Screen Printing Ink is a specialized ink that is formulated for silkscreening. There are numerous type of inks to choose from, so you will need a different screen printing ink for different printing surfaces.
Regardless of the type of screen printing ink you select, the primary coefficient used to classify something as screen printable, is the viscosity of the ink system.
Screen printable inks require a higher viscosity (thickness) so that when applied to the silkscreen, the ink doesn't run through the image area like water. As you can imagine, this would not be good for business. The thicker screen printable inks allow for the ink to dwell in the open area without dripping through the silkscreen.
Now that you know a brief bit about what classifies and ink as a Screen Printing Ink, you need to understand some basics of the different types of inks available to you.
Screen Printing Inks come in two main flavors.
- Water Based
- Solvent Based
Water based screen printing inks are inks that cleanup using cold water.
Solvent based screen printing inks are inks that can be cleaned up using chemicals. Some solvent inks require harsher chemicals to clean them up than others. So it' always best to look to their Safety Data Sheets (SDS), and Technical Data Sheets (TDS) to get a sense of what you are willing to work with.
In our next blog, we will discuss how to select the correct inks system for your screen printing job.