screen printing > Ink and Chemicals

Spotting Fluid Ban

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ebscreen:
So google thinks I'm a chemist or something but I stumbled across an article outlining the coming ban on dichloromethane.
The name rang a bell and it's the main component of most (all?) spotting fluids. Not sure if we fall under the consumer (phased out over the next year)
or industry (two years) section but either way it's going bye bye.

If you've ever been to a dry cleaners you'll hear the guns going in the background non stop so I'm sure an alternative and hopefully
less gnarly solution will be introduced.

rusty:
I havent used spotting fluid in years. we just use acetone. same thing. the only issue we ever have is on garment dyed stuff like comfort colors but you just let it air dry instead of running in dryer again and its all good.

ebscreen:
Acetone is extremely flammable, especially in aerosol form. Yes it works but the reason they use dcm instead is exactly that.
I know it doesn't seem like much but you're pumping an already flammable solvent up to super high pressures
and then aerosolizing it, all in the palm of your hand. Potential for a lot of things to go very wrong.

Atownsend:
Not really opposed to this, spot fluid is bad stuff. Just hope the replacement isn't worse. We tried acetone once or twice... aside from the flammability aspect it would leave a ring every time we tried it. When in doubt we use gorilla tape, but tht has its own drawbacks... better to not make mistakes at all.

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