SQUEEGEE & INK BLOG

OUR TOP PRIORITIES FOR PRINTING AND SELLING T-SHIRTS IN OUR RETAIL SHOP For anyone starting a clothing brand it is important to understand that just creating a design is only a very, VERY small portion of the job roles you are about to take on board.  If you want to...

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IF YOU COULD START SCREEN PRINTING ALL OVER AGAIN? If you have been following Squeegee & Ink for a while, you will know that we have dabbled in many different areas of screen printing and garment decoration. We have experience in flat...

SOFT, VIBRANT, DISCHARGE PRINT. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Discharge ink is an absolute dream to screen print with if you have the knowledge to make it work. You don't need to print an underbase, you can (almost) print on any colour shirt and if you're skilled enough, you...

ARE YOU READY TO MAKE THE JUMP? While manual screen printing is fun, challenging and rewarding, we still occasionally dream about that big automatic set up. But what do you need to consider before making the jump and how much will all this new kit cost?  Luckily we...

THE QUICK ANSWER IS YES... BUT... Cold cure additive can be a life saver for small screen printing businesses and home printers. Having the ability to fully cure your garments without heat can save money and space in your studio, but how effective is cold cure...

HOW THE PROS DO IT... The best and most common way to cure water based ink is by using a large, forced air, tunnel dryer... but not all of us have the space, money or ability to use top end, factory grade equipment.  With this in mind, we have tested 3 different ways...

CONFIGURING OUR STUDIO LAYOUT FOR A BETTER WORKFLOW At Squeegee & Ink, we have a fairly limited workspace and generally end up placing equipment where it fits easily. This isn't always the best method however, so recently we have spent some time analysing the...

WATERBASED INK AT IT'S FINEST We recently visited Magna Colours for a day course on how to use their waterbased inks to gain the best results. We had the opportunity to learn from their best technicians and play with a range of their award winning waterbased inks.   ...

WHICH PRINTER FOR PRINTING FILM POSITIVES? This is the most asked question when it comes to film positive printing. Knowing the printer model is a great start but just the printer alone won't automatically provide you with perfect film positives for screen printing.  ...

WHEN SHOULD I DEEP CLEAN MY SCREEN PRINTING DIP TANK? If you are finding that your dip tank is taking longer and longer to remove the emulsion you may benefit from 'shocking' your tank first.  If you are using the Easiway systems dip tank like us, to 'shock' your...

THE UNMISSABLE REUNION. That's their tagline, not ours. But seriously, if you have never been to Printwear & Promotion before, can you even call yourself a garment decorator? If you didn't have a chance to make it over to Birmingham this year, don't worry, we have...

IT STARTS WITH STORAGE. When cleaning and prepping our screens ready for their next use, we make sure to complete this job in bulk. This saves time, chemicals and money! The minimum amount of screens that we will clean in one session is 20. If you want to follow our...

BEFORE YOU BUY... The Riley Hopkins 150 Junior is a single arm press which is mainly used to screen print single colour t-shirts. If you are starting out in screen print and want to know if this is the best press for you, you need to understand exactly what the Riley...

HOW MANY GARMENTS?.. IT DEPENDS ON THE DAY. At Squeegee & Ink we are a small team of just 2 people. We manually screen print every garment that comes through the studio and we generally take on smaller orders to keep our workflow interesting.  If you have been...

HOW LONG SHOULD I EXPOSE MY SCREEN FOR? Screen exposure time is one of the most asked questions with new screen printers. We have all asked the question only to find the most frustrating truth, that your exposure time is unique to your set up.  Exposure time is not...

WHICH SQUEEGEE HANDLE FOR A MANUAL T-SHIRT PRINTER? We have been screen printing t-shirts by hand for nearly a decade now. It's about time we gave you our opinion on some of the most common squeegee handles on the market.  Before we get into the details, I want to...

GETTING AHEAD OF THE GAME WITH 'ECO SNAP FRAMES' Screen stretching is something which is usually left to the professionals, but what if you could stretch a professional quality screen from your own studio (or home) as and when you need it? THIS IS A GAME CHANGER! Eco...

CONTROLLING YOUR PUFF Screen printing with puff ink is easy... but knowing how to control the chemical reaction is something we have learnt over time. We believe there are 3 main ways to dial in your puff reaction; PUFF ADDITIVE MESH COUNT DESIGN CHOICE 1. PUFF...

10 REASONS WHY WE LOVE THE M&R KRUZER We have been using the manual M&R Kruzer screen printing carousel for the last 2-3 years and we LOVE IT!.. This piece of kit has 4 rotating platens, 6 heads with micro registration (which means it can easily register up to...

WHY TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT? At Squeegee & Ink, we use social media as our main marketing tool to target our audience worldwide. We have well over 100,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok alone resulting in an engaged audience that we can learn from and build on....

NEW TO EMBROIDERY? We were too! We have been offering an embroidery service to our customers for approximately 3 years now and feel like we are finally ready to share some of our tips that we have learnt along the way. From hooping stations to garment choice,...

T-SHIRT PRINTING NEWBIE? What you need to know before screen printing your first t-shirt. Download our FREE artwork cheatsheet to find out your mesh count and read on for a quick overview. https://www.squeegeeandink.co.uk/product/artwork-cheatsheet/ WHICH MESH COUNT...

WHICH TRANSFERS? To be more specific, we are solely talking about UltraColour Transfers. We get ours from a UK based company called Target Transfers and we have set up a handy DISCOUNT CODE (SQUEEGEE) for all of our followers to use. THE GOOD BITS Obviously, here at...

EASY SCREEN PRINTING Lets make this as simple as possible. We have broken down the whole screen printing process into 4 manageable chunks. We will be focusing on t-shirt printing specifically however if you are printing onto paper, card or flat substrates, similar...

WHAT IS AN OVERSIZED T-SHIRT PRINT? We class an oversize t-shirt design to be anything that fills the entire platen with printable area. Our studios maximum print area for t-shirts is 50x35cm. Printing this size can be tricky and a little problematic but hopefully, if...

BEFORE YOU START This method of image separation is using vector images in Adobe Illustrator. If your image is not currently a vector, you can contact us directly to fix this first! Email your image to chessie@squeegeeandink.co.uk and we will get you on track!   This...

FIRST THINGS FIRST There are so many different ways of registering multi-colour images and we don't claim any ideas are better than others. If it works, it works! If it doesn't... well, maybe you need to read on... WHICH METHOD? I'm going to talk you through a step by...

THE TANK We have been lucky enough to get our hands on the new dip tank by Easiway.... and it is incredible! We have put together some benefits, tips and recommendations to keep you in the know like a pro. Check out our set up video below including a discount code for...

Which white ink should I use for screen printing? Well it depends on what result you are looking for BUTTTT we have been lucky enough to recieve 6 different types of white ink from Amex (links below) and we have sampled each one to see the results. These are the inks...

SCREEN EXPOSURE How long should I expose my screen for? This sounds like a simple question but there are so many variables that the answer is a tricky one! Exposure time is dependent on the type of exposure unit you are using, the type of emulsion, the thickness of...

INTRO A flash dryer is used to gelcure plastisol ink after an underbase or inbetween colours. You would also use a flash dryer to achieve a perfect white on black print using plastisol ink. We recently upgraded our studio with a brand new flash dryer and this is what...