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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: alan802 on February 24, 2014, 12:23:22 PM
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I have tested a few poly whites recently and thought we could start a thread and discuss everyone's favorite white ink for 100% poly garments, or 50/50's, doesn't really matter. Recently I've used Triangle Excel, Union Poly 1070, Excalibur Athletic, Rutland Super Poly, One Stroke Bravo Flex, One Stroke NP Dry Fit and I'll add to this list as I remember them. I could probably go into detail on each one of these but I don't have all that much time and although all of these inks will do the job, I can't see myself ever buying anything other than the One Stroke Dry Fit ink until something better comes along. I test all of the poly inks on an Augusta Sportswear 100% poly, red, moisture management, antimicrobial shirt. It's the standard performance fabric and will bleed with the best of them. It's not the worst bleeding shirt I've ever seen but it's pretty decent. None of the inks I've tried have failed the bleed testing with a print, flash, print with 150/48 and under mesh counts.
The Bravo Flex is one of the best white inks I've ever used because it works on everything, EVERYTHING, poly, cotton, nylon, blends, etc and it does everything above average. It has the opacity, flash times, there is nothing it is below average at...except price. I can't stomach the price even though it's a great white ink. If I could get more one hits out of it I could justify the price but it's not twice as opaque, or twice as good overall than the other whites I use so I can't pay double the price. If you guys don't mind paying a premium for a really good white ink, this will impress.
The One Stroke NP Dry Fit, it's priced great, it's as close to a cotton white in it's characteristics as any poly white I've tried and it is not a bear to print with at all. It shears with very little pressure, average flash time, above average opacity, good matte down but the only thing it doesn't do great is cure temp. It isn't going to cure at 290 like a lot of the other poly whites are but I'll gladly trade that cure temp for the friendly characteristics of this ink. It's got puff, but not outrageous and has less than some of the above inks, so average puff. From talking with the One Stroke guys the puff additive is pretty much essential to the poly inks, although there is much more to it than that and inks are getting better and better every day.
The Excalibur Athletic is what we've used the last few months and it's a good poly ink, but it's the typical poly that is harder to work with.
I think the Union 1070 has better print characteristics and is easier than most poly whites to work with.
Excel is an oldie but goody, it was the closest to actually failing the bleed test however. It's optically brighter than most poly whites, and doesn't have that "off-white" look. At least it used to, it's been a year since I've had a gallon of Excel.
Anyone that has any experience with a poly white feel free to tell us all about it. Especially if you have a different view of one that I have described above, let's discuss. I know I'll have more to say about these as I remember things and will be adding to this whenever I can.
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We have not tested as many as Alan has, however have gone through a decent amount.
About a year ago we settled on One Stroke Pure Plus and have not looked back.
Mark
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Dam Alan I hate to see when you had some real time to write ha ha, I been thru a butt load of white inks and settled on WM Plastics White Bright, Homer sent me some WM Ploy white I have yet to use but will in the next week here for baseball. Most white inks I used have been pretty good all but Union Inks diamond white I just could not get pass the smell of that stuff and plus it was stiff.
D
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
On pure ploy?
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Wilflex Performance white works on EVERYTHING Poly from Augusta, I have tested it all!
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
It bleeds pretty bad on the shirt I test with. We haven't had a "low bleed" white pass the red 100% poly test even with dryer temps around 300. Now it may be fine on a red 50/50 but I've never been able to get a standard low bleed to block with consistency. Diamond, sprint, tidy, phoenix, Miami, etc. do not instill confidence in me for 50/50 jobs. We can dial in the dryer temps with the best of them and get the low bleeds to perform on 50/50's but I'd just assume put a poly white in the screen and never worry about a call. And not to mention forgetting to lower or raise the dryer temps back to cotton :), that's just way too much for my guys to handle right now. JK, mostly...
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Thats why we have an LC additive
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Tony, you are using Streetfighter LB on 100% poly as well? We love it of everything up to 50/50's but use the Super Poly for 100%. Recently it seems like the Super Poly has gotten very creamy, like performance white by wily, just no where near as expensive.
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With our new pigment grind Xenon Reg white is sweet. Also there is the mu$tang white that is good for printing on anything.
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Tony, you are using Streetfighter LB on 100% poly as well? We love it of everything up to 50/50's but use the Super Poly for 100%. Recently it seems like the Super Poly has gotten very creamy, like performance white by wily, just no where near as expensive.
They've changed the formula for the Super Poly you say? I've been through 10 gallons or so of the super poly and it did fine. But when it comes to most all of the poly whites they are relatively the same in their body and shear properties, and that's poor compared to a good cotton white. I'd suggest everyone try the One Stroke stuff, the Bravo Flex is unbelievable in every way, I just wish I could justify buying it and perhaps I could if the Dry Fit wasn't so good.
It's been a while since I sample Xenon moosetang but it passed the bleed test but it seemed a lot like all the others at the time.
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Alan, I'm not sure, but it seems like the recent batch we got was waaaaaay creamier than the past batch we got. Now I was given a sample of Wilflex's Top Score white which the product specialist at SPA says is the best white to hit the market yet. He says you can print it on anything. i haven't got to use it yet, but I can tell you it is very seriously creamy and cures, I think at 270, but looking on Poly One's tech sheet it says 300, but that is still better than 320-330 like most other poly whites out there without an LC additive. We will see, I'm going to try it this week on some jerseys. We have some extra ordered to test on. It looks like it has a very awesome price point too. Nazdar's list price alone on a 5er is 367, not bad, less than I've been getting super poly for.
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Alan, I'm not sure, but it seems like the recent batch we got was waaaaaay creamier than the past batch we got. Now I was given a sample of Wilflex's Top Score white which the product specialist at SPA says is the best white to hit the market yet. He says you can print it on anything. i haven't got to use it yet, but I can tell you it is very seriously creamy and cures, I think at 270, but looking on Poly One's tech sheet it says 300, but that is still better than 320-330 like most other poly whites out there without an LC additive. We will see, I'm going to try it this week on some jerseys. We have some extra ordered to test on. It looks like it has a very awesome price point too. Nazdar's list price alone on a 5er is 367, not bad, less than I've been getting super poly for.
Let me know how you like it, they tell me its better than performance and I know its cheaper, but I haven't had any issues with Performance except for the price.
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We don't print a ton of polyester but we use the Rutland Super Poly. Softest poly white I've ever seen.
I've tried a few others and most are like printing with half cured cement. I think poly inks have come a long
way in the past few years.
I'm honestly in a different boat in that rather than try everything available I find one I like that I can readily obtain
and stick with it. Easier for me than to change print parameters and all that constantly.
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I do like the bleed resistance of the Super Poly but it does puff up big time. Some customers aren't crazy about that, but they understand the risk of bleeding. I'm interested in seeing how the top score does. Performance white is awesome, but when it nearly doubled in price, that's just crazy, especially if you blow through alot on contract jobs.
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I print poly almost everyday. All I can say is that a white that works for your shop and your environment should be the first priority. Price is secondary. Especially if you have to F with it all the time to get it to work right.
Right now I am testing both Top Score from Wilflex and Endurance from Rutland. Right now Super Poly White is our daily go to poly white. I have not had a single issue with it so far as for bleed. As for the amount of puff that it has we do not see it because we cure it right at the lower point of its temp range. If you over cure it that is where you run into issues.
We just ran the Endurance white on Lycra stretchy ass tops from AA. The graphic did not give the ink much bulk to hold itself together for most inks but the Endurance had some serious stretch right out of the bucket. So I have to give that one a thumbs up for that. A soft hand with great stretch wins out over a bullet proof 1/8 in thick ink deposit any day.
Tomorrow is a fun one. Red poly singlets.
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I suppose its worth mentioning that we are looking at the ink/substrate as the enemy. There is one other culprit.
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We were using the ICC low cure white, and recently switched to Topscore as it was a bit cheaper. It's been working well so far. It's pretty creamy, but man it's a climber
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
Tony we have a new IC white that is made to go head to head with the Streetfighter. Would you be willing to test some for us?
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Sure Scott just send me a qt
tp
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
Tony we have a new IC white that is made to go head to head with the Streetfighter. Would you be willing to test some for us?
Scott, is that the Legacy White? I tried some of that from a local distributor that dropped off a quart, really great stuff. It cured at 280 degrees. very very smooth, very soft, very opaque, but his price was really high for 5er.
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I moved away from the Rutland Super Poly because of the puff. It was manageable for the most part then 3 gallons in a row were extreme puffers. It's by no means creamy but compared to other poly whites it is. They are all long bodied and don't print worth a damn in the cold but the One Stroke stuff doesn't resemble a poly white at all until you see it at the end of the dryer. I wish the Bravo Flex was affordable because it was good enough to use as our cotton white as well as poly. And to never worry about the guys not using the right ink would be nice but we're not talking about $100-120/gal here. I bet I could beat them up a little and get it in that 120 range but the white we use for cotton right now is beyond good, borderline great (except for squeegee climb it would be great) and we're paying 56/gal. Our costs for white ink would more than double if we went to one all-around white ink and even though we're breaking records with the volume we're doing lately, I can't pay that much.
I'd still like to try a Wilflex poly white ink even though their prices turned me away years ago.
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Check out this bucket of SF LB about ready to pop lol. Talk about puff!!! It won't sit straight it's bobbling around over there. My wife thinks it's just really full of ink unlike other buckets we get from other brands, but I let her know, nope that's a lot of puff in there. They were like that during the cold snaps too, so it's not a "hot shop thing". :o
(http://i62.tinypic.com/syrus8.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/2hoejjr.jpg)
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Rutland LB Streetfighter. Use it on everything thats not discharge. Great pricepoint as well.
Tony we have a new IC white that is made to go head to head with the Streetfighter. Would you be willing to test some for us?
Scott, is that the Legacy White? I tried some of that from a local distributor that dropped off a quart, really great stuff. It cured at 280 degrees. very very smooth, very soft, very opaque, but his price was really high for 5er.
Well the one I am talking about is the new Knockout white by IC. Its priced around the streetfighter white.
The Legacy white is a great white and I have a lot of people trying it out. We can see if we can work you up some great pricing just email or PM me.