# Screen Printing Mesh Safety Vest?



## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

I have a customer that wants a bunch of safety vest printed but it is a mesh with big holes! I have in the past applied heat transfer vinyl to these types of vest before and was just careful not to get the press on the reflective strips. But for this particular request the logo has too fine of detail for heat transfer vinyl. If I were to screen print that, I am guessing a ton of ink would go onto my pallet?

Any advice on this would be great!

-Jim


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## snpokc (May 30, 2012)

We have been printing mesh for 20 years. Our solution is to use cheap transfer paper on our boards. We spray adhesive on the board/apply transfer paper/spray adhesive the paper then load and print the mesh garment. We remove the garment carefully lifting from the shoulders till it is unstuck from the board then with a quick pull we remove it without letting the rest of the fabric touch the ink on the board. The paper is thrown away and another sheet is loaded for the next shirt.


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

If you use pallet tape to cover your pallets to ease cleaning, just print on that like usual. Ink goes through the holes of the vests, but it makes no difference to the print itself, and when the job is finished, peel the pallet tape off the pallet and put on a new piece. I've got over 600 to print this week myself.


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## snpokc (May 30, 2012)

We have done this also. But if you have to print numbers every number leaves a different residue on the boards. That being said, If you are careful in laying the vest on the board so as to not slide it through the ink you can keep it from ending up with skid marks inside the vest that peek through the holes. If I was doing 600 I'd do without the transfer paper also and I would put several layers of pallet tape on. However, keep a flash running to to bake the residue ink and peel a layer of tape off the boards every 200 vests.


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

snpokc said:


> We have done this also. But if you have to print numbers every number leaves a different residue on the boards. That being said, If you are careful in laying the vest on the board so as to not slide it through the ink you can keep it from ending up with skid marks inside the vest that peek through the holes. If I was doing 600 I'd do without the transfer paper also and I would put several layers of pallet tape on. However, keep a flash running to to bake the residue ink and peel a layer of tape off the boards every 200 vests.


Yup. This job is a large oval logo. Same on all pieces.


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## BRoeAZ (Aug 22, 2009)

We put regular pelons, spray adhesive to the pallets, then more spray adhesive on top to hold mesh on top and printed then flashed them before we took them off. it was enough to cure the dots on the pelons and we used the same ones till all was printed, never had any problems.


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## chuckh (Mar 22, 2008)

We use newspaper. I wouldn't pay for pellon or transfer paper if I just needed to catch the extra ink from the mesh and throw it away. We use pallet tape, spray it and place newspaper on top. Quick spray and a new sheet from the day's sport page after every print. That way, there is no ink smearing on the inside of the vest. After a few prints when the paper stack is too high, pull it off, add a little spray and another page and you are ready to go.

We also save the backing sheets from our capillary film and use this as well. Unlike newspaper, it won't tear and works even better. Just hate to throw stuff away that is useful or can save $$.


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## miktoxic (Feb 21, 2008)

i just got a request to do the same thing. 100 mesh safety vests. here is a pic of the product:










what areas on the vest are available to print on? it looks like there's some solid places on the front such as the lower pockets and the back seems to be all mesh.

i read through the answers above, my only other question would be is how do you dry these? would you lift the elements higher and slow the time down?


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

You dry 'em like any other plastisol print.


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## majedsaif23 (May 12, 2019)

What type of ink used for safety vest screen printing? Nylon ink or pvc ink?


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## DesignsToSigns (Aug 4, 2007)

flash after print dry the ink that went thru print probably a couple hundred before changing pallet type


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## PatWibble (Mar 7, 2014)

If the design is black then sublimate.


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