Plain anodise for screen printing

[rick201]

Hi Guys,
Can you tell me what mil thickness to do for sheet aluminium pieces as I need to screen print artwork onto the aluminium after.
The problems I think will happen is after sealing will there still be a good base to allow screen printing ink to adhere too? I think there should be as the ink I have purchased says for anodised substrates.
I tried printing the ink onto plain aluminium and it scratched off in places so the ink people said try anodising.
So how much mils thick would give a nice base to print ink onto?
Regards
Rick

[cameraman]

I'd still go to .7.
You can use thickened dye in a screen printer so it actually becomes part of the anodize. I've not done it, but there's a recipe in the plating manual.

[-AAPB-Eric]

It sounded like you said you were going to try this on sealed aluminum, Caswell's manual had instructions for silk screening while the anodizing pores are still open.

This will resist scratching.

.7 to 1 mil I dont see a problem with. Paintball markers are typically done in this range and come out nicely with vibrant colours.