Although heavy, you can use floor tiles as your platen as it is also easy to manage. Floor tiles do not have warping issues when subjected to liquid elements or to heat, however, it is costly. The alternative material for floor tiles would be Marine Wood laminated with STICKWELL adhesive (not Rubber Cement / “rugby”/ cement board adhesive).

If MDF Board is used, use sanding sealer as coating.

When printing multi-color prints on light garments, you generally print from lightest shade to darkest shade or from smallest print area to the largest print area. This sequence with a correct printing process and using the right ink viscosity helps minimize ink build-up on multi-color printing.

Avoid ¼” off-contact especially on a low tension stretched mesh. Build-up on an image edges at the back of the screen means there has been an occurrence of the screen image shifting. This means the mesh or the frame slightly moves back and forth on every print passes.

Some plastisol formulas can be more “tacky” than others, but high tack inks would also build-up elsewhere beyond just the edges of the images. A tight screen will allow you to flood stroke easily and this avoids ink build-up.

A. Line-up screens on a multi-color print with an Integrated Registration System (IRS).

B. Set-up allowances for inks to park and use one artwork with registration marks already present to make the rest of the screens.

C. On final registration set-up, print the outline or main color and then line-up the rest of the screens to the print.

To achieve good printing output:

A. Ensure a high tension stretch mesh.

B. Set the screen to sit slightly (ideally 1/16” or 1/8” or a maximum of ¼”) off the shirt board.

C. Some machine presses have adjustments for this.

D. For manual presses, put a thin piece of cardboard or coins under the edge of the frame.

It is better to put a small amount of ink across and above the artwork on the screen, just enough to make a number of good prints without running dry, this avoids ink to go all-over the squeegee handle.

Putting just enough ink on a screen is easier than to take the excess out later on.

Pull Printing

1. A standard practice is the pulling of squeegee towards you.
2. Pulling the squeegee allows you to use your wrist and shoulder force more.

Push Printing:

1. Pushing the squeegee away from you allows you to easily use your body weight more.
2. It is a less fatiguing stroke for long jobs.
3. Pushing stroke works best with thinner inks.

On a too thick ink:

1. You need to do a lot of squeegee pressure to get the ink through the screen.
2. An excessive pressure spreads the ink can cause shadowed, uneven prints. Hence, thin your inks if it gets too thick, in order to achieve a great print output.

On printing on dark substrate (i.e. shirts):

1. When printing on dark shirts with thin inks, do not apply excessive pressure, to avoid ink getting too deep into the garment, making your print duller.
2. Technique is to apply first stroke with enough pressure, and the second strokes a lighter pressure.
3. Ensure to follow the correct (medium) speed and (60˚) squeegee angle, the correct squeegee, and other factors.

1. Ideally, pull the squeegee all the way to the end of the frame and scoop the excess ink up with the squeegee and place it on the back (top) of the frame.
2. Lift up the squeegee when getting close to the end of the frame and lift up the excess ink, or stop when you pass the image area and lift the screen.
3. Or do a flood stroke to push the excess ink back to the back of the screen.

Semi-curing via tunnel dryer/flash cure machine/heat gun results to surface drying only meaning the print underneath is still wet. Curing at very high temperatures, especially on polyester garments will cause inks to collapse and will be highly prone to dye-migration. Semi-curing the ink after every-print /coating before final curing will allow the print to stay in shape. It will have a sharp and clean image as opposed to a wet smudged print. On the other hand, an incomplete ink curing will create poor washability, color lost and cracking on your plastisol print.

“Stretching” the print on the shirt to see if it cracks has its limit in checking for cure accuracy of the print.  It is only for “spot checking”. If the print “cracks” during stretching, it is most likely under cured. A more definitive testing methods would be wash testing.

Yes, it is nice to work with a neon CMY process, especially if your design has some neon color requirements.

In printing Neon CMY process, the black color used is a regular process black only.

A frame that is bigger than the platen may fit as long as a screen mesh has been attached to it. The important factor that must always be considered is the size of the design and how it should fit within the section of the platen.

A big design with a corresponding screen frame size must be able to sit on a platen that will fit it for a comfortable and smooth printing. A smaller design can sit on a bigger platen, but the artwork registration may be hit or miss, it is better to have all frame size in general dimensions.

When using a portable platen, it is important that your angle bar is longer than the width of your big frame to support your X-Axis (screw eye) registration.

On a lighter shade substrate, it is possible.

On a dark color substrate, it is possible but it is difficult. This is because your 1 coat, 2 strokes print output would depend on the quality of your substrate (100% comb cotton vs polyester cotton), the kind of inks that is being used, the mesh count, mesh tension, squeegee durometer, squeegee profile, print strokes, angle, pressure, and the pull / push technique.

Also, ink viscosity can affect the print opacity. The higher the ink viscosity, the higher its opacity. This is because the inks sit on the substrate surface only and has not fully penetrated into its thread weave. Hence, setting a too high viscosity ink base can affect the washing fastness, in lieu of its surface hold only.

It is nice to print wet on wet in CMYK process as you allow the dots to blend well and it helps in speeding up your print production.

However, it is important to take note of the following:

– Do not put too much pressure when printing
– When doing flooding technique, do at a 70-80 degree angle without pressure
– A long line table provides natural air flow to semi-cure the inks

However, if you are not accustomed to printing WoW, then it is better to do dry on dry (DoD) technique, than incurring damage print.

The more strokes you apply to your print, the darker is the shade of your print.

The more coats you apply to your print, the glossier and thicker the print become but the less sharp the output will be.

To simplify a high dense print, you need a high dense stencil.
A high dense stencil is very expensive and the number of coatings will determine the thickness of your high dense print. However, a high dense stencil would require at least 3000 wattages of exposure unit to develop.

With the use of a regular stencil to print high dense, you would need to do several coatings with several strokes. And yet, it will not give a good high-dense stencil print.

With high-dense print, you would need a hard square edge squeegee and a longer curing time and higher temperature.

Flash curing is faster than heat gun curing. Final curing is best done with a conveyor oven. Should you use a heat press machine, you must do an off contact curing, meaning do not lock in the press.

Plastisol inks do not dry up, unless it is exposed to heat. Heat gun curing or flash curing provides surface curing only. Hence, it is important to do final curing using heat press machine or better a conveyor oven, at a recommended temperature setting. Just watch out for the dye migration problem that can occur due to high temperature curing.

Should you fail to do final curing on printing plastisol inks, the print will be washed off when washed. Cracks will occur when stretched.

Discharge print works better on spot or solid print. Half tone printing is possible, for as long as it is not a CMYK process which requires dot blending.

• Using a warped frame.
• A loose tension mesh.
• An over-pigment base.
• A very low viscosity base.
• Too many strokes with heavy print.
• Wrong angle, speed, and pressure.

• 1st coating, heavy pressure, 1-3 strokes, same direction, and semi-curing.
• 2nd coating, medium pressure, 1-3 strokes, same direction, and semi-curing.
• 3rd coating, medium pressure, 1-3 strokes, same direction, and semi-curing.
• Lastly, subject to heat press machine, and heat conveyor.

• Keep the ink containers, squeegee, and the screen frame edges clean.
• Scoop out the inks carefully from the screen.
• Do not rush print carelessly.
• Clean as you go.

When choosing inks, find out the pros and cons of all inks. Consider the printability, the brilliancy, the hand-feel, the ease in curing, clean up, and the handling. Inks are either water-based or oil-based plastisol.

Choose quality inks. The ink consumption cost is a lot less over the cost of the substrate, the cost of production (i.e. electricity, manpower, etc).

Check Ink Compatibility against the substrate to be used. The Substrate can be cotton, sports jersey, spandex, towels, or synthetic substrate.

Should the ink base need adjustment, always stir the ink base first, then:

1. Thin the ink base with a minimal (1%-2%) amount of a reducer.
2. Increase the viscosity with a minimal amount of thickener.
3. Anything added in excess can affect the ink quality.

The best adjustment is to:

1. Mixed in a fresh batch of your ink base.
2. The first color print (the lightest or the smallest) can be thinned some more to allow ink penetration in the garment.
3. If black is the last color print, do not thin too much to avoid color blending.

Ink consumption will depend on the size of your design, solid or a halftone print, as well as the thickness of your stencil coating, number of strokes and number of coats when printing.

On an average, a spot or solid print for an A4 size design can consume 10-15 grams per color. On half tones print, it can be at 3-5 grams.

Water base pigment contains water and can not be mixed in with oil base plastisol.

Plastisol inks require a PC Pigment.

100 mesh may be too low for a spot design. It can cause a saw-tooth print. For vinyl or nylon inks (solvent inks), a higher mesh is better. 150 mesh for spot design, 180 mesh and above on halftones prints (in accordance with your LPI setting). Do high tension stretch so that the mesh opening will be evenly opened.

In printing solvent inks, you need to exert pressure and do flooding to prevent clogging. You must do an off contact print as well.

There could be multiple reasons, either your screen tension is low or the table adhesive you applied on the platen is not enough.

In printing spot design, it is very important to ensure that the previous coating is dry, before printing the next coat.

You may also check your mesh tension. It may be low, hence your mesh opening is uneven.

You may also have an issue with your platen, it may be damaged, if not dirty, hence you need to clean it.