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acrylic ink prints on cardboard unevenly

Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:18 am
by marianW
[img]Printing black on cardboard record sleeves.
230 mesh, aluminum screen, Speedball acrylic black ink with silkscreen medium added
halftone is 45dpi
printing with hinges on table, equaling the off-contact on the other side with a thin piece of masonite-type material.

You can see by my images that I can't get the black to print consistent in the halftone. I'm experimenting, but maybe someone has some pointers - even though this isn't t-shirt printing. The stencil was made and then exposed by a screen-printing studio. Line screen 45dpi, round
Some things I"m trying, but have not been successful:
() adding more or less screen printing medium, up to 1:1 approx. Next I was going to try 98% speedball acrylic ink, with just a small bit of medium to slow drying time
() squeegee technique - should I skip the floor stroke? or maybe I'm pushing too firmly? Some were too light, so I tried double strokes, but then that was too dark. After checking forums tonight I thought I might be flooding too heavily, pushing ink through the screen instead of just on surface.
() the cardboard 45 sleeves I'm printing on aren't smooth -- is this part of the problem?
() the off contact -- could it be too much? Since I'm using hinges on an aluminum screen, it's almost a built-in off contact that I match at the other side of screen
Any ideas are welcome!
(I'm not sure how to put an image into this message -- these are the links to open them)
-Marian

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gx5aeavdy199t ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7h4lrcajllkag ... 2.jpg?dl=0

Re: acrylic ink prints on cardboard unevenly

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 12:28 pm
by marianW
I seem to have solved this problem (at least with a similar screen) -- thanks to many sources of advice, including the Catspit forums and videos - thank you!
Some of the things that apparently contributed to success:
- used thicker ink, only added a small amount of screen printing medium so as to be able to make 75 prints w/o ink drying; so practiced very diligent & immediate flooding also to that end
- flood strokes VERY light and thick, not pressing ink through mesh at all
- reduced off-contact: put a piece of matt board under record sleeve to raise it, as the off-contact had been almost 1/4" due to hinges
If anyone has any other thoughts about this, I'm still learning.
-Marian

Re: acrylic ink prints on cardboard unevenly

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:08 pm
by Catspit Productions
Excellent. You diligence was faster than I could respond.

Yes, with graphic printing on hard flat surfaces flooding is almost unnecessary. Also use a harder squeegee like an 80 durometer. You can also back flood the screen with ink between prints. Lower to no off contact will work fine for printing hard flat non porous surfaces. Also if the ink is way thin you could try 305 mesh.

Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your experience with this. I appreciate that.