Went out and bought a bottle of The Fabric ink from Speedball, a speedball squeege and 14x10" frame....

Put a negative vinyl template on it...


First two runs came out good...



The third not soo good..... (The white not on the image is due to the wind catching shirt while ink was wet)...


What to do? Wondering if I need some kind of thinner or something? Seems to be too thick and clogging the screen...
 
Please help!

I'm not sure about the ink you're using, but the plastisols I've used, I've had to use a reducer in the white because it is so thick. Also need to make sure you have enough ink in the screen. I would do a light pull to flood the screen, then a firm one to push the ink through.

Also your trying to print the hardest combination there is. White on Black. You are not able to take into account your off contact so you will have very minimal results.

It depends on the mesh count that that your screen is. I use 110 for most of my white on black print. Also the off contact has a lot to do with it. Looks like that was the problem on the last print. Off contact was not enough and you either did not have enough ink in the screen or you just did not push hard enough to clear the screen.

Tape some paint sticks, washers, coins, etc to the bottom of the frame so it doesn't sit directly on the shirt, i.e. off-contact.  The mesh should stretch down to apply the ink to the shirt, then "snap" back up, that should solve your problem of the screen clogging and give you a cleaner, sharper print.

Also, with Speedball inks you can cure it (at least until its dry to the touch) with a hair dryer.

Edit:  Also, the closer your stencil is to the edges of the frame the more of a mess you are going to make and the more of a pain in the ass its going to be to get a even print from one end to the other.

I would also trash the speedball ink... just my 2cents. Use Union,triangle,wilflex or something with a good reputation.

Absolutely, but you are going to have to cure it with a heat gun until you can get a flash cure, etc.

The gap for you in this situation is not going to help only cause more problems. Your garment is not "stuck" to a platen as in a normal press and will just lift with the screen and cause severe double imaging.

Thining the ink is going to make it less opaque and harder to get coverage. White by nature is pretty thick.

you can try to thin it down a bit with water but again, white on dark needs a double print with partial drying in between so you won't be able to get a solid print without a hinged system that will allow you to lift, dry and bring down in the same place and re pull your ink. I use water based ink for screenprinting and love it, leaves no feel what so ever on the garment. Key to water based is to recover ink over the design after you lift between prints or it dries pretty quickly in the screen. I don't work with speedball inks so can't say how much water to add or anything, kinda always trial and error in learning process. Good Luck!
Heidi