Impressions - August 2015 - 57

Once the screen is down and the ink
floods it, pull the squeegee and shear the
ink from the screen onto the shirt. The
lower the angle of your squeegee, the
more force you will give to the procedure
and more ink will go through the mesh.
Ideally, you want a sharp 70- or 80-degree
angle. Press hard through the stroke and
concentrate on making a clean, balanced,
smooth motion.
The result should be a nice clean
print that lays flat on the shirt and covers all areas evenly. The key to becoming
a great manual printer is developing a
print stroke that it smooth and efficient.
Too much pressure with one hand or the
other can produce sloppy ink deposits on
the dominant pressure side. Insufficient
pressure, however, can produce too light
of a print that shows the grain of the shirt
in the print areas. If the squeegee angle is
too low or high, there will be too much
or not enough ink transfer. Like anything,
practice makes perfect.
There currently is a lot of debate about
whether it's better to pull or to push the
squeegee. Do whatever is comfortable for
you. Regardless of your preferred method,
you have to only do it that way when
printing. You can't switch it up in the middle of a job, as that will lead to misprints
and probably a mess.
Some people like to grip the squeegee
from the top, while others choose to hold
it a little wider or more to the side. Regardless of the grip you choose, just ensure
you can do it all day.
On some jobs, you can print wet on wet
without a problem. This will allow you to
print much faster, and you'll produce more
shirts at the end of the day. However, if
you are printing over an underbase or have
blocks of ink color touching, you will need
to flash cure the shirt before printing the
next color.
A flash unit is a small heater that completely covers the platen area and usually
is placed on the opposite side of the press
from where the screen printer stands. This
device either works with a motion sensor
and can detect a platen swinging underneath, or it can be linked to a foot pedal
switch for printer control. Flashing the ink
gels it so it is dry to the touch. However,
don't mistakenly think the ink cured; the
shirt still will need to go into the dryer.
Marshall Atkinson is the chief operating officer of Visual Impression Inc., and Ink
to the People, Milwaukee, Wis. Atkinson is
impressionsmag.com

a frequent contributor to Impressions. He
also lectures on sustainability at Imprinted
Sportswear Shows (ISS) events, and has
participated numerous industry webinar
panel discussions and keynote addresses. He
serves on the board of directors for the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP),
several SGIA leadership committees, and is
a PromoKitchen chef. You can contact him
at matkinson4804@gmail.com.

Suggested

Reading

Like this article? Read these and
other screen printing articles at
impressionsmag.com:
* "Halftone Printing on Textiles"
* "Screen-Making Techniques"
* "Screen-Making Techniques,
Part 2"

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