Liquitex Varnish

[Doppler]

Has anyone ever used this stuff for an overprint varnish? I could do with varnishing something to stop it scuffing. It says on the site it can be used for screen printing but I have visions of it perma clogging my screen.

http://www.liquitex.com/techniques/fabricpainting/ (recommended towards the bottom of page.)

Archival Permanent Varnish - Liquitex

Is it something I'd need to mix with retarder or is that just stupid?

[squeegeethree]

I'm not a fan of overprint varnishes as they tend to cause more problems then they solve (i.e. blocking). What inks are you using that scuff to the degree that you are considering this?

[Doppler]

Yeah maybe I'd best leave this one alone. I've got a choice of speedball black or system 3 process black. I know that speedball black gets pretty chalky, but don't have any experience of the system 3 yet.

The only reason I'm considering it is because it's a record sleeve, printed on grey card. So it would be good if it could hold up to being handled a bit more than a poster.

Blocking is something I can definitely do without.

Cheers!

[squeegeethree]

System 3 is pretty awesome. I've become a fan of Daler Rowney products. They dry a little to slow for our shop but they are perfect for keeping a screen open and running indefinitely.

[Doppler]

That's good to hear. It's definitely much cheaper & readily available than speedball in the UK too. The fluorescent colours and pearlescent tint look interesting. Everyone online seems to use speedball though.

I tried some the other night and thought I had drying out problems, but I'm pretty sure it was something else in my setup that was doing that. What kind of ratio of the medium do you typically use for it? I think I went a bit overboard as I thought the consistency was a bit off, was a bit thick, but maybe I made it worse. Can you use the speedball retarder if it is drying fast, or is it best to add more medium? Going to try out the black tonight I think.

[squeegeethree]

Are you talking about speedball or system 3 above. Did you wet your screen first before printing?

[Doppler]

System 3, but I don't think it was the inks fault. I had some other issues with the way I was flooding my screen.

Yep I sponged the screen beforehand. I did add a lot of the medium though, I was pretty close to that %50 guideline. But as I understand it the medium acts as a retarder anyway.

[squeegeethree]

The medium should inhibit drying but if you want to add some speedball retarder it should work.