I purchased the Texprint Mono screenprinting ink through you. My problem is that following the second print, any subsequent prints already start coming out faded, the colour dries on the frame: do you have any suggestions? I presume it’s happening because of the warm weather.
All water-based screen printing inks have a tendency to dry on the frame and clog up the mesh.
High summer temperatures can exacerbate this problem. Fortunately, there are some measures we can take to enable us to keep printing:
– Use screens with a low mesh count: in summer, it’s easier to print using a 43T frame than a 55T frame. In any case, a 55T frame is the maximum limit, any more than this and printing becomes really difficult;
– Add a few drops of water to give the ink the correct viscosity: if it’s too dense it’ll dry even more quickly;
– Add up to 5% of Texprint retardant gel to Texprint Mono: it doesn’t make the ink too liquid, but it still slows down the drying process. Please note: in this case the drying and polymerisation process on the garment will also be slower. You need to wait longer before washing it or, alternatively, you can add some Texprint universal catalyst to the ink or you can warm the print up, even using an iron would work;
– Print quite quickly: the squeegee should be kept moving on the screen almost constantly;
– For the return movement, the squeegee should push approximately 2-3 mm of ink onto the area occupied by the design.