# A potential off-contact problem



## pgtvermont (Apr 15, 2015)

Good morning, first, I am so excited to have found this site. An amazing resource for a newbie. 

I recently did a job on black baby waffle t-shirts with white plastisol ink. It was hell on wheels. I think because of my off-contact. I'm not sure the best way to set that up. I did a print/flash/print. I'd say about 30% of the time, when I went to do the second coat of print, it would not be flush with the original print and/or they were sticking to the shirt and I had to junk the shirt.

I'd love any thoughts you may have as I know they want a re-order soon. Thank you!


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## macman29681 (May 24, 2013)

pgtvermont said:


> Good morning, first, I am so excited to have found this site. An amazing resource for a newbie.
> 
> I recently did a job on black baby waffle t-shirts with white plastisol ink. It was hell on wheels. I think because of my off-contact. I'm not sure the best way to set that up. I did a print/flash/print. I'd say about 30% of the time, when I went to do the second coat of print, it would not be flush with the original print and/or they were sticking to the shirt and I had to junk the shirt.
> 
> I'd love any thoughts you may have as I know they want a re-order soon. Thank you!


When you say would not be flush do you mean that you had alignment problems? I'm going to assume that you didn't have alignment problems. Did you flash it between prints? Do you have a flash cure to dry the print? or how did you dry it to the touch? If you didn't dry it to the touch this could be a cause to one of your problems. Let's once again assume the print was lined up you dried the print to the touch and lowed the screen to the shirt stroked the print and when you lifted the screen the shirt came off the platen with it. Possibly you need to wait between flashing and stroking the second print try using a fan to cool off the platen for 30 sec. or so. Also you might not have enough adhesive on your platen to keep your shirt tacked down to the board for your print if you are getting some lifting. These are all possiblilities from what you described above. I have only printed plastisol 3x (yuck) I print almost 98% water based, however printing with plastisol I set the off contact way high I used a thick card board box that some of my T-shirts came in. With water based I use no off contact at all. Please don't try that with plastisol you will end up with an absolute mess. If your printing with white cureable reducer is not a bad idea to help smooth out the print and make it softer. If you are printing on baby's clothes I would try Green Galaxy Comet white water based ink from Ryonet. Clean up is a breeze compared to plastisol. Good luck


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## pgtvermont (Apr 15, 2015)

Thanks so much for our input. Yes, I was flashing in between prints, but I definitely think I wasn't letting it cool down enough. Definitely used enough adhesive; I think it was my cool down factor. I haven't used water based ink yet, except when I went to training, and am anxious to work with it again. Nice that you don't need to offset that too.

I read here some good ideas about offsetting when using plastisol ink l and am going to try it this weekend with a two color baseball shirt I have to do. 1/8" for t-shirts and 1/4" for sweatshirts. Appreciate the feedback!


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