We have found Zest It Printmakers Washdown an incredibly useful addition to our studio. It’s designed to remove dried on acrylics and so far has got us out of a couple of scrapes. Here are a few ways to use it in your studio:
Removing dried on water-based relief printing inks from rollers, blocks and inking plates.
Using water-based relief printing inks is a wonderfully easy, mess-free option… until the ink dries. You can remove dried-on ink with Printmakers Washdown – simply add a little to a rag and rub the affected area until clean. This is particularly good for rollers as it doesn’t require any scrubbing or scraping that could cause damage.
Removing dried ink from a screen
Ink drying in a screen is a printmaker’s nightmare. Normally, it’s an issue that can only be fixed by re-meshing the screen which can be expensive, time-consuming and wasteful if not otherwise necessary. Most screen printers will have experienced an ink blockage in their mesh once or twice. Zest It Printmakers Washdown removes dried-on water-based screen printing inks from mesh. Paint on a little and work it into the affected area until it comes away. Rinse afterwards.
Removing parcel tape glue residue from screens
When screen printing, parcel tape is often used to cover areas we don’t want to print, usually around the edges. Sometimes, when it’s removed, it leaves behind a sticky residue. Printmakers Washdown can be used to remove this residue and restore the mesh. Different tapes have different types of glue. We’ve found it to work well on the tape we use in our studio, but other tapes may vary.