friday morning....and I work a full time job...so if all goes according to plan with the 230 meshes and following everyones guidence that has been posted, HOPEFULLY i can have them done late tonight.

[mooseman]

We used to see this all the time...too rough print on the white, too thin EOM, too much pressure, too much ink...we used to freaking see this ALLTHE TIME
technique and attention to detail will cure it
mooseman

[inkman996]

Not to mention the grey is so close to shirt color you can choke the grey a ton and not even be noticable, this will give you a much better chance on a crisper edge between grey and white.

But yea white should be last in this case.

[3Deep]

Well you guys have just about covered everything there is, just make sure the white ink is smooth and not thick, which will cause you to use more squeegee pressure to get the ink to clear (most white inks have a little puff in them even though they say they don't).... now that I see your print I would do that white solid and lay a nice clean one stroke of grey and maroon over top, as long as your white ink has a smooth surface your other prints will be nice and crisp even with low mesh counts 137 150 using a 70 duro squeegee and maybe a 60 for the white.

Darryl

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

Thanks everyone....I will attempt again tonight and will eventually post pics of the results. Hopefully I can knock it out.

[mk162]

We have faith in you.  It's really about experimenting and figuring out how you best print.

The biggest thing you need to overcome is a clean white print.  Once you have that, you are good.  One thing I would do is stand your squeegee up more on the print stroke.  It will create  cleaner print usually.

[3Deep]

Mark I will say this about you, you have the makings of being a great printer, most would just plow thru this and go with it, your taking your time to get the best print possible, we'll be seeing your prints in Impressions mag one day good luck.

Darryl