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screen printing => Waterbase and Discharge => Topic started by: ZooCity on April 24, 2014, 01:39:13 PM
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So we queued up about 4 jobs with the NL 3600, Black, for DC printing. I pushed the 3600 for these clients as it was "guaranteed dischargeable" and based off DC results with NL CVC fabric, sounded like a perfect setup.
Results in pre-flight for the first two jobs were inconsistent and poor compared to control fabrics. We had to go to plastisol on both, causing scheduling messes and I feel pretty dumb for suggesting the shirt now. I wasn't expecting miracles from these Ts but was shocked that they responded so poorly and were inconsistent to boot, seems like the opposite result one would expect from a shirt marketed for this purpose.
NL and our distro have been super responsive and are working on figuring it out with us which is much appreciated. Just to clarify this thread is not a knock on anyone in any sense.
However, I wanted to see what our fellow DC printers have experienced with the 3600 recently.
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So we queued up about 4 jobs with the NL 3600, Black, for DC printing. I pushed the 3600 for these clients as it was "guaranteed dischargeable" and based off DC results with NL CVC fabric, sounded like a perfect setup.
Results in pre-flight for the first two jobs were inconsistent and poor compared to control fabrics. We had to go to plastisol on both, causing scheduling messes and I feel pretty dumb for suggesting the shirt now. I wasn't expecting miracles from these Ts but was shocked that they responded so poorly and were inconsistent to boot, seems like the opposite result one would expect from a shirt marketed for this purpose.
NL and our distro have been super responsive and are working on figuring it out with us which is much appreciated. Just to clarify this thread is not a knock on anyone in any sense.
However, I wanted to see what our fellow DC printers have experienced with the 3600 recently.
we always push the 3600. we NEVER have issues. I know that NL does offer the tees that are supposed to be more discharge friendly. We've never asked for them when ordering through TSF, but we've never had an issue.
We do have issues constantly with the 3300Ls.
all 4 shirts below are discharge (sericol and cci), on 3600
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Wow, thanks for that pic Eric, something is big time wrong with the ones we received based off that. Prints were way dull and we use the same inks as you and, like I said, control testing verified it wasn't the ink/cure.
This is good news to me in a way, I was really hoping to push the 3600 as our DC go-to so perhaps theirs still hope.
I'm shipping out samples to NL today to see what's going on.
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Wow, thanks for that pic Eric, something is big time wrong with the ones we received based off that. Prints were way dull and we use the same inks as you and, like I said, control testing verified it wasn't the ink/cure.
This is good news to me in a way, I was really hoping to push the 3600 as our DC go-to so perhaps theirs still hope.
I'm shipping out samples to NL today to see what's going on.
I know exactly what you are talking about. like i said this happens almost ALWAYS on the 3300L tees. If it's not a dull color, it's a huge color shift. We just printed these tees on the 3600 and the 3300L, and on about 12 of them (it's always a dozen), the redish gray shifted to a columbia blue:
http://store.sideonedummy.com/ajj-Christmas-cd-shirt.html (http://store.sideonedummy.com/ajj-Christmas-cd-shirt.html)
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Link's busted.
If you are getting good results and then a handful with bad, it sounds like mixed stock which I think is why they had to policy that you had to specify for DC.
According to NL, they have consolidated all their stock to being ok for DC so there's no longer a need to specify. It could be that all the stock hasn't turned completely. I need to pick out a few at random from two different POs and see if one does well out of the bunch.
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that's true. it could just be old stock. I did just put a call into TSF so they can talk to the Next Level Rep.
Here is the shirt that was in that link (AJJ/Axe)
and here is another cool one we just did yesterday, pretty simple.
but end of story, NL 3600s are awesome to discharge, and comfortable to wear.
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Use them all the time and well.......you know.
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I don't know!
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We use them and Canvass mostly. Never a problem. Discharge on 4 autos daily.
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Use them all the time and well.......you know.
Same here. Most of the time from some testing we have been doing it is not even the shirt but the ink we are using. I was die hard Sericol for ease of use and that changed once several of the same Sericol colors looked like crap compared to the Rutland colors. The Rutland colors printed very differently.
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To clarify, it's not an ink/cure issue. We tested other fabrics with the same inks that were prepped for the 3600 run and they discharged as brilliant as always.
JBlue, I agree with you on RFU v. PC. Most of the sericol got us about 80% there on 80% of colors but that's not quite enough. It's not all about pigment load of course but the PC systems are just so much more versatile not to mention faster to work with and less shelf space/stock.
The guy at Next Level seems to know his stuff and we'll be zipping over samples tomorrow to get it sorted. I'm going to pull a tester for two different POs just to see if that was the deal. I'm really thinking old stock got mixed in on this...they just behaved like overdyes or even non-reactives.
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Here's today's run, clear DC on NL 3600 Black. The color differences are from size to size, it's mixed stock. Waiting on NL's response, I'm sure we'll get it sorted out but we may have lost the ability to sell this shirt as well as some face with a major client who we were introducing to DC. I guess we just had some bad luck on these POs with this shirt and there is still stock out there that is mixed. Just wanted to follow up in case it helps anyone.
Tony, you guys do lots of tonal type prints right? Never bumped into this? We do see this on all clear DC runs across most brands but nothing with a range quite this wide, the far left is just barely discharging.
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Here's today's run, clear DC on NL 3600 Black. The color differences are from size to size, it's mixed stock. Waiting on NL's response, I'm sure we'll get it sorted out but we may have lost the ability to sell this shirt as well as some face with a major client who we were introducing to DC. I guess we just had some bad luck on these POs with this shirt and there is still stock out there that is mixed. Just wanted to follow up in case it helps anyone.
Tony, you guys do lots of tonal type prints right? Never bumped into this? We do see this on all clear DC runs across most brands but nothing with a range quite this wide, the far left is just barely discharging.
pm or email me, i just got another contact. i wanna see if it's the same as yours
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Holy smokes, Chris. Wow, I am sorry. That is not cool. Keep us posted please as to what comes of your situation.
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this type of activity is what keeps me from going 100% waterbase in here. I want to get rid of this palstisol crap something fierce but inconsistency in goods really puts a damper on that...let us know what they say...
sucks running to the end of the dryer when the catcher goes "uhhh guys, you might want to stop"
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It's really not so bad most of the time. It's situations like this that make you think it's cursed though or maybe I'm just hexed. I'm not sure why anyone would make this statement:
"Next Level Apparel does its very best to provide garments for discharge printing including reactive dyeing, testing for discharge printability, maintaining tested inventory and shipping each discharge print order from the same fabric/garment lot or advising of any inventory variances."
And then ship product that is literally 180˚ away from that plan. I think we're looking at a different dye lot for each size and one appears to be an overdye or possible not reactive dyed or not reactive enough.
I'm sure it's just a mistake and will get righted.
It just was real bad timing for this particular account so I was working really hard to solve it as NL has been slow responding. Just wanted to say I'm not knocking anyone here, just wanted to gather some intel on the issue, we print a crap ton of NL and will continue to do so. But do be advised that these 3600 Ts could be an issue for DC printing, unless you're in Tony or JBlue or Eric's shop,....lucky bastards.
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we just did a reprint of that 3 color Andrew Jackson Jihad shirt, we had one that was REALLY off.
Thankfully our customer is tottally cool with the color variations
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As in one shirt or a size set? I'm trying to give NL all the info I can to help them get their stock straightened out. If you aren't already, be sure to tell them. I want to see NL pull this discharge guarantee off, it would be awesome if they did for both for us DC printers and for them because all of us would be buying so much of their product.
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As in one shirt or a size set? I'm trying to give NL all the info I can to help them get their stock straightened out. If you aren't already, be sure to tell them. I want to see NL pull this discharge guarantee off, it would be awesome if they did for both for us DC printers and for them because all of us would be buying so much of their product.
1 shirt in a run of 144. i have to call our contact shortly
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Finally wrapped this up. NL tested samples with DC white and said they both discharged...well yeah, a lot of things get covered up by an HO white. I explained that the issue was regarding less highly pigmented colors, as demonstrated by what happened running clear, 5% activator DC base and asked that they test a clear DC base and see if they can repeat our results. I guess they were too busy to do that so our distro, SLC, actually had another of their clients test the samples. This shop repeated our exact results in their testing. I have no idea what inks/curing/screens/etc. this other shop has in place but the results were the same so SLC showed this to NL and I guess it was an eye opening experience for them.
I don't know if NL or SLC footed the bill but they actually took the whole order back, a good deal of it printed. We didn't ask for that so kudos to both of them, especially SLC Activewear, this distro has been killing it for us this year in every possible way, this just being one of them.
NL seems genuinely dedicated to this and I have a lot of respect for that. The VP or something like that wanted to talk it over as well but we haven't connected. Still, it shows a lot of give a damn from them regarding their discharge guarantee.
We've begun to slowly spec DC on the 3600 again but never again with clear or low tint inks. It's not that I don't believe you all but we simply are not seeing the "never an issue" "no problems" results you are. Our suppliers test run confirms to me that it's not related to anything in our shop and I'm not risking scrapping 100s of Ts again with this brand. For now I'm being very cautious but am tentatively hopeful that we can get this shirt going for DC printing again. Funny thing is we have DC printed the 6210 blends in some colors for years now with absolutely zero issues ever so it's ironic to be getting issues with the guaranteed cottons.
So far it's been OK, seeing some good prints on these. These shirts are inferior to many we run for DC but they do discharge. We ran 425 Midnight Navy's with a 6 color DC print on Friday through 225 mesh with some 45lpi tones and overprints, bright colors and it was pretty smooth. There were about 5-10 in the bunch that did not discharge like the others, the colors looked dull. The dye lots are clearly different, I could see the difference easily from size to size but we simply ran one of each size to check before cutting in. I can live with this though.
Final verdict is I'm thankful for the experience, it's helped us setup better protocol for our DC work. It's also pushed us to do some creative thinking about what we can and cannot do with DC ink to overcome dye lot variance and fabric related issues.