# Printing White tags on thin dark shirts???



## FPF (Feb 11, 2013)

No matter how light I try and print white tags on a black shirt, my ink (plastisol) still bleeds through... I have now ruined over 150 shirts doing this and I'm really starting to get pissed. How in the world do you guys do this? Please help and please dont tell me to just press lighter, because i have pressed as light as humanly possible. Whether i go with one coat or multiple, i cant get a good result. One shirt took me 5 coats to get the ink to fully cover because each pass was so light and it still bled through.


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## Dublebas (Nov 18, 2014)

What is your mesh count? Maybe you can try higher mesh?


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## jmlampert23 (Nov 7, 2008)

They are either stamped on or heated on. Not printed


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## jmlampert23 (Nov 7, 2008)

Why would you do so many when there were not coming out correctly.


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## legacyathletic (Oct 2, 2014)

from what I have seen, most people will make a film with one of each size tag all on the same screen, and print them onto transfer paper (Hot Split Additive must be added to ink) once the ink is cured on the paper, you can Transfer the image to the shirt Via a Head Press. Just remember to make your art work Flipped so when you transfer to shirt, it will read the correct way. best of luck, hopefully you don't mess up any more shirts


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## FPF (Feb 11, 2013)

Thanks for the input guys. I've seen plenty of videos with people screen printing them, and since I don't have a heat press I thought I would give it a go. I don't know what my mesh count is. I bought all of this stuff used and nothing was labeled. I have one screen with a higher mesh count so I will try and use that one. I was just worried about going too fine and not being able to push the white ink though easily. I guess that will be the first thing I try.


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## DavidLRobison (Feb 3, 2015)

First off we screen print a LOT of private labels so keep this in mind-
White ink-printed to be bright white will bleed through a thin black shirt- We use Dark Grey Ink on almost everything except white and then we use a Light grey. this fixes the issue 90% of the time. If your printing white lightly it looks grey anyway.
if it Has to be white- you can print a Black ink square first and flash it and then print white on top of the black.
The black won't show through and will seal the shirt to allow you to print white on top of it.

In some circumstances we have had to print red or blue labels on white shirts, we charge more and use a white square first flash it and then print on top. Keep in mind we use 230 mesh for the square and a 300 for the color. And we charge more for it.

Transfers are an alternative that work well too. We have a heat seal machine made by Paxar that transfers them onto a shirt like the Tagless tees you see from the distributor but the transfers have to be ordered in bulk and the machine was $4000. (I hardly ever use it)


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## FPF (Feb 11, 2013)

Thank you David. I will be heading to the print supply shop tomorrow to get two shades of grey. Your input is greatly appreciated!


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## StayG0LD (Jul 22, 2010)

Med or Light Gray - one Pass - 230 

*or*

Plastisol transfer

The same thing that we rely on to make a long lasting reliable print is your enemy when printing interior tags

I learned this quick on a test print of Canvas 3000's


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## FPF (Feb 11, 2013)

picked up some grey ink and it fixed all of my problems. I'm going to finish doing the tags on all my cotton tees tonight. I'm a tad worried that when I go to do the 3.7oz 60% polyester tees, that I will have issues but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. The ink is supposed to be good for poly cotton blends but that's a thin tee....


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