vinyl stencils

[gozo]

Possibly another silly ides of mine, but would I be able to use a vinyl stencil with solvent inks.

[paul204]

Vinyl doesn't break down when you print solvent inks on it. I don't know anything about making vinyl stencils, but most solvent inks won't break down vinyl if that's what you're asking.

[Andymac]

except vinyl inks....they would soften it up pretty quick. Some would be more aggressive than others.

enamel, satin poster etc would probably work.

I know people who do this. It works. not great for detail, but hey....

[gozo]

Thanks guys. At the moment my interests would be simple text without any great detail

[bwiley]

One time I called the guys at Ulano on an unrelated emulsion exposure question, and we got to bullshitting. During said bullshit session I mentioned that I was at a sign shop and we had a vinyl plotter, and he told me that he knows shops that do all their numbers for athletic jerseys that way, etc. etc.. I got kind of curious and it totally works. You just have to cut the vinyl in reverse so that you can apply it to the underside of the screen (I also got curious about that and it is definitely necessary to put it on the underside). I use both water-based textile inks (matsui) and plastisol (union) and it works for both for those that are interested. With plastisol though the problem is that because it's solvent-based it attacks the adhesive on the vinyl. It's not a problem when you're printing, but cleaning is a bitch--it creates some pretty serious gunk in the screen. Nothing a pressure washer won't get out, but you know. And it seems to leave more haze than normal.

One downside is that if you are on a single-station press and you're also doing a flash-cure, sometimes the platten will get hot enough that it'll cause the after-flash-tack of the plastisol to stick to or melt the vinyl. In that case you're fucked.

Clearly doing halftones and the like are out, but I've found that if I can get the detail with the plotter than I get the detail with the screenprinting. I've gotten hairline detail on a run of 150 4-color shirts consistently. And where it seems to be better than straight emulsion is with printing white ink on black garment. It allows you to use a low-mesh screen, like 110, to achieve a nice ink deposit but at the same avoids the 'screen door' effect due to the fact that the vinyl is a true vector path because it's not dependent on the mesh for detail. Hopefully that last part makes sense.

Anyway, I realize not all of these points are applicable to your situation. I just thought I'd throw it out there incase anyone was curious down the line. But I should also mention that emulsion, in the end, is definitely the way to go for all but the simplest jobs in my opinion.