Selecting the Screen Printing Fabric Mesh for Your Design

Publicado por Jeffrey Gononsky en

holden's screen printing mesh for silk screenHow do you know you're selecting the appropriate screen printing mesh (fabric) for the design you need to burn on your silkscreen frame.

This first sentence is a mouthful, and depending on your level of experience not an easy question to answer.  As a general rule, you would like to select the mesh count that capture all the detail of your design while putting down the most amount of ink while printing.

The higher the mesh count, the better the image detail, the lower the ink flow, AND the faster the ink will clog in your silkscreen.

So how do you know you're selecting the correct mesh count for your design?

Here is a quick chart to help you narrow down the mesh count ranges.  We use round number, as many manufacturers modify their thread count by a number, or two for sales purposes.

Mesh Range Detail
60-80 Low For glitter printing and heavy ink coverage
110-125 Low The standard mesh count used for basic fabric printing
140-160 Medium Finer detail and recommended starting mesh for paper, and card stock
180-200 High Ideal for fine line detail; but not for photographic prints
230-255 High Photographic images requiring halftones and four color process printing
280-355 Very High Extremely fine detail and text

 

You should check your screen printing inks technical data sheet for mesh count recommendation to get your selection process started.