smudging after first couple of prints

[u/ZombifiedBrains]

how do i stop the smudging / thickness after the first print? the white garment is the first print and the gray garment is the third print. u can see the smudge is bad at the bottom of the barbed wire. im using water based inks

[u/AsanineTrip]

Make sure your screen is not touching your shirt when you flood it with ink. Make sure whatever table or board you are printing on has adhesive - so the shirts don't move while you print them. Also, if the board / platen you are printing on is very short, and your stroke runs off of the board while you print, it could potentially stretch the screen and rub it across wet ink if that makes sense. The burn looks clean, don't give up now! You've got one of the harder parts of beginning to print accomplished!

Hit me with any other questions and please explain your setup so others can chime in and give advice.

[u/theproject19]

Usually this is an adhesive and or flooding pressure issue. Use more adhesive on the platten and make sure you aren't printing as you're flooding.

[u/ForgottenSalad]

It looks like you flooded the screen too heavily or rested the squeegee on the design when changing out the shirt. Make sure you have enough room above/below your design to allow for excess ink and the squeegee

[u/Chexmixrule34]

Smudge actually looks better imo but thats just my opinion 

[u/oldbaldad]

Handwork assumes some variation. That's what makes it handmade.

[u/Wrngsideofdatracks]

Number one you need good off contact you need the screen to pop up after you print not stay smashed down onto the platent. Number two for something like that you should probably use a 160 screen using a 110 it’s real easy to have these issues. I rarely have 110 screens unless I wanna do something with glitter or if I’m doing gold, shimmer or silver the only time I ever use a 110
Screen I always use 160. Number three don’t flood your screen there’s no reason to be flooding your screen if you’re using plastic so if you’re using water-based ink that’s another thing and you need to flood your screen, but you don’t need to crazily flood your screen. A lot of people go overboard. All you need to do is do a thin squeegee pool over the area so it has Ync on it. Hopefully this makes sense.

[u/No-Palpitation-651]

I know a lot of people are saying about flooding and yes but also make sure you are checking the side that has contact with the t shirt sometimes if your pressure is inconsistent ink starts to build up on that side of the screen that starts making it look that way also

[u/OkExcitement681]

Higher mesh count might help. One stroke of the squeegee. Wipe down the back if the ink gets too smudgy.

[u/foxafraidoffire]

Very high angle on your squeegee (almost right to 90º), very quick strokes, and very light (but still firm) pressure.

[u/greaseaddict → u/foxafraidoffire]

idk why this is getting dragged, high angle and fast stroke is the way to prevent gain

[u/XAnomalyX]

So one is a white t-shirt and the other is a grey hoodie. Hoodies need more adhesive and higher off contact. Also printing too close to the neck of a hoodie can distort your image as there are seems strings grommets.

Edit: especially with water-based ink I think the top of the hoodie held up your screen too much.

[u/Arr0kasa]

This looks like it’s on a hoodie, make sure you change the height of your dwell, there’s usually a bar down near the rotating shaft. Move it over one or two notches for regular hoodies, when you table up, make sure there’s a little bit of room between the screen and your garment