DIY Tee Shirt

The squeegee is pulled and the ink is dragged across the screen, forcing it through the image area onto the shirt. But say you’re printing white ink on a dark fabric and you’re noticing that after you lift the screen, that the ink is not coming out as bright as you would like. There is a fix to the problem: heat. In the industry, drying an ink before laying on a second coat is called “flash curing.”

Some screen printing hobbyists use a heat gun or a paint stripper to dry plastisol ink because it is a cheap way to get it done. However, the heat from the gun is unevenly distributed and is slow to dry the shirt. If you’re doing any production screen printing of 24 units or more, it can seem to take forever. A better solution without springing for a conveyor dryer would be a flash cure unit. It’s not nearly as good as a conveyor dryer, but it beats the heck out of a heat gun. Here, check this out:

As always, there is a crash course in screen printing available through www.diyTeeShirts.com