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How to Screen Print like a Professional
And what makes the difference, between a screen print professional and a non-professional?
Screen printing is done everywhere and anywhere. It seems to be a very easy thing to do.
Everybody can screen print, yes right and everybody does it.
But why, we see so many qualities in screen printing?
What makes the difference, between a screen print professional and a non-professional screen printer?
The equipment is nearly the same, and the technique too, ink goes through the mesh on the shirt. 🙂
The difference is, that the professional screen printer MASTER & CONTROLS THE VARIABLES!
Variable stands for: Likely to change or vary or is changeable.
Let’s have a deeper look at our screen printing department, I listed each department with its variables.
Screen Department
- How flat the frame is
- The Mesh count we choose
- The mesh color we use
- The Mesh opening which we choose
- The Mesh thickness we got
- The Mesh tension we have
Film Department
- What quality artwork we got
- The quality separation we do
- The Film density we get
- The linear output of the film has
Ink Department
- What quality it is
- Flow characteristics shows
- Viscosity it has
- Pigment particle size measures
- Ambient humidity we feel
- The ambient temperature we got
And Tools we use
- The under-base we do
- The color sequence we select
- Off-contact it is
- Pallet level we got
- Squeegee sharpness has
- Squeegee hardness we choose
- Squeegee pressure we put
- Squeegee speed we adjust
- Squeegee angle we do
- Flood speed we adjust
- Flood-bar pressure we use
- The print area is
- How many strokes
- Flash cure heat we pump
Product we print
- The material surface it is
- Elasticity it has
- Surface tensions the product gives
- Surface porosity we got
- Substrate color has
- Surface peel we see
- The time we give
- The way we do
Do you understand, what it means and where to look at it?
I know, these are many variables and this means many options, what you need to control.
Each Variable will have a parameter to it, to archive the best results.
To get these parameters, you need to make your homework.
And this means, to write every step down each time, with the result you get.
This is what makes the difference between a professional and a “normal” screen printer, you would need to understand each variable and the impact it has by changing it.
The good news is, we have tools to measure some variables. This helps us to get faster to the parameter, and we can assure later, that we can reproduce it.
The most known tool is properly the Tension Meter, which measures how many Newton we have on a frame.
But there are many more in Screen Printing, for this I will do once an extra posting, to explain them and what they do.
Hope it helps you to understand, what will make you a professional Screen Printer.
If I missed a variable, please let me know, thanks!
Summary:
A Professional Screen Printer MASTER & CONTROL his variables!
