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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: squeegee on May 04, 2011, 01:03:22 PM
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Recently I did a run of about 300 safety green g200's (they are 50/50's), it was a left chest about 4 x 4 and a full back about 13 x 13, a heavy coverage design. The ink colors were black, flo orange and flo blue.
The customer says the flo blue on the backs of the shirts looks teal, and is swearing it's a different ink color, the fronts look right, flo blue. I'm guessing dye migration, but I haven't seen the shirts yet.
This is how we set it up, black plastisol 150s, wilflex polywhite 150S underbase, flash, 110/71 same underbase polywhite, flash, rutland m2 flo blue 150s, double stroke, flash, rutland m2 flo orange double stroke. Initially we wanted to run underbase grey in the first screen but were seeing a slight grey edge from the base which was affecting the design.
We ran 3 flashes because the flo inks needed a double stroke to look bright so WOW would have been a smearing nightmare.
I didn't see every shirt coming out of the dryer, but the ones I saw looked fine. We did the backs first, then the left chest. We had our dryer set for curing poly garments which historically gives us no dye migration issues.
Here's a snipet of the design:
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6488/closeview.jpg)
I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions or experience printing safety green?
TIA
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I have not had an issue with those and poly white. In fact I just did a sh!tload of pink and red camo t's and the poly held the dye back with no problems. It would be nice to see a pic of the shirt when you get one.
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The customer says the flo blue on the backs of the shirts looks teal, and is swearing it's a different ink color, the fronts look right, flo blue. I'm guessing dye migration, but I haven't seen the shirts yet.
The fact that the front looks right and the back does not (indicates that it is not dye migration) unless you used a low bleed on the base (on the pocket print, but not on the back). If all were the same low bleed whites then it should be consistent. 1st, I don't think that the Safety Yellow shirts migrate or if it does, it's not a very dark color to notice that much. (if it did, however, it would most certainly turn your flo blue inks to a green).
I have and use many safety yellow tees/polos and wash them every day with no bleed onto other garments or in my wash water. (I work our church parking lot on Sundays).
I am not questioning your logic, but I don't understand why you would have two hits of white and two flashes for a Safety yellow tee. It should be enough just with one white and one flash and that white would only need to be on a 230 at most.
This is how we set it up, black plastisol 150s, wilflex polywhite 150S underbase, flash, 110/71 same underbase polywhite, flash, rutland m2 flo blue 150s, double stroke, flash, rutland m2 flo orange double stroke. Initially we wanted to run underbase grey in the first screen but were seeing a slight grey edge from the base which was affecting the design.
Over all, I think you used too thin of an ink. Maybe using more opaque inks would help.
We ran 3 flashes because the flo inks needed a double stroke to look bright so WOW would have been a smearing nightmare.
If you didn't have all of that white and flashes, I'd say that you were creating a green by doing that double stroke and driving the ink into the shirt. Take any bright yellow and add process blue or flo blue to it and you get a very bright green. The double stroke drives the inks into the shirt and makes it heavier. what you need would be a lighter stroke laying the ink (on top) of the shirt. Doing this enable you to also use a slightly higher mesh.
Keep your off contact (as close as possible) so you are also not using too much squeegee pressure.
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Well you never know in these situations unless you're there examining all the variables but......
The statement that the back larger print looks teal and the smaller front looks correct suggests that possibly migration could occur if the back was printed first hence it went through the dryer twice (remember flourescents are very transparent by nature)
And.....flourescents are metameric in nature and are affected not only by the surrounding (shirt)color but the amount of (ink) color applied and the amountof surrounding (shirt color) which could fool the eye into thinking they are different. Unlikely but I've seen it happen.
So theres that plus what Dan said.
tp
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@ Tony I did consider that the migration could have been caused by the second run through the dryer, and if the migration happened on the second dryer pass, that would be a first for me but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.
@ Dan, the ink was the same both sides, polywhite wilflex and rutland m2's. I have seen pretty bad migration from Safety Green, G200's on other runs, where the white ink (p/f/p on low mesh count) did take a very slight yellow hue, but nothing I would think would affect another color so serverly that it would cause it to change (blue to teal). My opinion is that safety green in a 50/50 is a bad bleeder for sure, that's why we used 2 screens of white, in addition flo colors are translucent in general so we wanted a very white base to make the colors pop.
As far as opaque flourescents, the M2's in my experience are pretty opaque, definately opaque enough and cover nicely over a white underbase in any other job we've done. What opaque flo ink would you recommend?
Also, to the comment that we were driving the ink into the shirt, I really don't think so, by the time the second white came out from the second flash it was very bright, no show through at all.
One other thing I thought of, do either of you think the heat intesity created on press by 3 quartz flashes could be enough to trigger migration?
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Got back a couple shirts, customer hasn't returned all of them but these pics are from a size I know was at the beginning of the run. This looks like migration to me, and I'm a bit surprised being that they were underbased with wilflex polywhite, an ink that historically has been very good for us. I doubt there's anything wrong with the ink, just trying to see if anyone else has seen this kind of thing on safety green.
Front:
(http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/2535/frontywl.jpg)
Back:
(http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/9789/backoh.jpg)
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Wilflex Ploy White says to use a 130 mesh and then an 86 mesh. WOW.:o
http://www.polyone.com/en-us/about/businessgroups/Inks/Literature/Wilflex_Manual04.pdf (http://www.polyone.com/en-us/about/businessgroups/Inks/Literature/Wilflex_Manual04.pdf)
Man-o-day. Thats some thick stuff.
So the Poly White is "designed' for printing on garments that are known for migration. I have always heard the you will (still) get a little migration with all low bleed whites. I hear that there is no such thing and a complete blocker, BUT, if you used a ploy white (Hit it twice...and flashed it twice.... it should not have migrated LIKE THAT.
Also, visually, that is a very smooth consistent migration. It really looks like someone used the wrong ink....but I know this color changing (is possible) with these colors interacting to come up with a green looking color. In my opinion though, a safety green/Yellow tee migrating would create more of a grass green (if you ask me) Like Process Yellow and Process Cyan (make a good green) so should this. From an artist standpoint. The Safety yellow does have a tad bit of blue in it (giving it a yellowish green tinge (but is still very much like process yellow) so I would think that this is really a case of mistaken identity. Maybe when you first saw this run in production, you thought) Looks good". because nothing was in contrast or meaning you didn't have the "real blue' to compare it to at the time. I'm just tossing out possibilities.
A Tony's statement is true also. The overpowering surrounding area can play a part on the visual color as well, In this case, it's really a BAD case of migration or a different ink. If migration, then someone didn't use the right ink on that white....if not migrations, then someone used a different ink by mistake. And now that i look at that teal again, it really could be made up of the migrating yellow I guess. It seems to be more of a green green, the more I look at it. (and that goes back to the power of the surrounding colors).
In the end, (I really don't know). LOL. I hope it was not many shirts.
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Thanks for the reply. All in all, I'm not too worried about the shirts, 300 of them, but more to back peddle and figure out what went wrong. I will not rule out for sure the possibility that the wrong white was used, I was not present when the ink was loaded into the screens (my guy on press swears it was polywhite). My amazement is in that the left chest is fine and the back is not, so a mix up with the white certainly seems to explain that, the only other thing I could think of was the use of 3 flashes. Since a much larger back print, again about 14 x 14 would require more heat to cure all that ink, my thought was, possibly excessive heat on press triggered migration, but who knows.
Another point is the orange did not change, since underbased the same way, it should have shown migration as well, unless a flo yellow dye doesn't affect that color in the same way it does a blue.
Well the customer has inferred that he will take the shirts with a discount, so that's the route I will probably take, it just annoys me because I don't want to have a jaded conscience about safety green later. Ahhh, the pleasures of screen printing sometimes, never ceases to amaze me. Even on a losing battle this time, I kind of enjoy the investigation.
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another point is the orange did not change, since underbased the same way, it should have shown migration as well, unless a flo yellow dye doesn't affect that color in the same way it does a blue.
Safety Green/Yellow will not be affect a orange color as mutch. It's already got allot of yellow in it so adding migration yellow would only enrich the yellow that is already in Orange. Blue is a primary color and has no yellow in it. Thats why it is affected so greatly when adding yellow. Same for Magenta.
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I have never seen die migration so perfectly uniform? It almost looks to me like a second ink color got whicked into the blue and changed its color, or maybe the blue was mixing into the white? It really really does not look like bleeding to damn perfect, it really really looks like the ink color itself has changed/ How much do you trust your printer?
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One last note........I've seen this over and over especially in shops with multiple employees/shifts. The white inks get contaminated. Meaning the polywhite gets cross-contaminated with cotton white or in some cases mixing white.
In the end with problems like this sometimes you never find out exactly what happened but best of luck in reaching a solution.
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@ ink, I could agree with the white mixing into the overprinting colors, if the base was not gelled completely for example, however if that were the case the orange would have shifted as well. I've thought about the uniformity of the shift, and I'll agree a lot of time migration is not uniform, but on the other hand I've seen it be uniform before. I trust my guy, he's been with me over 3 years and is a lifer, he's been printing his whole life, but people will say whatever to cover themselves.
@ tony, definately a possibility, though slim I would say but you never know. We only run one shift, but we run several whites, so the possiblity that a less bleed resistant white could have been returned to the polywhite pail, boy if that happened we're in for a shitstorm. So many people want 100% poly these days.
Thanks guys for your input, I never thought someone would ask me to print flourescents on a flourescent shirt, hopefully it doesn't become a common request as I'd be a bit gun shy next time.
Because of this, I'm implementing an all out revamp on QC, thermoprobe on every job till we get our dryer temps dialed with spot checks to follow for good measure, and a lesson for all on white inks (again).
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One good thing is you have some of the actual shirts to test on. Print some of your poly white on there and try to make it bleed see what happens, scrape a little of the blue on the white as well and bake it. The thing is i cannot see a lighter color shirt bleeding and making a darker color ink lighter in reverse sure but making a blue lighter? I think it boils down to the white ink itself compromising the blue somehow, test away.
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One good thing is you have some of the actual shirts to test on. Print some of your poly white on there and try to make it bleed see what happens, scrape a little of the blue on the white as well and bake it. The thing is i cannot see a lighter color shirt bleeding and making a darker color ink lighter in reverse sure but making a blue lighter? I think it boils down to the white ink itself compromising the blue somehow, test away.
You know what, Thats a great point. Smart. In light of that, it just goes to show that while most of us are well seasoned at this business, we still don't always know the answer to everyone question. It's so great to get various points of view and makes these discussions invaluable.
I thank you all for your educated feedback and participation.
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One good thing is you have some of the actual shirts to test on. Print some of your poly white on there and try to make it bleed see what happens, scrape a little of the blue on the white as well and bake it. The thing is i cannot see a lighter color shirt bleeding and making a darker color ink lighter in reverse sure but making a blue lighter? I think it boils down to the white ink itself compromising the blue somehow, test away.
You know what, Thats a great point. Smart. In light of that, it just goes to show that while most of us are well seasoned at this business, we still don't always know the answer to everyone question. It's so great to get various points of view and makes these discussions invaluable.
Smart indeed. If you really want to get to the bottom of this recreate the entire job with the exact specs.
I thank you all for your educated feedback and participation.
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Thanks again guys for all your ideas, I do appreciate it and really do value your opinions.
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My experience with flouro blue in particular is that, like any deep, bright blue and even more so w. fluoro is that it needs a lot of transparency to appear fluorescent. Colin from qcm had a really good analogy for this comparing your ink film to the caribbean ocean. That water looks so bright, clean and vivid because you're looking at miles of transparency and a little bit of actual color, all lit up by the sun. I'm not sure how scientifically accurate all that is but it makes good sense. To that end, it sounds like you did everything right by laying down a serious layer of dye-blocking/absorbing white and double hitting that blue to give it some film depth.
If it is migration that it's not surprising that the ultra-transparent blue turned to a greenish teal when the "safety green" which is really a bunch of yellow to my eye got into either the base or the top color. That back print had a lot more coverage area so maybe somebody edged up the dwell time on the flash and/or in the dryer to compensate?
I'd say the test to perform is grab one of the shirts and cut into the back print with an exacto knife then check it out under a loupe. That white base should be thick enough that you can see if the yellow/green leached up into it.
My next theory is that, if the fluoro blue was falling over the edge of the ub a little that the yellow got up into it that way. I've seen that happen but it seems far-fetched that it would migrate all the way into the middle of the print so evenly like that.
Good luck man, looks like it's just another one of the many joys of being a screen printer.
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Definitely dye migration. Even with Poly White, three flashes on a large area is going to open the door to sublimation. Dan is exactly right about the effect of the yellow on the Flo Orange vs Flo Blue. The reason you didn't get it on the left chest is the area is so much smaller with a lower heat requirement. That does not mean it won't sublimate, it may take longer. Once the migration starts, it will continue over time until it reaches equilibrium. I once had 5000 shirts returned 6 weeks after we printed them because it took that long for the migration to show up. They were 50/50 white on red. Naturally we were aware of the danger of sublimation, used low bleed, reduced dryer temp, etc., but still got whacked.
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I once had 5000 shirts returned 6 weeks after we printed them because it took that long for the migration to show up. They were 50/50 white on red. Naturally we were aware of the danger of sublimation, used low bleed, reduced dryer temp, etc., but still got whacked.
5000 units to re-do? Dang. Thats the thing. With something like that, It's better (after you know now), to not do an order like that. Maybe offer up some alternative. Look how flipp'n difficult it is to make sure you get EVERY possible thing to remember to do before running a job like that. You almost need a committee to decide if you can do the job safely.
Then again, those who do handle this with a committee before taking on 5000 units and getting it done well and correct, would probably be getting allot more of them from every other customer with that type of job. You'd be the mass quantity Safety green guy or the 50/50 Red tee/sweat gut. ;)
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So in the end the customer took the shirts at a discount and said "if I were you I wouldn't sell anything with polyester", made me laugh, in my dreams. Luckily I didn't take a loss on the job and my customer was happy enough and said he'd be back next year. Definately will pass on the next high coverage, multi-flash design on safety green/orange if they can't be talked into something else that isn't a nightmare.