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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: nismoasfuh on December 07, 2014, 04:28:44 PM
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Hey guys, been a huge lurker for quite a while now. Finally decided to join up! I have to run a job tomorrow that requires silver metallic ink on blue hoodie/sweaters. I have never printed on a thick material like this. And not to mention that my silver metallic is the softest/ wateriest ink i have ever used. Are there any tips you guys can offer me for printing on hoodies/sweaters with a really soft ink? I might even have to flash it as the silver on the blue wont be fully opaque unless i do so. Just looking for any input really before i tackle this tomorrow morning.
Thanks!
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First off, welcome.
Second, what ink are you using and what mesh? (or what mesh had you planned?)
Fleece only jobs can often benefit from a slightly coarser mesh than the same print on a T would take.
It is still likely that you may need to print-flash-print this.
If you have never done fleece before, prepare for a little more work sticking them down than T's took.
What adhesive are you using? With sprays, for instance, it is not uncommon to spray each time.
With waterbased, really frequent de-linting and rejuvenation is par for the course.
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What Frog said and you may want to burn a screen to under base the metallic. You may or may not need it, but can't hurt.
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i suggest putting down a base as it will make the ink standout more.
More and important than that is make sure you have enough off-contact or you will be pulling the ink right off the shirt when the screen lifts up making your prints ROUGH
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Just echoing here, but welcome and what ink is it? I'm not sure if they make it anymore, but I had some International Coatings metallic from when we opened, and it was a pain to cure. From my understanding the "metallic characteristics" specs or whatever were not plastic and were actually reflecting the heat from our dryer(electric) at the time. A gas dryer fixed the problem, but that is kind of a extreme solution ;)
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Just echoing here, but welcome and what ink is it? I'm not sure if they make it anymore, but I had some International Coatings metallic from when we opened, and it was a pain to cure. From my understanding the "metallic characteristics" specs or whatever were not plastic and were actually reflecting the heat from our dryer(electric) at the time. A gas dryer fixed the problem, but that is kind of a extreme solution ;)
I cut my metallic teeth with Union's Silver Metallic and a four foot Ranar Scamp, so with care and a little more time, it can cure just fine, but yes, the tech sheet does warn that one must compensate for the inherent reflectivity.
btw, that ink had the misfortune of exhibiting the worst characteristics of both thick and thin inks! Stiff when printing, and thin, and wanting to flow through open areas when sitting.
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Wow! Thanks for the welcomes and the great information and replies. I'm using Union ink Ef bright silver shimmer, and textac adhesive.
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I use that same ink alot. I have not noticed any issues with curing. But had issues with opacity. Sometimes I even had to print,flash,print,flash,print on them
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With plastisols, we never underlay metallics, they are always opaque enough. Many years ago we used water-based metallics, which I feel look better than most of the metallic plastisols I've seen, and they also covered very well. The metal flake is what makes it opaque...
Steve
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Mesh count is the big one.
Shimmer is pretty forgiving on that, IIRC. (Wonderful that it's been this long... :))
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Union specifies something like 65-85 as a mesh count. That's really coarse! If that doesn't cover with a p-f-p, nothing will.
I have never gone coarser than 110, but have only used One Stroke and IC shimmers.
I have underbased, and not underbased, and have still not decided which looked better (and justified the extra screen as I usually do pretty short runs)
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we use Wilflex Liquid silver here, and have had great results with pfp on a 156.. underbasing made the silver lose some of it's sparkle for some reason...
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I second Steve, we never underbase metallic inks, we just use a 110 or 86 mesh count and pfp using a 60 duro squeegee.
darryl
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we use Wilflex Liquid silver here, and have had great results with pfp on a 156.. underbasing made the silver lose some of it's sparkle for some reason...
I believe that's a true metallic, have you noticed tarnishing down the line? (or do you overcoat it?)
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yup... it'll definitely tarnish after a bunch of washing
we've overcoated with Wilflex Soft Hand clear with good results.
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I second Steve, we never underbase metallic inks, we just use a 110 or 86 mesh count and pfp using a 60 duro squeegee.
darryl
110S here, double stroke and forget about it.
Steve
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yup... it'll definitely tarnish after a bunch of washing
we've overcoated with Wilflex Soft Hand clear with good results.
That's what got me on shimmers fifteen or so years ago, and only had a few clients insist on the real stuff.
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110S here, double stroke and forget about it.
Steve
That is what we would do if printing it manually. One thought for the OP, for me personally if I didn't have "S" mesh I would still run it on a regular 110. I just am not a fan of how a 86 P/F/P feals.
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I'm using Union ink Ef bright silver shimmer, and textac adhesive.
Would highly recommend getting your hands on some web spray adhesive when printing fleece. Waterbased tack like Textac won't hold very well/long and can leave residue inside the garments.
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110S here, double stroke and forget about it.
Steve
That is what we would do if printing it manually. One thought for the OP, for me personally if I didn't have "S" mesh I would still run it on a regular 110. I just am not a fan of how a 86 P/F/P feals.
Same here, prior to 110s, we'd still use 110(T)
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I'm using Union ink Ef bright silver shimmer, and textac adhesive.
Would highly recommend getting your hands on some web spray adhesive when printing fleece.
No worries, as it tends to get everywhere! LOL!
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I ran the job, worked just fine doing the print flash print as recommended. This was done on a 110, probably do need to invest on a screen with a lower mesh count for the future. I'm sorry but what is the "s" or "t" in the mesh count mentioned?
And I love the textac adhesive, but as mentioned twice already in this thread it did leave a lot of fabric behind requiring me to clean the pallets and Re Glue. I already have a spray adhesive, good to know that's what I should use for the future. Just stopped using it ever since I got the textac.
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S mesh is reference to Murakami Smart mesh. Look it up on here, provides larger openings, better detail, and works at lower tensions. Great stuff!
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If you are printing manual, do yourself a favor and pick up a 150S to try. Your life will change.
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I am using a manual m&r. Great to know! Thanks!
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S mesh is reference to Murakami Smart mesh. Look it up on here, provides larger openings, better detail, and works at lower tensions. Great stuff!
It's not just Murakami, "S" fabrics have been around for many years; as said, thinner threads, larger opening, makes sense right? Many benefits. One of them for me was that you could get finer detail on coarser meshed than before. We also use 81SDE from Saati, very coarse with thin threads..
Steve
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I ran the job, worked just fine doing the print flash print as recommended. This was done on a 110, probably do need to invest on a screen with a lower mesh count for the future. I'm sorry but what is the "s" or "t" in the mesh count mentioned?
And I love the textac adhesive, but as mentioned twice already in this thread it did leave a lot of fabric behind requiring me to clean the pallets and Re Glue. I already have a spray adhesive, good to know that's what I should use for the future. Just stopped using it ever since I got the textac.
For fleece make sure you use a web based spray as opposed to the spray you would use for t-shirts.
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Union specifies something like 65-85 as a mesh count. That's really coarse! If that doesn't cover with a p-f-p, nothing will.
I have never gone coarser than 110, but have only used One Stroke and IC shimmers.
I have underbased, and not underbased, and have still not decided which looked better (and justified the extra screen as I usually do pretty short runs)
Am I remembering this wrong? Maybe I was thinking of liquid silver. I was thinking the shimmer was the very fine particles.
If shimmer is like the standard medium flake metallic, I think 150/48 would be a little rough. Seemed like even 125/70's would 'filter' it a bit.
Can always get lower counts in S (or whatever thread)
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Union specifies something like 65-85 as a mesh count. That's really coarse! If that doesn't cover with a p-f-p, nothing will.
I have never gone coarser than 110, but have only used One Stroke and IC shimmers.
I have underbased, and not underbased, and have still not decided which looked better (and justified the extra screen as I usually do pretty short runs)
Am I remembering this wrong? Maybe I was thinking of liquid silver. I was thinking the shimmer was the very fine particles.
If shimmer is like the standard medium flake metallic, I think 150/48 would be a little rough. Seemed like even 125/70's would 'filter' it a bit.
Can always get lower counts in S (or whatever thread)
I didn't even look up Unions recommendations for shimmer. I went by their old real metallic, which (like liquid silver and all true metallics) is a fine powder suspended in a clear base. In fact, we used Union's "Clear Base for Silver" to soften plastisol before Soft Hand base was the norm.
I suspect that the coarse mesh suggestion is for opacity, and is also old when most mesh recommendations were coarser than today.