Inks that take about 15-20 minutes to touch dry while Speedball ink is thick and may vary in the drying process. Moreover, it has always been a major priority for screen printers, whether plastisols or water-based. Choosing an appropriate ink is a great strategy to help provide clear graphic detail, durability, easy-to-mix, and comes in a wide array of colors.
Modern screen printing inks are becoming increasingly popular, and there are several different manufacturers such as Speedball. Speedball produces screen printing inks mainly of two types: fabric inks, acrylic inks, and acrylic inks. They are both water-based inks. It does not contain fumes, and you can easily clean it up with soap and water.
How Long Does Speedball Ink Take to Dry?
Speedball water-based inks for screen printing are thick and take about 6-8 hours for self-drying and even less if you apply low-heat air.
The acrylic and fabric inks by Speedball are suitable to print on paper, wood, cardboard, while the fabric inks are exclusively for printing on apparel.
Why choose a Speedball fabric ink?
If you’re looking for Speedball fabric screen printing ink, it is available in 25 colors, including regular water-based inks, fluorescent and glow-in-dark inks. All colors are vibrant, water-resistant, smoother to hands, greater mesh coverage, and easy to clean with little water and soap than other screen printing inks in the market.
A recent study performed by the University of Saskatchewan revealed that Speedball screen printing inks are non-toxic, nonflammable & water-soluble inks. They are completely safe to use at homes, schools, print shops, and product decoration industries.
Modern water-based inks are easy to clean and less likely to clog the mesh and ruin the screen if your print job takes a long time, like more than one day. In addition, you must remove the ink after completion of the job and prevent the ink from drying onto screens.
Instead of printing only white or light-colored fabrics, you can maximize the printing of dark garments. Other than fabric inks, Speedball products include opaque fabrics ink best for printing on dark fabrics. It is available in 10 colors: black pearl, gold, raspberry, blue topaz, pearly white, emerald, citrine, amethyst, silver, and sherbet. All screen printing, both fabric and opaque fabric, is suitable for beginners to expert screen printers. Moreover, they are easy to wash with little soap and water.
Screen Printing on Cotton & Polyester:
Like regular water-based inks, Speedball is suitable for printing on cotton, polyester, rayon, and other synthetic fibers, excluding nylon. Also, it works great on paper and cardboard.
It easily combines with Speedball Diazo and Bichromate photo emulsions, screen filler and stencils, to produce a vivid, matte finish and permanent prints.
The ink is wash-fast on the fabric when heat-set properly. It easily cures at room temperature or with the use of a dryer.
Moreover, you can mix and create your custom colors from a broad range of premixed colors. You can print them onto light-colored fabrics, white or dark garments.
Conclusion:
Being a beginner or an expert, you need a reliable source of screen printing supplies, and Speedball is one of them.
Other than inks, Speedball is a reputed screen printing supplier of all size and durometer squeegees, screens, modifiers, emulsions, stencils, media(paper, fabrics), frame base, hinge clamps, and other additional helping tools like brush, masking tape, rubber gloves, sponges, aprons and more.
Whether you are printing on posters or shirts, you have all supplies available in one place.
Related Questions:
1. Can you print glass or plastic with any Speedball inks?
No, only Speedball’s Akua Liquid Pigment inks are suitable to print on glass or plastics. Any other inks will not remain permanent against normal wear and tear.
2. Can you print dark garments with Speedball fluorescent and glow-in-dark inks?
Yes, you can print on dark garments, but it wouldn’t produce the same glow or color intensity as it would be on light garments.
3. How long can you keep the screen coated with photo emulsion unexposed?
You can keep your emulsion-coated screens in the dark place or unexposed for 1-2 weeks.