# Emulsion is getting wrecked when trying to clean out ink



## BarbellFreak (May 16, 2017)

Hi, I'm very new to printing shirts and I've been having a few issues with printing.

I've been having a hard time cleaning the screens.. when I'm screen printing, the ink keeps drying in the screen after a few shirts and is leaving spots on the shirts where the ink cant go through. When I'm trying to clean out the screen (trying to remove the ink that's dried in the screen) the emulsion is getting ruined.. I've looked around and people said to use rubbing alcohol or paint thinner to remove ink without wrecking the emulsion but it hasn't been working for me.

has anyone else had these problems? or have any tips? 

Thanks!!


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## samking (Feb 3, 2009)

Firstly what kind of inks are you using, and what kind of emulsion also.
I get the strong feeling that you are using waterbased inks, with an emulsion made for plastisol or solvent based inks, the two don't usually mix or work together.


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## BarbellFreak (May 16, 2017)

I bought a kit, and they sent us the ink, but it doesnt say on the labels or their website what kind it is, I believe it's acrylic though (We have to mix Transparent base, White Paste, and Colour Pigments together.).

The emulsion I'm using is the Speedball Diazo Photo emulsion..

what you think about that kind of ink and/or if that's our problem on why I keep ruining the emulsion?

Thanks!


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## numbercruncher (Feb 20, 2009)

Have you tried contacting the party that you bought the kit from ?


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## samking (Feb 3, 2009)

What you can do is, after exposing and developing your screen, place it for about 5 minutes in direct sunlight and see if that fixes your problem, your emulsion may not have been exposed/hardened enough for production purposes.


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## hotrod937 (Nov 15, 2013)

Using all professional stuff here, when I had this problem early on it was because I was flashing then going right back to print and when my screen would touch the hot shirt it would dry the ink in the screen. This is with all professional stuff though. I almost bought a cheap kit but decided against it and hit craigslist for all my pro stuff. Get ready because screen printing is very hard, time consuming and expensive.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

It's either water based ink or the screen is severely underexposed.


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

To reduce how quickly the ink dries in the screen, keep the image area flooded with ink. After you do a print stroke, lift the screen and do a flood stroke to cover the image area back up with ink and keep it that way until you do the next print stroke.

Have everything as organized as you can _before_ you put the ink in the screen. Once the ink is in the screen, you don't want to let it sit for long without doing a print stroke, else it will start to dry. If you are printing quite a few shirts, have a spray bottle of water on hand to mist the ink every now and then--especially if you are working in a hot/arid environment.

When you are done printing, scrape the ink out with the squeegee and immediately spray the screen out with water. Does your kit include a chemical to wash ink out of the screen? If not, buy one made for waterbase inks. In a pinch, you can use Windex that contains ammonia, but I find that the purpose-made products work better. Water alone is usually not enough to prevent a gradual buildup of ink in the open mesh.

That said, you do not need to worry about a little ink/pigment buildup on the emulsion itself. It does not matter, and will happen with most inks and emulsions. A regular sponge is all you should need/use. If ink is drying in the screen, you are not keeping the screen flooded, the ink wet enough, or you are not printing fast enough (or your air is way too dry/hot).

Do not use alcohol or petroleum products. They can react with the emulsion and make it so the screen can never be reclaimed and reused for another image. People suggesting that probably assume you are using Plastisol ink, but if the ink is drying in screen, you are using waterbase.


Welcome to the wonderful world of screen printing 

If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't learning anything. Decades ago, I made my first prints with a SpeedBall kit. It's a way to give it a try and learn some basics without spending a huge amount.

That said, the hobbyist nature of material and supplies makes the task a bit harder than it needs to be. But it is what it is. If you still want to screen print after using up your kit supplies, pickup professional ink, emulsion, squeegee, and ink cleaning chemical.

Ryonet's Green Galaxy is decent ink at a decent price, and it is less prone to drying in screen than other waterbase I have tried. Saati PHU is a Poly type emulsion so there is nothing to mix into it and it has a shelf-life of a year or more. It also exposes much faster than Diazo emulsion, so your odds of getting good results with a weak light source greatly increase.


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