Ok so I have pretty much watched all your videos on youtube and I must say Thank You for taking the time to post all of them! I need a little help with mesh count. On the video you said to use a 110 count for dark T shirts is that correct? the shirt I am using is 100% preshrunk cotton color black. Next question do I have to lay a under base for the image since it is on a black shirt it will only be a two color shirt and one of the colors is white?

Waterbased or Plastisol? Underbase is need on dark garments unless you are using opaque inks. Your mesh count will depend on what type of ink and the amount of detail in your image. Could you give a little more info?

Plastisol. I'm just blue and white for the color.

You’re welcome, thanks for taking the time to watch my videos. I appreciate your time and attention. 110 is often used as a default choice for screen printing white or light colored inks onto dark colored garments. But you can use other mesh counts depending on what you are doing.

In your situation in printing white and blue on a black tee shirt I would make the white under base the blue. Then I would print the white as if it were white alone and print the blue on top of that. For the white screen a 110 or 125 mesh would be fine since it will end up printing the under base and the white. Then the blue might be printed with a 156 or 160 mesh because with a heavy white under base you should be able to lay down less blue and still get decent color on top of the white.

Make sure to flash the white well before you print the blue on top of it and remember the white has to be printed as though it were not an under base. Therefore you may want to overprint the blue on the white by a half a line point.

I hope that helps out some.

Thanks for posting on the Catspit forum!!

so your saying print blue as a under base then print white on top as another under base then the blue?

jokingscroll wrote:so your saying print blue as a under base then print white on top as another under base then the blue?

I think what he was trying to say is print the white first as if it was just a 1-color print (nice even, solid print), then flash it. Then print your blue over the white where needed. Make your blue image slightly bigger then the white under base. Ie, you want the blue ink to, ever so slightly, go over the white edges insuring you have no white showing through.

Yes Greg! That's exactly what I mean, thank you.

Despite the underbase technique is often a very handy "tool" , if your design was only letters (text) or spot colors with no high details, I would prefered using Plastisol High Opacity Inks and printed the white and the blue for separated, since I don´t have Micro registration on my press, and "choking" the underbase and centering an "underbased" job on my press would be more challenging and time consuming. But yeah, an "underbased" printing job gives more bright colors on it.