Beginner’s Guide: How to Get Started with Silk Screen Printing Ink?

Over time, the demand for prints with a soft-hand and more subtle, clean look has grown tremendously. Adding water-based silk screen printing ink to your essential list can help you attract and grab prospects’ as well as customer’s attention who prefer the softer look and feel of inks in their apparel.

We have shared some helpful tips to get you started with silk screen printing using waterbased ink.

Use screens with a higher mesh count

In comparison to plastisol inks, water-based inks are much thinner. Your image can bleed if they pass through your screens too quickly. Using higher mesh-count screens can help to slow down the flow. Water-based inks are typically printed with mesh counts ranging from 156 to 200, with higher mesh counts for more detailed and finer prints and lower mesh counts for high-coverage prints.

Prepare the screens properly

Proper screen preparation is always necessary, but it’s even more vital with water-based inks. This is because the finer aspect of water-based inks makes it easier for the ink to pass through tiny holes or errors. Remove the dust, clean the screens, thoroughly rinse the screens, and allow the screens to completely dry before printing with water-based inks.

Make use of ink additives, when required

Water-based inks, like plastisol inks, have a variety of ink additives that can assist you to get the results you want. Retarder is a substance that slows the drying of ink on screens. Saturate acts as a wetting agent, enabling water-based inks to penetrate deeper into the substrate. When you want your water-based ink to flow more slowly, the thickener can improve its viscosity. Cross-linker aids in the quicker cure of water-based inks at lower temperatures. Binder booster improves the adhesion of pigments to fabrics, resulting in a cleaner water-based print. Your print can stretch without cracking – thanks to the stretch additive.

Use a water-resistant emulsion

Although most emulsions are water-resistant to some extent, plastisol emulsions aren’t built to withstand the constant moisture exposure that happens with water-based printing. It’s a smart option to use a protective emulsion designed for printing with water-based inks to protect your stencil from breaking down during water-based designs.

Use additional hardening to bolster your stencils

There are a few things you can do to improve your stencil. After a damp squib, open your stencil one more time to reharden some softened emulsion. You may also use a chemical hardener designed to strengthen stencils. The stencil can be then coated with hardeners and left to dry for 24 hours.

Don’t let the inks dry on the screens

One of the common issues faced with silk screen printing ink is that waterbased inks easily get dry out on the screens as you print. There are steps to be taken to slow down this process. To begin, an ink additive can be used to delay the drying process. During printing, keep the ink on the screens refilled. When printing with water-based inks, you can also spray the ink on the screen with a water-filled spray bottle, just make sure no fans or cool air are blowing through your press area.

Use less pressure to print

Water-based inks need less squeegee pressure than plastisol inks when printing. Use a squeegee with soft to medium durometers, such as a 55- to 65 or a triple-durometer squeegee with a 55/90/55 durometer. When printing, use a larger squeegee angle to apply the least amount of pressure possible.

Let water-based ink cure completely

Water-based inks cure differently than plastisol inks because the water evaporates, leaving only the pigment behind. To make sure that the pigment sticks to the substrate, let all the water in the ink gets evaporated.

Water-based inks are not complex— it’s just a bit different than the plastisol inks. The above-mentioned tips can help you get the soft hand and soft look print using water-based ink for silk screen printing.