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Screen printing is used to print on many different substrates besides fabric, and paper.  You can screen print on glass, metal, ceramics, vinyl, walls, floors, powder coated aluminum to name a few.   So understanding what you will be printing on, will determine the screen printing ink you need to use.  The ink system will also determine the type of photo emulsion, and the mesh count you need to use on your silkscreen, but that will be for another blog post. Here are some of the most common printing surfaces, and the ink systems you would potentially want to use. Fabric...

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...

Many screen printers don’t use water based inks simply because they think that screen printing with waterbased ink is tricky and complicated.  But do you know these inks can be a joy to use and printing with water based inks can give you a smooth result? If done right, your prints will be softer to touch, more detailed, more environment-friendly as compared to other inks. The result will also be more durability when compared to the plastisol ink.  All you need is to learn some key tips and tricks about using waterbased inks for your printing process, and you can...

Screen printing is not a very difficult process. It can be messy, and it will be messy, but will get less messy as you become more proficient in your printing technique. For this brief explanation, we will assume that we are printing on fabric, which can be anything from t-shirts, to canvas bags.  But the principals are applicable for printing on paper, glass, or any other type of substrate. You'll need a variety of screen printing products to get your job done. How do I screen print? The first step in the process is preparing a workspace where you can print....

Before answering the big question - "Why Plastisol is rated as the best screen printing ink", we should get the answer for - "What is plastisol ink?"  Plastisol is a suspension of PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) in liquid plasticizer. Plastisol easily flows like a liquid when poured into a heated mold. Holden's Screen Supply has our own line of professional plastisols. It is commonly used as an ink in screen printers for textile for screen printing.  As stated above, it is used in the textile industry for screen printing purposes, and hence are often called textile ink.  Since its inception...