Screen Printing Forum

Hey all, this is my first post here! I did a little searching but I couldn't find much information about how to using screen printing for glass.

Basically I'm working in a field that I use a lot of glass vials and I want to label them with letters and numbers etc. The glass vials are flat on all sides and some have the sides frosted and some have the sides polished. Mostly I'd like to print on the frosted sides but I'd like to know what is involved with printing on the polished sides as well.

Anyway so far I've been using this Stencil Pro kit to make the stencils and the stencil looks great! However the printed image looks horrible. There are many air bubbles and the ink looks rough. I've tried many different squeegee techniques and nothing seems to work. The ink I'm using is made by Liquitex part of their glossies selection.

I'd just like to have a nice even smooth coat but nothing I do seems to be working. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you and best regards,
Paul

I would contact Nazdar http://www.nazdar.com/. They make the best inks for non garments and have a great R&D department. If you need a salesman ask for Greg Markus.

Great I'll contact them today!

You can also try Deco Chem Inc. They have a full line of Inks for printing on glass. Nazdar uses there ADE Series and I have had bubbling issues with them unless you thin them down alot. I don't know how small your copy is but thinning could cause a smearing issue.

My letters are pretty small in size, only about 8 mm. The surface I'm printing on is about 10 mm wide so small letters are a must.

With the small copy you should be ok with either Nazdar or Deco chem inks. Here are a couple of hints.
1. Try wiping your glass with acetone or IPA before printing.
2. Try giving the print a dwell time before drying.
3. Try doing 2 wet passes just watch out for filling in of copy or smearing if you choose this use ink that is not overly thinned.

Check out the "Kit" he's trying to use. Here

Not bashing you, but printing on glass uses very fine mesh counts. 305 and up.

The screens that came with your kit are most likely 110 or so.
This is allowing WAY to much ink through and the rough edges
are called sawtoothing and are caused by a combination of the
small type you want and the coarse mesh.

To print successfully on glass you really need pro level products
and some basic screen printing knowledge.

-Rob