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How much retardant should be added to screen printing ink?

Can water-based inks ruin the screen printing screen?

As you’d expect, it depends on the type of ink. Here are some examples of how to properly dilute screen printing ink using retardant.

Thinners, retardants, and hardeners are all additives that are used with a particular ink, or family of inks

Therefore, to answer the question properly, it’s necessary to know what kind of ink you’re printing with.

However, we can provide some dilution examples.

With Texprint water-based ink, the percentage of Retardant Gel to be added is 2 to 5%.

With Modatex water-based ink, you need a very small percentage of extra slow thinner, just 1%.

With solvent-based inks, there’s no set percentage of Slow Thinner that should be added, you have to add just enough thinner so as to ensure the ink has the consistency of mayonnaise, so that it can easily pass through the screen’s mesh.

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