Adhesives

As with all screen printing supplies, it's critical to make sure that your aerosol adhesive doesn't stain most, if not all, substrates. The adhesive needs to provide enough tack to keep the substrate still during the printing process but should allow for the substrate to be lifted cleanly with no adhesive left on the substrate. Regardless of whether you're printing on wood, paper, plastic, fabric, or other types of substrates, it's important that your adhesive not stain. Stains can ruin your final product and render it unusable.

You need your adhesive to go from wet to tacky fairly quickly, especially for large manufacturing jobs that require quick printing. Aerosol adhesives tend to be quick tack by nature when compared to liquid adhesives, but you will likely want to look for an adhesive brand that specifically mentions being quick tack. If possible, find out the amount of time it will take to achieve the desired tackiness to make sure it meets the requirements of your printing job.

If you're printing on fine materials that wrinkle easily, you need to look for an adhesive that will help prevent wrinkling during the printing process. The goal of almost all screen printing supplies is to ensure that the image is printed on the substrate cleanly and without defects. Wrinkles can cause the image to be printed on the folds of the substrate, and when laid flat, the image appears distorted or missing in some spots. This is particularly true when printing on clothing and other fabric materials. Make sure your adhesive is designed to prevent wrinkling during the screen printing process.

Aerosol adhesive is naturally low soaking when compared to liquid adhesive, meaning that very little of it soaks into the substrate being printed on. However, if you're printing on a substrate that is particularly porous, such as fabric, it's especially important to choose an adhesive that is specifically made to be low soaking. With low soaking adhesives, you don't have to worry about leftover adhesive residue that could alter the final product after printing. Little to no adhesive remains, and the product is ready for sale.

If you do not have the option of heat or mechanical force to bond your substrate to the printing surface, you'll want to explore options for pressure sensitive adhesive. This means that your substrate will adhere to the surface of the printing machine simply with the weight of the substrate itself. Look for an aerosol adhesive that stays pressure sensitive for an extended period of time before reapplication is needed.