Screen Printing Tri-Blend Shirts | How to Screen Print Tri-blends

Screen printing tri-blend t-shirts and garments are a great way to increase your profit margin if your printing for customers. But they can also be a quick way to lose money if the prints don't look right and the customer isn't happy since the blank cost for tri-blends is more than cottons tees. So take a couple steps to ensure successful prints on tri-blends and watch your temp, inks and mesh count. When printing Tri-blend garments steps to ensure a successful print are as follows;

1. Use the correct ink. Ink manufactures are constantly bringing new formulas to the table to print on synthetic materials such as tri-blends. These inks have properties that may cure at a lower temperature to help fight dye migration. Another ink property may be to reduce fibrillation and matte the fibers down for a softer print. Fibrillation is common in synthetic material such as tri-blends. So do a quick look on your inks to make sure they are made to print on tri-blends.  
2. Control the temperature. Tri-blend shirts and garments are often made of cotton, polyester and rayon, which quickly burn or scorch if the temperature on the flash unit or conveyor dryer is not checked. Watch that temperature! I personally over flashed my inks when i was a new printer thinking the ink was actually not flashed all the way. The ink was "tacky" so i turned the flash up- which just compounded the problem. I eventually learned that the ink was tacky because i was flashing to "hot". So after turning my flash down a notch I was able to flash my inks at 220 for 3-5 seconds and had no after tack at all.
3. Use the right mesh. Using a higher mesh count of tri-blends will keep the print softer and the ink lighter. Tri-blends are looked at as a "higher end" type of garment. So using a higher mesh will keep the design and print softer to match the higher end look and feel.