Home › Ask Buckets › What mesh count should I use?
Answered by Chris Breazeale, owner of Buckets of Ink, Tempe AZ
For many years most screen printing shops printed white plastisol ink through a 110 mesh. It lays ink down easily, but the detail isn't as sharp as it could be.
As customers ask for more detailed work, shops move up to 160 or 180 mesh, which is a really good middle ground, especially for manual printing.
Once you get into halftones and automatic printing, you can move right up to 200, 230, 305 and all the way to 420 mesh. The higher the mesh count, the sharper the detail gets, dot for dot, and the result is an amazing print. The same holds for halftones whether you're printing plastisol or water-based ink.
Related: Mesh count chart · Screen printing mesh · Screens & frames
