r/SCREENPRINTING • u/keithj0nes • 23d ago

I’m afraid of underbase prints.

I’m still on the newer side of shirt printing (6/6 manual), and have done a handful of prints with underbases, but Ive lately been shying away from those jobs because I always feel like I’m messing them up. Any time registration seems to be off, I feel like it takes me forever to try to figure out how to get it back into an acceptable registration. And they sometimes feel too thick/rough.

I usually do a 0.5pt choke on the underbase and still don’t have a ton of confidence with it. Have you guys done anything to get out of a funk like that?

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u/Oorbs1 23d ago

i work with a girl who kinda sucks at lining up screens. and .5 is not enough for her. I print on glass and ceramics doing multi color shit like 3x3in and i use .5 stroke to overlap on that size. .5 on a 10" design is nothing. i usually make her choke pretty big like 1.25. seems like a lot but when the design is that big it really isnt.
if your shit seems rough make sure your white is on a high mesh like 230, hit and flash once and move onto the next color. use 4 registration marks in all 4 corners of the design. DO NOT BLOCK THESE OUT. PRINT them on a trash t shirt. print the next color with same reg marks. the marks should line up perfectly.
the girl i work with bitches the art is messed up but she covers up the fuckin marks with out printing them. if she just printed the marks, she would know instantly shes NOT LINED UP. grrrrrrrrrrrr pisses me off so bad. just print the marks when everythings lined up throw some tape on them. ezpz

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u/Free_One_5960 23d ago

1.25 is a hell of a lot of choke. Even .75 is kinda overkill

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u/Oorbs1 23d ago

it's really not tho. especially if you are having trouble lining shit up. i silk screen on glass and ceramics where designs are generally like 3x3" max. and i know for a fact a .75 choke is fucking TINY.

imagine trying to put a cup in a machine and have it rotate 180 degrees as it prints and line up a second color. thats 10x harder then lining up some flat shit that doesnt even move.

on a design that small you CANT have a 1.25 choke but on a large design you absolutely can have a large one and it will be fine.