Registration With Printing An Under Base

[christielg]

I have messed up so many films, screens with emulsion, etc. Somebody please help me here. I have a design that is a one color. It looks great on light shirts, but when printing on a dark shirt, it looks like crap. I have printed flashed printed and the shirt still shows thru. I am using a 110 mesh. Do I need to use a different mesh size? I have an underbase screen and for the life of me I can't line it up where the white don't show. I have used the registration marks and tried to line it up with the film on the pallet. HELP PLEASE No matter what I do it won't line up. In Coreldraw I put a 5mm line around the top color hoping that would work, well I still can't line it up.
I am a newbee here and I am so frustrated that I am ready to just throw my hand up.

Thanks,
Christie

[Catspit Productions]

Okay were here to do our best to help out in any way from afar.

First off you did the right thing by making the color over print the white. Since you can’t use the print/flash/print method due to poor ink opacity then an under base is the way to go. There are several factors that can cause a shirt to move or shrink when working with an under base.

Make sure to use a flash tack that is made to take some heat since you will be flash curing the white under base. Other standard pallet adhesives that are not made to withstand heat get gooey and gummy which may allow the shirt to roll under the squeegee. They may also allow the fabric to move when flash cured.

Sometimes when using a flash cure to work with an under base or multiple colors you can experience shrinkage of the fabric and/or the inks. Therefore we need to attempt to only flash the inks without getting them too hot and using plenty of pallet adhesive to make the fabric stay put.

You may also try flash curing the shirt well before printing to make the garment shrinks before you print. If the inks are the culprit in shrinking then a quicker flash cure time is needed.

I might suggest using a 125 or 130 mesh for the under base and a 110 for the color over print. This will allow for a crisp, smooth and knit penetrated white under base while allowing for maximum coverage on the color. It should also allow the color to fill out over the edges even more which can help with the registration.

Make you under base print smooth and push the ink into the knit well. This print is okay if it is not wicked opaque. Just make sure the ink is filling in all the knit and the surface is clean. It does not have to be a stark bright white to do the job. It simply has to act as a sealer. So be careful not to use excessive pressure and strokes which may fill out the under base at the edges.

OR you can buy a better ink that has good opacity and use the color as your under base. If you cannot do that with the ink you are using now then it is not high opacity ink made for printing on dark garments. But if you were to use that type of ink then it would be possible to do a print/flash/print I’m sure.