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Are you looking at the new Baselayr emulsion line and wondering which you should use? Screen printing genius Colin Huggins shares how to pick the right Baselayr emulsion. He’ll help you pinpoint it by looking at inks, darkroom setup, skill level, and more.
I’M NEW TO SCREEN PRINTING AND STILL FIGURING OUT THE DARKROOM
You’ll want to use Baselayr Long Lasting Emulsion.
Is your darkroom not light-safe? Don’t have a LED or high-end exposure unit? Working in a DIY setup? You need Baselayr Long Lasting in your darkroom.
Printers that were using WBP, RXP, or DCM emulsions will also want to switch to Long Lasting for a MUCH improved quality formula and performance, win-win.
How does Long Lasting compare to the previous emulsions? It has all the same qualities, but it performs better. While still needing to mix diazo, Long Lasting is easier to expose and it has fast exposure times. Details in the emulsion rinse out quicker and it reclaims painlessly. Best of all, Long Lasting is more forgiving.
You would want to use Baselayr Long Lasting if you’re in the following situations:
- You’re printing on posters or paper
- You’re printing (or want to print) with plastisol, discharge, or water-based inks
- Almost anything else
Baselayr Long Lasting will perform for screen printers who are perfecting their craft and ready to print whatever their customer needs.
I ONLY PRINT PLASTISOL INKS
If you don’t need to work with any other ink types, then you should use Baselayr Plastisol Emulsion.
To use Baselayr Plastisol Emulsion, you’ll need to have a solid darkroom. The darkroom needs to be light-safe because the emulsion is not forgiving. Printers will need to have better light sources in their exposure units. Baselayr Plastisol is not meant for DIY setups. Having a vacuum unit is strongly recommended because the emulsion does not have diazo in it. Diazo enhances image resolution on exposure units without high-quality light sources and vacuums. If you need a more forgiving emulsion, check out Baselayr Long Lasting.
Did you use the HiFi emulsion before? Baselayr Plastisol Emulsion is the one for you.
Compared to HiFi, Baselayr Plastisol has the same exposure times (if not faster). The resolution can be better if the screen is properly coated and dried.
The emulsion can work for other inks in certain circumstances. Say a customer requests discharge prints, would you have to buy another emulsion? Not necessarily. Depending on the amount of shirts, Baselayr Plastisol Emulsion will work. After drying the screen, post-expose it by tripling initial exposure time.
Great prints start with great screens. Baselayr Plastisol Emulsion will benefit established shops to produce high-quality, plastisol prints.
I NEED THE BEST OF THE BEST
Take a look at Baselayr Complete Emulsion. It’ll work with almost all inks like water-based, plastisol, discharge, UV, and solvent-based. Baselayr Complete is for print shops that need the most out of their emulsion.
Are you using an automatic or a beefy manual press? Baselayr Complete can handle high production runs. To see the best performance from the emulsion, you’ll need to have an optimal darkroom. It needs to be light-safe, low humidity, warm, lint-free. The most important part is the exposure unit. You must have a 405 nm LED exposure unit or better. The unit also needs to have a vacuum to produce the best results.
If you used TX Discharge, SVP, or Cryocoat emulsion, transition to Complete. The emulsion has better detail and image resolution than Cryocoat. You have the option of adding diazo to the emulsion to make it more water- and solvent-resistant. It’ll also enhance detail resolution and washout.
Everything starts and ends in the darkroom. Baselayr provides a high solids, high performance emulsion line. Build a solid foundation with a high-quality emulsion. Elevate your darkroom now.
* This article was originally published here: https://www.screenprinting.com/blogs/news/which-baselayr-emulsion-is-right-for-me