Screen Printing Forum

Hi,

I am trying to print my first screen T-Shirt. Nice and easy, black on white.

I have exposed my screen and it looks OK to me, the image seems very clear and the background is dark.

I fix to my carousel and using what I would call a very firm pressure, the image only prints with loads of speckly white bits.

Some experimenting and if I go back four or five times, very hard pressure, the image does go fully black.

My ink is a nice runnyish, not hard at all.

Anybody got any bright ideas what my first actions should be?

Look forward to any help that can be offered.

Thanks in advance

Peter

What is the screen mesh you are using?
How much off-contact do you have?
How hard is the squeegie?
Is the "open" area of the screen REALLY open or is there an extreemely thin transparent film in places? If so, this is called scum and results from underexposed screens. This is because the emulsion on the squeegie-side (which has not been adaquately exposed) runs down into the open area while rinsing out or developing the stencil image in the screen. This can be reduced somewhat while the screen is still wet from developing by BLOTTING the screen dry with something like newsprint paper.