# Printing water based on burnout garments. Lint issue



## markkehr (Jul 10, 2014)

Has anyone printed water based designs on tri-blend or 50/50 burnout garments?
We have an issue of the garments leaving fuzz and lint, not just on the pallet, but clogging the screen and losing print quality after just a few shirts.
We are using 158 screen mesh.
The screen needs to be completely cleaned after less than half a dozen shirts.
We even tried washing the shirts first which left a ton of cake and lint in the washer & dryer.
Any experience or ideas??
Thanks!!!


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## MuddyWater (May 22, 2015)

I had a problem with that on anything blended ( even 50/50) when I first started trying to print t-shirts. What I found helped solve my issue was cranking up the A/C and switching to a higher mesh. 

What I found was happening was that water-based inks seemed to push through the screen more easily and I was used to big, thick oil-based paper inks, so I was pushing more ink than I needed to and high heat was semi-drying big gobs of it in and on the backs of my screens, making them sticky, pulling up lint and making my colours mush out and blend together. 

I got lucky on my first run, and it was a halftone of inked brush strokes, so the client didn't care that the halftone was filling in, but on subsequent runs where it mattered, I bumped my mesh up ( I use a 200-255 now for waster-based reds, blues and a 305 for blacks. ) and cranked the A/C and that's kept me from ending up with too much ink goobering up on the back of my screens. Water-based has a lot of advantages, but requiring climate control is one of their major downsides in my experience.

It might be different advice from other people, and I'd take mine with a grain of salt since I've only been running a t-shirt shop on my own for about 6 months, ( I was totally on the design/poster side before that. ) but that's my best answer.


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## markkehr (Jul 10, 2014)

MuddyWater said:


> I had a problem with that on anything blended ( even 50/50) when I first started trying to print t-shirts. What I found helped solve my issue was cranking up the A/C and switching to a higher mesh.
> 
> What I found was happening was that water-based inks seemed to push through the screen more easily and I was used to big, thick oil-based paper inks, so I was pushing more ink than I needed to and high heat was semi-drying big gobs of it in and on the backs of my screens, making them sticky, pulling up lint and making my colours mush out and blend together.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the insight.
We do have a climate controlled environment here.
I believe our biggest issue is the burnout fabric on these garments.
The lint just pulls off so easily and quickly wreaks havoc on everything.
We tried washing them all first which left a mess in the washer and dryer. It helped a little with the printing but not much.
Just for R&D purposes we will try a higher mesh screen.
It seems the opposite of logical but we tried a 110 mesh with bad results so we'll see.


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