# Image not coming through, help very much appreciated!



## RoroMinty (Jan 14, 2015)

Dear all,

I am new to the forum and would love to get some advice. I have just started a new job where I have to oversee some people screenprinting onto jute and have to troubleshoot some bad prints - but ironically have very little screenprinting experience. I don't know what the mesh count is, but would not be likely to be able to change it anyway as supplies are limited in my country (Haiti). 

The problem is that the images always come out really faint and have to be touched up heavily by hand, which of course defeats the point of printing. The ink used as far as I can see is plain acrylic, which I wouldn't have thought would be ideal. We have printed plastisol onto cotton T shirts using the same mesh with no problems at all, but of course the jute is much more coarse and its fibres won't soak up the paint.

Would adding a screenprinting medium to the acrylic help? I don't really like the acrylic finish anyway so would it be better to use another ink entirely? Is this a common or obvious problem with the combination of acrylic and jute?

Any help will be very gratefully received as I am at a loss on what to do other than scrap using jute in favour of cotton - but it would be much better to keep the jute if possible. Thankyou very much in advance if anyone is able to shed some light on this.


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## phatdaddy (Oct 25, 2012)

Jute bags?

I've printed on burlap bags once that no one else would touch and they worked out good. 

The problem is likely because the ink is only printing where the jute contacts the screen, leaving all the lower fibers untouched. The ink then just sits in the screen mesh. 

I'd just keep hitting them until something works. If that fails, make a stencil and use spray-paint instead. 

Screen printing requires a flat substrate Jute is likely too coarse.

Good luck!


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## RoroMinty (Jan 14, 2015)

Hey, thankyou very much indeed for that advice. I wish I could just keep going until something comes out but I'm being pressurised to get results and am not being allowed much time for troubleshooting! I think you're right that only the top fibres are picking up the ink. I wonder if adding something to make the acrylic more viscous could help??


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## phatdaddy (Oct 25, 2012)

Not really. 

If you get it to a point where the ink is dropping through the screen you may get a few done, but you will end up with more mess and wasted time.

Are you able to get any input from the printers?

If the ink you speak of is a water-base ink it may be drying in the screen which would make it not even possible to print. I think you should switch to plastisol for that reason alone. Can the jute take 320 degrees F.

When I did the burlap I just pushed the **** out of it and it flattened the burlap enough to make the print. It's not the way to screen print and It wasn't perfect, but totally acceptable under the circumstances, I didn't need to fill anything in.

If you can, post a pic of the jute item and the image I or someone else may be able to think of a different production method other then screen printing.


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## RoroMinty (Jan 14, 2015)

Thanks again for that. That's a good idea about posting the pic - I will try to take one when I'm next in. I really appreciate your input! We will give the plastisol a go as well and see how well that works.


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