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Trouble printing small text

Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:31 pm
by jbouley
I am printing digipaks for a band on chipboard. The first layer went down great but I'm on the second layer and the small type will not print. I get blurry smudges or nothing at all. I have tried thinning the ink and also washing the screen out several times. The most luck ive had was right after I washed the screen and used almost watery ink I got about 95% of what I needed to come out pretty decent. This quickly went back to printing almost nothing after about 4 more prints.

Any thoughts?

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:58 pm
by tompaine
Are you losing it on the screen or is it the roughness of the substrate?

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:43 am
by d fleming
Maybe need some retarder for the ink.

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:04 pm
by geneh
It sounds like to me that you might be rewetting your first layer of ink thus causing sticking and plugging up your mesh. The more solvent you put in your ink the worse it will get like you said 1 somewhat good print and then back to what you got nothing. Make sure your fist layer of ink is fully cured and try again. That's my thought Good Luck!!

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:38 pm
by jbouley
whats retarder? The screen looks perfect. I just cant get it to print. Im using water based inks and the first layer has been left to dry for over a week. Im also not noticing and blue which is the color of the first layer mixing with the white which is what im trying to print.

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:36 am
by geneh
Retarder is a slower evaperating solvent or gel. But since your using a water based ink see if the ink manufacture has a retarder if not you can use gylcerin you can find it at Triangle Ink. Or you can use Butal Cellusolve 1-2% max. Nazdar carries RE 180 which has the Butal Cellusolve in it. I use it or the glycerin in my water based inks that want to dry out on me in the screen. The other advice I have is once you start to print don't stop keep moving your ink this will help with drying out the faster the better. Good luck let us know how it goes.

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:30 am
by Business Forms
Most fonts work on 110 but you may have to go to 155 or 180 with fine serifed fonts. Also your exposure method could be changed.slightly higher mesh count, and better film. I use vellum, so I am sure a transparency will work much better!

Re: Trouble printing small text

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 6:37 pm
by ChrisScoff
Hi Jbouley! you need to get film screens to print small text. you can also get help from following thread.
viewtopic.php?t=964