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if you're looking to learn how to print a solid under base like this so that your final product can look like this then stick around this video is for you [Music] printing an underbase is one of the most important weapons that a screen printer needs to have in their arsenal because you absolutely need an underbase if you want to get full coverage and bright colors when printing on dark garments basically anytime the ink color is lighter than the garment or maybe you've got a rough fabric you're working with and you need that extra fiber matte down for a smooth print then you're going to need an underbase my rule of thumb is if you think you need an underbase you probably do every printer has their own way of doing things so i'm not going to stand here and tell you you know this is the way it has to be done i'm just going to show you the way i do things here in my shop we're printing this sick five color design with plastisol ink today but don't worry you water-based users most of these principles will apply to water-based as well and since we're on design real quick now is probably a good time to mention that this video is sponsored by skillshare skillshare is an online learning community filled with thousands of classes many of which can be applied to printing and the business around it this design is a raster image so i had to do all the prep work and separations in photoshop well if you're looking to step up your photoshop game which is a pretty important skill to have in screen printing skillshare is definitely the place to do it there are a ton of killer photoshop classes on there where you can go from beginner to pro in a pretty short time and it's only going to cost you 10 bucks a month and since they're sponsoring today's video skillshare is giving away a free trial membership to the first 1 000 of you guys who join up using the link in the description below so make sure you guys check that out but first let's head to the dark room [Music] choosing the right screen mesh and coating it properly is the first step to laying down a good underbase screen tension and eom also play a big part in this but that's where we can nerd out and get real technical in a whole other video we're just looking to get you started on the right track here for printing a white base you want to use somewhere between a 110 and a 160 mesh screen depending on what inks you're using what garments you're printing on and so forth you may need to go up somewhere between a 180 to a 200 mesh screen but this is only typical of designs with lots of small fine detail like lots of small half tones otherwise for spot color designs that 110 to 160 range is where you want to be i'm using a 160 mesh screen on this design as i do with most of my t-shirt prints and i coated the screen using a 1 1 coat on the round side of the scoop coater to get the stencil thickness i need with this setup when it comes to putting down an underbase not all white inks are created equal you're looking for something that has really solid opacity and is thick enough to have good fiber matte down for a smooth over print without fibrillation one common mistake i see is beginners using reducers and their whites because they are kind of thick and somewhat harder to print but this is very counterproductive to laying down a good base because those reducers are not only taking down the opacity of the ink but they're also taking down the fiber mat down qualities of it as well i admit i did that a few times in the beginning too so don't feel bad if that's you but before you reach for that reducer work on a few other things make sure your setup and your technique are dialed make sure that ink is really stirred up and ready to go you'll be surprised at how easy that thick ink is to print once you work those things out but when it comes to which white ink you should use that is a debate among printers that will last until the end of time everybody has their own preference i've tested about 10 different white inks in my bases at this point and so far the current one at the top of my list is willflex quick white this is not a cheap ink i believe it's one of the most expensive out there actually but the cost is well worth it to me since this stuff goes down incredibly opaque and smooth if you're looking for a more budget-friendly option however i've run a lot of tests with the fn ink white and this stuff does a pretty solid job for about half the price [Music] probably one of the most overlooked parts of getting a good underbase is ironically one of the most important and that's your screen off contact if you're new to this off contact is the amount of height between your print surface and the back of the screen when it's down in the print position set it too high and you're going to be fighting fibrillation and ugly prints like crazy not to mention setting yourself up for a whole host of other problems like stencil drag blowouts and just overworking yourself for no reason set it too low on the other hand and you won't be able to clear the screen and you'll end up lifting most of the ink back up with it in the process and giving you a really gross stippled look and that's not something anybody wants for a good off contact height depending on your screen tension you're looking for somewhere between 1 16 to 1 8 of an inch for tees and thinner garments and usually double that for hoodies fleece softer stuff it's going to take a little bit of playing around and experimenting to figure out the right height for your setup but what you want is to have that screen as low as possible to your print surface while still being able to release and snap back up from the ink without getting stuck or pulling it back up squeegee technique is an equally important part of this process now i'm probably gonna hurt some feelings here but if you're pushing your squeegee you need to stop it you will get a much better base by pulling your squeegee due to having way more in control and the ability to lay more down you can see in older videos i used to be a pusher myself and it was very hard to break that habit and learn the proper technique to pull but once i did my bases and my prints as a whole got much better when i'm doing my bases i give the screen a good flood and then i print at a controlled speed where i can hold a consistent pressure across the entire image the pressure part i really can't explain because it's just something that you have to feel through trial and error so practice your ass off you don't want to use too much because you're just going to tire yourself out unnecessarily and you could run into a bunch of problems like again blowing the print out or pushing the ink right through the back of the shirt but use too little on the other hand and of course you won't clear the screen so i use enough to clear the screen most of the way on the first pass not completely and then hit it a second time to finish the job flashing before laying your top colors down isn't as straightforward as it may seem it's easy to make mistakes here too you need to figure out your flash height your time and how fast your print speed is if you're like me and running manual screen printing equipment most of us don't have fancy sensors and temperature controllers to ensure a consistent and perfect flash time after time we have to rely completely on trial and error and messing around with our setup but for us the biggest factor to consider is the flash height because that dictates how fast the heat gets to the print and one mistake i see there pretty commonly is people running their flash too high it's called a flash for a reason it's meant to be quick when you run your flash too high not only does it take forever but you can actually cause fibrillation this way because the heat can lift up the fibers of the shirt and pull them through the ink before it solidifies if you put a blank shirt underneath the flash and look at it very closely at horizon level you can actually see the fibers lifting up you're looking for that ink to flash in just a few seconds so you want to run your flash about one and a half to two inches off the surface of the tee and about double that for hoodies and fleece because they draw in the heat a lot faster they also catch fire a lot easier ask me how i know that actually these burn marks are probably a dead giveaway keep in mind though you're gonna have to set up your flash according to how fast you can print so those numbers aren't concrete if it's under the flash for too long with that kind of heat you could end up fully curing your base layer and your top colors won't adhere properly so if you're a slower printer or you're working with something difficult then raise your height up a little by little until you get the times where you need them to be basically you want your base to be flashed and ready within a few second window of being done and onto the next shirt [Music] if you've done everything correctly up to this point you've got a smooth good looking base that you're ready to put your top colors on do not i repeat do not hit the white again doing a print flash print underbase is an extremely common beginner move that i was guilty of for a while before i figured out the right way to do this the reason that you don't want to do this is because you can run into a whole bunch of problems not only are you making your print unnecessarily thick but you can run into adhesion problems with the top colors going on you can run into moire and you can run into curing problems if you didn't account for the extra thickness of the print with a properly done base you should have more than enough coverage with that first hit of white and since that's what we got here let's put those top colors on [Music] oh this print looks so killer i hope you guys picked up a few new things today to add to your own bag of tricks and improve your own under bases and if you did get something out of this please slap the out of the thumbs up button for me and drop any questions you have for me down in the comments below i'll be answering all those i got to make a bunch more of these things so you know what i'm about to do we'll see in the next one [Music] you