Screen Printing Forum

Hello,

So yesterday I finally got my exposure times right and have managed to expose a waorking screen. After a few test runs I noticed that some of my images were printing a bit off centre on the shirts. As I am doing both adult shirts and baby clothes is there a trick to ensuring the print is centered or aligned to where I want it to go?

Thanks

My first suggestion, (If your not already doing this) would be to add crosshairs centered to your art, both above and below. You can use these to line up your design, this really helps with multi color, just make sure that they are in the same place on all of your positives. The next thing I'd do would be to draw a center line on your pallet, and line your crosshairs up to this center line. This would ensure that your print is centered to the pallet. If your still having problems, you may want to check your placement of the shirt, making sure that its even on both sides of the pallet, as well as the neck line. The only other thing I can think of at the moment would be to check all of your pallets, making sure that they are all centered in the same area. To do this, take a screen, and draw a line in the center from top to bottom, and do the same on your pallets. Then line this screen up to the center line on one of your pallets, then check each pallet to see if they are aligned correctly, use an uncoated screen for this, no need to waste emulsion and it's easier to see through. Hopefully any of these will cure your problem.

Thanks very much

i will head home this weekend to set up the cross hairs and give it a go