Low-cure inks aren’t to be overlooked, they are transformative for screen printers
One thing my father always said stuck with me: “If you want to drive fast, you need good brakes.”
The same goes with heat in screen printing—if you’re going to use it, you need to know how to control it. Too much of anything, especially heat, can work against you.
Back in the early ‘80s, I hadn’t even seen a flash unit, let alone heard terms like “quick flash” or “low cure.” Whether a fabric could handle the heat just wasn’t top of mind. By 1986, though, when I first laid eyes on a flash unit, heat quickly became a part of everyday printing.
The rise of thinner, synthetic fabrics also brought challenges. I remember one time I was printing on a polyester vest panel and just couldn’t get the ink to flash fast enough before the fabric started to scorch or curl. Once it curled, it would inch ever closer to the flash, to the point where if we weren’t careful, it could get close enough to the quartz bulb of the flash units to catch fire almost instantly.
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