screen printing, what's best? plasticol or waterbased?

[paula]

Hi guys!
I'm new to this screen printing stuff, I've bought a 2 colour carousel and have been using plasticol to print on t-shirts. so far, I don't like it! is there anything I can use to soften the ink or should I give waterbased a go? what's everyones preferences? does waterbased last?

thanks, Paula

[Justin]

Moved this into screen printing section

[Paul]

i think we have only 2 screen printers on here but i ma sure they will be here soon to say what they know
Plastisol is great imo for more opaque effects. I remember when i had a choice i when with plstisol too. i was happy with my results tho...

[AJLA]

I know what you mean re the results of plastisol Paula, we went this route a few years ago and bought the screen printing kit. Unfortunately at the time all we were doing was printing onto black shirts, we had a good practice run but the end result I didn't like. so we sold the equipment on. Now we are about to launch a few new ranges of different colours so dad has just bought a DTG, got to figure that one out now :rolleyes:

[Earl Smith]

I gave up screen printing about 10 years ago so Ive forgotten many of the techniques.
I used Plastisol because it didnt dry so quickly on the screen and could be left overnight. Water based had to be cleaned off or it dried solid in the screen. This usually meant that I had to take them off and run them under the high pressure washer to thoroughly clean them. Then the next day remount and aline.
There is a softener for plastisol but I forget the name. Maybe you are putting too much ink on the shirt? Are you using a fine mesh of around 55 to 77 and a sharp , new rubber in your squeegee? Sorry Ive forgotten the English name of the thing that you apply the inks with. ( Regelleta in Spanish).

Earl.

[Earl Smith]

Good luck with the DTG , ALJA.
Which one did you buy?

[AJLA]

Thanks Earl, which model ..erm it is an older one, I think its a Kiosk,

Mandy

[John G]

As Earl said above, water based is/was a nightmare with bits of ink drying while printing causing the screens to block and knacking the ink in the process - plastisol can be left on screen and it won't dry. Its been years since I used water based plastisol so it may have changed but I still use standard plastisol now and wouldn't even entertain water based.

Cheers John

PS: hope the DTG works out for you Mandy - keep it busy!

[AJLA]

I hope to John, fingers crossed.

[gavtheoldskater]

i've only used waterbased, works fine for me though admittedly i don't do very big runs or complicated designs.