Printing on already burned out shirts. anyone ever try it?

[Frog]

I got some 23/77 ctn poly blend shirts with a sort of camo pattern already printed as burnout, and I am going to attempt to print them, of course expecting a reduced ink to not make much of an appearance on the gauze-like thin spots. (otherwise, if I wanted those areas to print solid, I'd probably go heat seal as this is a tiny order of only ten.
I'm planning on paper under each one like mesh jerseys are often printed.

[JBLUE]

When we print on burnouts we always use based out ink. Depending on opacity desired it ranges from 5-15% ink to soft hand clear.

[Frog]

And, do you use the paper under each shirt method to keep your boards clean?

[Gilligan]

When we print on burnouts we always use based out ink. Depending on opacity desired it ranges from 5-15% ink to soft hand clear.

5-15% Ink?!

[Frog]

that's pretty extreme, but I'm doing something similar.
These shirts are super sheer, and we're not going for or going to get (or want) a solid print anyway so it sounds like he is going for a "tonal effect".
I'm shooting for a translucent white that even bleeds from the poly pattern.
The client is bringing me a guinea pig version, and then if that works for me, I'll do her design on the real deal, and perhaps I can snap it and post it and preserve it for posterity

[ZooCity]

Soft squeegee helps and you are definitely barking up the right tree with the tonal approach.  It's the only way to do these without a very thick plastisol print. 

[JBLUE]

Soft squeegee and higher mesh counts. Depending on the tones you want to let through you can use a low bleed or cotton white and play with your ink to soft hand percentages to get different effects and bleeding.

[Frog]

Ran the job today, SF white cut about three times with soft hand base (and a little stretch). Used a 280 and needed about three or four strokes! The sample was a slightly different pattern and didn't need quite as much coverage. They came out just like I (and the client) wanted though.

At any rate, the print itself is not much to show off, and only barely shows off the mottled effect we went for.

I did want to share the trick I used to cover the board, since it worked great.
I put an old shirt on the board, and sprayed it with a little flash tack., and slipped the tank over it. The low printing position allowed me to remove the shirts with no mess dragging them through the wet ink that seeped through the gauze-like burn out sections, and I could then run the board and it's cover shirt under the flash before the next shirt went on.

[Nick Bane]

I have to run these fairly often as well.  kind of a pain, but not that bad.  usually try to distress the artwork if at all possible.  usually a 200-230 mesh with some curable reducer to thin the ink so i can back off the squeegee pressure to not press ink thru the shirt.  normally no paper etc on the plattens, as backing off the squeegee pressure keeps the ink from pressing thru for me. 

[tonypep]

Andy............you are definitely on the right track with your techniques. I have done a crap ton of this stuff using slightly different approaches.
1. Discharge UB
2. Absorbant pellon under the garment
3. Plain old WB inks
4. Mesh counts exceeding 305

The tonal graphic looks lend them well to the garment and I try to exploit that when I can as do most. When that is not an option I revert to some of the above.

[Sbrem]

We run quite a few of these for a yoga clothing customer, and higher mesh counts, 280 and up is a big help. We don't put anything underneath; the runs are short enough that it's easier to clean the plate when necessary...

Steve