Tip of the Week: Avoid Bald Spots on Prints

Why do bald spots sometime appear on my prints?  Ed Branigan can explain possible reasons and offers some solutions to this common problem.  Here is his Printing Tip which was recently published in Impressions:

Bald spots can appear on a print for several reasons. They often occur when the work area has been contaminated with lint or dust, which makes its way into the image area of the screen.

To resolve this issue, clean the screen and work area regularly.

Fibrillation of your fabric also can cause bald spots. Some fabrics, such as jerseys, have a lot of fibers sticking up from the surface. To prevent bald spots in this case, matte the fibers down prior to printing the image.

To help matte the fibers down, use thicker ink or thicken the ink you already have. Be sure to lay down a good deposit to keep the fibers down and flash the print before continuing.

Ed Branigan is the print applications manager at International Coatings and has extensive experience in screen printing inks and technology. For more information, visit iccink.com and read the company’s blog at internationalcoatingsblog.com.

International Coatings manufactures a complete line of phthalate-compliant screen printing inks, including a wide variety of whites, specialty inks, special effects inks, color matching systems, additives and reducers.  For more information on our products, please visit our website at www.iccink.com.

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