I've been trying to screenprint white acrylic on black shirts. Ive tried blick acrylic and speedball acrylics. Tried every drying method aside from a damn flash dryer (which obviously I cant afford) and I keep on washing the damn white out. I cant get it to stay solid and laying on top of the material. Drying methods have been using are Heat gun, blow dryer, sitting and waiting and curing the shirt in the dryer. Can anyone help me out??? any ideas?

are these new shirts that you are printing on? if they been washed sometimes the detergent chemicals prevent it from bonding.

i only used acrylic on shirts once, and i think it said to use an iron to heat set it, i think it has to dry a little bit first before you do so otherwise it would smear the ink.


i only use plastisol now.

Yeah they are brand new. Its crazy how much its washed out almost to a grey. I dont really mind. the shirt still works but for future prints Ive gotta figure this out.


Dont mind the dog hair.

From what I've been told by a few folks, white ink is not fun to screen print with.

basically, to get a nice bright color on a dark shirt, you are going to have to do multiple passes on top of each other. I've done tees the same as what you're doing & had to run 3-4 passes of white. it sucks because it ends up making the print really heavy. Hope this helps.

or if it's 1 color b/w print with bleech ink. it removes color.

the problem is, as soon as it dries its about a 1/4 an inch shrunken. no way to sync it all back up.

Only way to get a solid white image that will stay

You have to use Plastisol and it's best to get a high opacity one.
You might be able to "flash" it with a heat gun. You only want to lightly dry the very top layer of ink.

Phoenix white by triangle is a great white plastisol ink

thanks guys for the heads up. Im gonna pick some plastisol tm. Ill let you all know tm.

The image is probably becoming distorted because the heat necessary to cure the ink is also enough to shrink the fabric. You can heat up/ shrink the garment prior to printing, but let it cool down or it will clog the ink your screen.

Another thing you can do is get some low tack spray adhesive to hold the shirt in place, but that ain't too healthy. Plastisols are bad, too, so be careful using this stuff.

I use to print silkscreen posters for Kozik and Lindsey Kuhn.

I have also silkscreened t-shirts but only used plastisol inks. With a handy zip gun,
filled with acetone to clean up small spots, at the ready.

Then we ran the shirts through an oven conveyor belt just like at Pizza Hut!
Or you can use a heating flash unit...

I think for t-shirts Plastisol is the way to go.

PS - none of the chemicals used is this process is healthy!

Hey Mordecai, how's the project coming?

I was just looking at the shirt and noticed you're printing on Jerzees. Let me guess, it's a 50/50 blend, right? If so the problem is dye migration, which is common with synthetic fabrics. There are specialized inks and additives, or you can just go with 100% cotton from now on and forget about it.

Chad, I guess you think printing for Kozik makes you cool, huh? Well I have to admit, it does

such a mess... ill update tonight. =/

This is crazy, I had the same issue! You should definitely use an adhesive, I use a water based adhesive thats really easy to clean up and not as bad as the spray stuff. I also use an opaque water based ink. I usually have to do two maybe three passes but it comes out really well. As for curing, I let them dry over night then iron them once the ink is totally dry. Never had an image wash out yet.

I've been messing around with a product called Ekbond, which, so far, is better than any other adhesive I've encountered. You smear it on the platin and occasionally scrub it off with a degreaser. It could last days or weeks depending on how much you print.