I write this piece as I return from The Printwear Show in Fort Worth. As you may know, I present seminars at all Printwear Shows including an exciting presentation on SFX printing. We’ve also been participating in the show with our own exhibit booth promoting our consulting services. So I stay pretty busy at those events, spending time with potential customers and garment decorators. Much of what I try to teach—and sell, as the case may be—is taking the perceived complexity out of special-effects printing applications. Sure, there are a number of techniques that are pretty darned difficult, that only the very best automatic printers will tackle. And yes, we can and do teach those. But, there are quite a few looks that are not all that hard to achieve and can be printed using fairly basic manual equipment and materials.

No RFU SFX

When I teach an SFX-printing course, the first thing I like to establish is a definition of what “special effects” means to my class. We run through some industry buzzwords such as high-density, discharge, foil and the like. But, while these terms are certainly specific applications, this is not the answer I am trying to get from them.

The author finds that the thick stencils called for by many SFX applications are much easier to develop if they first spend some time in a dip tank under agitation.


A decent press -- one with minimal platen deflection under squeegee load -- is a good place to start. (Note: if you're in the market, don't miss our Tech Showcase, immediately following this feature.) All images courtesy the author.

So then we start down the path of terms such as “texture” and “dimension” . . . followed by “hot,” “eye-catching,” “touch” and “feel.” We finally end up where I’ve been trying to get them. The key word in special effects printing is special—be it the original art, a technique or a treatment. (If this doesn’t work, I toss a bucket of ink on the table—usually something with a name like “special-effects HD”—and say, “Well here you go: special effects. Thank you very much,” and head for the door.)

The point I try to make is that special effects don’t come in a can. They come from the minds and hearts of their creators. The ink manufacturers did not invent these cool techniques. We did. We printers in the field.

Today the products are superior to those of 20 years ago when we might have been able to buy some puff or metallic inks. Today there are countless specialty inks available along with better capillary films, stencil systems and the like to give us some basic starting points. But the responsibility is ours to push past what the products are “designed” for.

Getting on the bandwagon

We use special effects to enhance the appearance of the garment and turn an ordinary screen print into something special. Most special-effects inks are fairly simple to use once you know some of the basics, from mesh to stencil, and from manual-printing techniques to curing characteristics. SFX becomes another way to enhance your printing and increase profitability.

No matter where you may shop for clothes or what your children may be wearing, special effects printing is all around us. Board sports continue to influence the marketplace with brands such as Quiksilver and Billabong who, among others, represent the Ocean Pacific of the new millennium. We all remember OP from the eighties, don’t we? I’m not the only one who was wearing a surf T-shirt and some very cool short corduroy shorts, pulling squeegees at OP. And I do mean short. Only now, board sports have morphed into a hybrid of extreme sports including skate, snow and wake board, along with surf, street and urban. Texture—or lack there of, as the case may be—is in, with discharge and water-based printing, as well as combinations of the above. These types of specialty printed products don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. It is time to get on the bandwagon.

While these printing techniques and specialty applications may seem difficult to print, with a little commitment and a few “secrets”—from art preparation to screen making to ink modification to press set-up and operation—many special effects can be fairly simple and easily executed. This gives you a leg up on the fella down the street who doesn’t wanna mess with that stuff . . . yet. Good garment embellishers must stay ahead of the curve in technology in order to satisfy existing customers and bring in new ones. Whether on a manual or automatic press there are tremendous opportunities that are not all the difficult. So, if you are “limited” to manual printing, don’t be discouraged. Read on.

From art to screens

As with all good printing, special effects start in the art department. For starters, remember that “garbage-in/garbage-out” couldn’t be more true than here. All successful designs begin with decent art, but if the art is bad the print will be bad. While working with specialty applications, especially in the beginning, you will want to try and design in your effects as fairly basic elements within your image. Perhaps as shadows or highlights. Try and avoid fine detail at first until you find out what the limitations will be for such applications. Bearing in mind that some of the inks actually move—as in puff that grows in all directions, sculpture base that grows straight up, HD clear that melts and falls over, Nova base that recedes—you will want allow space for the movement. Use of chokes, spreads, gutters and traps become a big part of successful execution on press.

Moving into the ink department. As identified earlier, many of the specialty bases are made to perform in a specific way. Let’s look at puff base, by way of example. If I wanted to print a red puff, I cannot mix fifty percent puff base and fifty percent red ink. As you know, this certainly won’t end up red. Closer to pink, I am afraid. But also, the puff ink does not perform as well either. No real rise as it passes through the dryer, with such a great percentage of “flat” ink. To be more effective in both color and specialty performance, I suggest investing in some sort of high-pigment concentrates for your specialty applications. This way, you can mix five to ten percent pigment into a specialty base, leaving ninety-plus percent of what it was designed to do. Just as the puff example, this is true for many of the specialty products designed to move or change.

One commonality with most of the specialty ink bases is the fact that they are quite thick (or high-viscosity) and more difficult than standard plastisol inks to get through the mesh, especially printing manually. First, maintaining a mesh-tension level in the neighborhood of 30N/cm2 is of utmost importance to allow the ink to transfer to the substrate. Most specialty products—from metallics, glitters and crystalinas to puff, gels and high-density—will need to be printed using 110-tpi mesh or lower. Large glitters and beads will need screen meshes that go as low as 13- to 24-tpi.

For colors whose punch isn't washed out some SFX additive or other -- and vice versa -- the author recommends stocking high-pigment concentrates for special-effects applications.
Make sure the squeegee you use is soft enough for a nice thick deposit, but not so thick it rolls over under pressure; a dual-durometer double or triply-ply is a good compromise.

The most effective mesh count for many applications using the thicker specialty inks is 83-tpi. But not with the traditional thread diameter. We want 83-tpi with a 70-micron thread diameter. The smaller thread diameter allows for the ink to pass more easily through the increased open area.

Because of the general thickness of ink deposit needed, typical coating techniques will need to be modified a bit for the very low meshes, causing us to move into some specialty emulsions and capillary films for many of these applications. Capillary film comes in thin versions from 20-microns, up to very thick 1000-micron films. We usually stay in the 100- to 400-micron range for best results in specialty printing. The thick cap films are usually of a one-part photopolymer type for faster exposures to compensate for the thickness. Developing and washout of the properly exposed stencil takes a bit of voodoo sometimes. We advise folks to drop them into a dip tank with an agitator, using the sink and a light spray to clean up the edges of the stencil.

Pullin’ the squeegees

There are some special printing considerations when dealing with these specialty products on manual presses. Because you are using coarse meshes and thicker stencils, you’ll need to perform a manual flood stroke, using the squeegee with a little pressure to fill the stencil’s ink wells with the ink. The print stroke will be smooth and fairly slow with decreased pressure to transfer ink from the ink wells to the garment. The flood and print strokes require some finesse to get just the right pressures, speeds and increased off-contact combination.

Given the right mixture of ingredients, technique and technology, lucrative special effects are within the grasp of even the most modeslty equipped screen printers.

The squeegee itself is a bit of a trick too. We want a nice sharp, though soft, edge—but we don’t want the squeegee to roll over. The best way serve both these masters is to go with duel-durometer blades—either a 60/90/60 triple ply squeegee, or the soft side of a two-ply 60/80.

Images incorporating specialty applications and special-effects inks usually require a bit more attention to drying requirements. The ink deposits are usually much thicker than with traditional printing. Typically dryer-belt speed will need to be reduced or the temperature increased—and possibly a combination of both, depending on the characteristics of your garment and other considerations. Because different specialty inks require different curing parameters, refer to their product data information. You will definitely want to wash test new techniques to be certain of durability.

What we all want

Employing special techniques and printing specialty ink products can be a challenge. However, this can be easy to overcome with some basic separation techniques, screen-making applications and ink modification, as well as a few on-press tricks. The wonderful thing about the decorating techniques of today is that there are no rules. You can come up with about anything and you can sell it. And charge more for it.

Still think SFX designs such as this one of high-density ink are the exclusive province of major automated printers? Think again!

Get out there and try some things. I have given you some very basic starting points in art, screen, ink and manual-printing techniques, now it is up to you. Learning some special-effects printing and putting the applications into your portfolio will only add to your bottom line. And that’s what we all want.