Hard Flood vs Soft Flood?

[redwoodtees]

I have seen these terms in a few articles, but I have not been able to find a clear definition. What exactly do the terms "Soft Flood" and "Hard Flood" mean?

[mimosatexas]

Simplest explanation is visual: hard flood you see the image of the screen after the flood, soft you only see a film of ink across the screen. This is looking at the squeegee side, not the shirt side, just to be clear.  More technically speaking, with a hard flood you are filling the gasket created by the stencil by pushing the ink into it.  With a soft flood you are covering the image area with ink, but not the gasket of the stencil.  Soft flooding helps A LOT when printing waterbased inks, but really is only used in plastisol to minimize dot gain when other variables don't allow you to print with minimal pressure.  I soft flood pretty much everything but low mesh white screens, which have high eom.

[redwoodtees]

Thanks for your reply. That's what I guessed the terms mean, but wanted to be sure. Your answer raises more questions though.

I am using WB inks, and I started out using a "soft flood". I have a lot of issues with the ink seeping through the stencil when I soft flood though. I find I have a lot more control over dot gain when I hard flood the screen (but of course I have a lot more issues with ink drying in the screen). Is this a common problem, or am I doing something wrong?

I'm starting to wonder if it's time to try out some other WB ink manufacturers.. It would be nice to find a WB ink formulation where the viscosity of the ink was more constant. Each color I mix with the Virus system seems to end up with a different viscocity, depending on the pigment color and pigment amount. There's a range from straight discharge, which is very runny, to black, which is pasty. Is this true with all WB systems?

Thanks for your help

Chris

[mimosatexas]

I would assume you are using too low of a mesh count or waiting too long between print strokes if it is seeping through the mesh.