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Glue or adhesive of some sort is used to keep shirts in place while they are printed. If the shirt isn’t glued down then the prints will be out of register.

I have been in shops that think they have problems with their presses due to poor registration on their prints, but the real problem is that the shirts are not staying in place.

The basics of the glue are that is has to be applied to the platen (the board the shirts are slipped over on the press) and the shirts have to stick flat during printing but be able to

be pulled off after they are printed.

 

Potential problems with glue:

- If the adhesive is too sticky then in yanking the shirts off the press the shirts will stretch and the image will be distorted. 

- the adhesive has to stick better to the platen than the shirts or there will be glue on the inside of the shirts, yecch.

If the adhesive doesn’t try fast enough, this particularly is a problem. 

- if the adhesive isn’t applied evenly it can leave marks in the prints, you can see if there is a lump of it. This is why usu ally it is

applied as a mist of some sort, that gives a light even coat.

- if you spray the adhesive, you get spray going everywhere ruining your machines and much worse,  endangering the health of your employees who will be hard pressed not to breathe it in.

- the lint of the shirts eventually sticks to the adhesive so much that it becomes ineffective, this can happen after a few shirts or after hundreds of shirts.

This is why fast drying aerosols are used, so you can reapply  a fine mist and it will dry almost immediately.

- some adhesive works great for printing on light colored shirts but when you start flashing (using heat to dry between colors, the adhesive won’t work.

Most shops use an adhesive that is applied out of  an aerosol can, usually referred to as “spray tack.” Then there are variations of that with various other spraying techniques used. The truth is that almost all of them are annoying at best, dangerous at worst, and they make a big mess.

As with most problems in screenprinting, there is not one answer. However, a partial answer is to use an adhesive that rolls on. 

The right adhesive applied with a paint roller will last thousands of impressions, not put spray all over the place, doesn’t produced the spray tack trash of hundreds of spray cans, and doesn’t go all over your employees arms and lungs.

It doesn’t make for very dramatic photo opportunities, but here is what it looks like. It is about as interesting as watching paint dry…. well I guess it is exactly like watching paint dry.

 

So you roll the adhesive on, first thing in the morning or at n

atural stopping points. Roll it out smoothly on to the platen (actually on to pallet paper on the platen)  and send the press around with a flash on to heat it slightly and get it dry.

Here are super exciting photos of applying the adhesive.

 

The great thing about a water-based adhesive is that you can with a light spray of water or a wet sponge “reactivate” the adhesive when it doesn’t seem to be holding as well.