Screen Mesh Selector

How the recommendation works

Three hard rules run first — a mesh that breaks any of them is eliminated, no matter how popular it is:

1. Particle clearance. The mesh opening must be at least 3× the largest pigment or flake particle in your ink. Push 200 µm glitter through a 60 µm opening and the screen clogs on the third print.
2. Halftone support. Mesh count should be roughly 4–4.5× the line screen (LPI). At 45 LPI that means at least ~180 mesh/inch; at 55 LPI, 230 and up. Below that ratio the dots have no thread to anchor to.
3. Minimum printable line. A mesh can only hold a line wider than about two thread diameters plus one opening (K = 2d + w). This is why "fine detail" eliminates coarse meshes even when the ink would flow through them.

Survivors are ranked against industry application guidelines (the mesh-count ranges shops and suppliers actually publish for each job type — see Sources below), then nudged by your substrate and ink: rough or absorbent surfaces pull the choice coarser for deposit; thin inks (UV, water-based) pull it finer for control. Where a count exists in several thread grades, the tool picks S (thin thread, more open area) for fine detail, HD (thick thread) for maximum deposit and durability, and T (the industry workhorse) otherwise.

Where the numbers come from

Every mesh in the table is a published specification — mesh count, thread diameter, opening, open area, fabric thickness and theoretical ink volume as printed in manufacturers' data sheets (the S/T/HD thread-grade system used by the Swiss, Italian and Japanese mesh mills alike: Sefar, Saati, NBC Meshtec). Nothing here is calculated from a guess.

The theoretical ink volume uses the formula Sefar prints in its own data sheets: V_th = open area (%) × fabric thickness (µm) ÷ 100, in cm³/m² — numerically equal to the wet ink film thickness in µm. It is the volume of ink sitting in the mesh openings before the squeegee passes, not the final print thickness (the stencil, squeegee and ink rheology all take their share) — but it is the correct apples-to-apples number for comparing two meshes.

Mesh is specified two ways: threads per centimeter (T) — the European/Asian convention — and threads per inch (mesh), the US convention. 77T and 195 mesh are the same fabric class. The mesh count converter handles the math. At 155 mesh/inch and above, order yellow-dyed mesh — it stops UV light scatter during exposure and keeps fine dots sharp.

These are proven starting points, not guarantees. Ink batches, emulsion thickness, tension and squeegee setup all move the result. Always run a test print before committing a production run — that's not caution, that's just screen printing.

Sources

• Sefar AG — SEFAR® PET 1500 product page — the article list & definitions PDF (under Downloads) gives the mesh geometry definitions and the theoretical ink volume formula V_th = α₀·D/100
• Published polyester mesh specification tables (S/T/HD thread grades, measured thickness & ink volume) — cross-checked against Saati and Sefar datasheet values
• Lawson Screen & Digital — Mesh Count Guide for Production Shops (application ranges: 24–86 glitter, 110–125 underbase, 156–160 general garment, 230 halftone, 280–305 process)
• Ryonet / ScreenPrinting.com — How do I pick the right mesh count?
• Fusion 180° Ink — Mesh formulas for halftone dots (mesh = 4–4.5 × LPI)
• Vastex — Mesh Information for the Screen Printer (S / T / HD thread grades; particle clearance for specialty inks)

Convert between T-count and mesh/inch, or check a mesh's theoretical opening: mesh count converter. Track your actual screens — mesh, tension, location, label printing: screen inventory manager. New to the vocabulary? Screen printing mesh terms, explained covers opening, open area and thread grades with diagrams.