# How long can you leave plastisol on your stencil?



## Lopan (Jan 6, 2009)

I'm new to screen printing, but so far I'm getting pretty good results. I have my screens set up for a two color print job. I inked the screens and printed two shirts before I ran out of black shirts in the size I needed. How long can I leave plastisol on the stencil? I'm using (Ulano QTX) emulsion on 150 mesh. I'll get more shirts tomorrow, and I just don't want to take everything down to clean it if I can just come back tomorrow and finish the print run. Thanks


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## mrvixx (Jan 13, 2009)

About 3-5 days. maybe more. I actually get trash bags and put it over my screens to keep dirt off. I remember before I Purchased my house I would screen print in my balcony. I left the screens overnight and some birds got to my balcony and all over my screens. there were bird prints everywhere.


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## yoshimi (Feb 13, 2009)

Plastisol doesn't dry up!
Just best to remember to wash out your stencil with a bit of turps to keep it clean!


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## Uncle John (Mar 11, 2007)

Both answers are good but to make it clearer, clean the ink out of the image part of the screen with screen opener or the like.


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## Lopan (Jan 6, 2009)

Uncle John said:


> Both answers are good but to make it clearer, clean the ink out of the image part of the screen with screen opener or the like.


I ended up doing this. I scooped the left over paint back into containers and used CCI RC-5 press wash to wipe down the screens. I left the screens on the press and just wiped them down. I was just hoping to avoid the smell of that stuff. I print in my basement and I don't have an exhaust fan (yet).

Thanks all.


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## i51423 (May 9, 2008)

I'd recommend wiping out the image area with press wash at the very least. The ink will be fine overnight.. or three days from now.. or two weeks from now, but the ink will congeal in cooler temperatures. Once it warms up it's fine, but that congealed ink in the image area will cause blockages if not wiped out.


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## Paul204 (Apr 21, 2007)

Ink will crust up and not print quite as well, and tape residue gets really ugly, but I cleaned a screen that I misplaced and forgot about. It was still inked and taped, image area flooded, and it cleaned fine. It was from October.


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## pukingdeserthobo (Jun 3, 2008)

i had a screen with ink laying around for a few months used screen opener and was printing a in like 5 min


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## legitballer (Sep 1, 2006)

I left ink on a screen for months and I just used solvent to open it back up. No problem at all. Just keep it out of the sun so the ink doesn't get crusty.


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