TSB
screen printing => Waterbase and Discharge => Topic started by: TCT on June 23, 2014, 07:31:27 PM
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Guys I am really hoping someone has a idea or can help me! This job we ran is having the orange come out!!!
Details-
Gildan 5000 Dark Heather
Left Crest
Rutland discharge white plus
CCI D-Flo neon orange, 5% activator
In the pics below you can see what I am dealing with. The orange is washing out. The white is just fine. The ink is cured, we run discharge ink through the dryer 1 time. The pic below I put through the dryer 3 times!
My main question is, does anyone have ANY idea of something I could do to salvage these???? I am out $2k(cost) if I have to re buy and re print them. I will do that if that is the only option, but I was hoping someone had a salvage idea. Anything? What if I tried rolling Fixer over it or something!? I know that is extreme, but I am at a total loss for new ideas here.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/24/y9ynagy8.jpg)
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/24/ybutu5yj.jpg)
Question #2, what the hell happened here do you guys think?!
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Is the dark Heather 50/50?
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Yes it is a 50/50. I don't have an answer but I think you are gonna have to reprint and steer them away from the dark heather or go plastisol on it. I did some 50/50s with discharge that looked great coming out of the dryer but I told the contract customer that I am not responsible for color loss after washing if they chose to stick with 50/50s
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Yes
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is the orange printed over the white?
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is the orange printed over the white?
No, straight activated D-Flo Orange
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50/50 should not have washed out that much. You said it went though your dryer 3 times and still washed out that much? To me it looks like under cured.
My only other guess is too much agent or the ink is bad.
Take that same orange and run a test on black 100%. If it does the something then its not the 50/50 and maybe bad ink.
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We are ruining a test with the orange tomorrow. To see if it is the ink. Yes, 3 times through the dryer on the one in the bad pic. The white doesn't seem to be affected.
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The white in the pic does look like it washed out some too. Did you modify the orange at all?
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With flouros, sericols anyway, we do 2-3% activator. Don't know if that will make a difference in your case.
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The orange wasn't modified in any way. Right out of the bucket+activator.
The white is still good, I'll take a pic of the back tomorrow and post it.
Thanks so far for all the input! Hoping someone will have some kind magic trick that may fix this.
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I don't think it's fixable unfortunately. Whats the inside of the shirt look like?
I guess undercured or not enough penetration.
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Looks like undercure to me also, check your dryer and make sure every panel or what ever you have is heating all the thru your tunnel...JMO but I think your having some kind of curing problem. I would take one of those printed shirts and print with plastisol ink also run back thru and wash test, you might fine some t-shirts treated with some funky chemicals. We've had shirts before we printed at the same time same ink and when washed the ink came off and others didn't good luck my friend losing money ain't nothing none us like to do.
Darryl
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Thanks Darryl, I'll try some plastisol on one of them tomorrow. I originally thought under cured also, but we checked the dryer with our temp gun AND one of those temp strip deals and all checked out fine.
I think the thing that gets me is that they printed fine, nothing out of the ordinary. The white and orange both printed "muted" and then at the other side of the dryer 10x brighter, just like a normal discharge job. I have seen some colors lose vibrancy and whatnot, but this is a but more than a vibrancy issue!
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Did you add any penetrant to the ink?
It looks like it has partially washed off? What does it look like when you loop it?
Is it potentially falling off the poly content?
I ask because it LOOKS like it has properly adhered to some of the threads.....
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Thanks Colin, I'll take a pic of the print through a loupe and post it tomorrow. There is no penetrant in either of the inks.
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If you look at the print at the bottom you can see the outline on the text did discharge. It just didn't hold the Orange pigment. TCT know his stuff so it has to be the ink. Even if not poly held the pigment the print would still be more Orange then it is. This makes me put all my money on not enough binder in the ink.
Have you printed this bucket of ink before?
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Depending on how many pcs it might be worth it to just reprint but before reprinting id try heat pressing it for a decent amount of time like 20-30 sec then do a wash test. I've played with inks that failed prior to me doing this so you might be able to save them. I'm not deep enough into d charge waterbase colors yet to give much advise but something tells me it's not a cure issue rather an issue with the chemistry of that particular ink and garment. I've tested that same orange on 50/50 heather next level and never an issue but never on those shirts. Sometimes those blanks almost feel oily to me but who knows.
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Sorry but no salvage here. What were washing specs? Bleach?
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Damn, that's a bummer Alex.. I personally never discharge 50/50's for this reason, as discharge ink and poly are like oil and water in my experience. I'm guessing the flo ink may have something to do with the additional fade as well, have you used it on 50/50 with success before? But all this is in the "hindsight" category, which judging by your post, you don't really need right now.
In regards to a fix, my suggestion would be to make a new base white film, and stroke it 5-10 points larger than what you have there now. Run a plastisol base over the discharge print (the stoke will give you some wiggle room), and a flo orange plastisol on top. You may have to run these manually as its gonna take a lot of adjustment (and time), but it will at least save you the blanks if the customer will go for it.
Good luck with it man, I'll be rooting for you..
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OK so I'm heading in to work here shortly and looks like I have a long list of chores for this one.
Washing specs, no bleach. Even worse, after I ran a few of these through the dryer 3 times a friggin' wet sponge with minimal elbow grease effected the orange>:(
This was the first job from this particular bucket of orange. So that is now on the list. And everything I think of that has to be it. The white held on no problem(will post pics of the back once I get in) even on the machine washed ones.
We have printed on this particular shirt in the past and not had issues. In fact we have printed on them since we printed the faulty job(this orange job we didn't know there was a issue for a week and a half after delivery) and we called them yesterday and they said they look great.
The bummer is there are too many variables to easily determine the fault 100%. The 50/50 same shirts we printed since the bad order had D-Flow green, the recent ones came from TSC and the bad ones from alphabrodernightmare. I emailed our rep at TSC to see if he can find the country of origin for the shirts we got from them. The bad ones are from Nicaragua. That is reaching, but I don't want to leave anything out. The make up of the shirt or its origin theory kind of gets debunked when your consider the white held on fine.
The order is 700psc front and back, with close to 300 XXL's:- I had thought about trying to print over it with a thicker stroke and re do them all manually but some of the letters may look hokey(not that that should bother them, considering the lame logo). The shirts were screwed up already, I don't want to give them a mediocre fixed shirt.
Thanks again everyone!
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If the pic was forwarded by customer get a few back if you want to answer question #2. Assuming you have the same lot # of the orange ink repeat the process. Try a few other ink colors and shirt brands and colors, being sure to include a 100% cotton. My guess is its a perfect storm of ink/garment compatibility. Sure the white worked but flo DCs are finicky animals.
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I agree with Tony on the Fl. DC being finicky. Also, from the first pic your white doesn't look cured all the way atleast in the center. I'd check the shirt as well on the origin of where it was made and see if you have 2 different origins. One may adhere better than the other due to the manufacturing process (Dyes used and material count). Secondly I'd try 80/20 base to pigment with 4% activaor. Sounds overkill but you are printing 50/50.
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OK I just got in, here are some pics of the back print AFTER machine wash...
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/24/da3u2eqa.jpg)
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/24/nesysupy.jpg)
You can see the white is holding up fine.
Ross_S - what part are you saying for the 80/20? The white is just straight Rutland discharge white plus, and the orange is straight D-Flo. I didn't mess with any pigments...
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I don't see any discharging of the garment where the orange ink was (as it is nowhere to be seen)? Or am I missing something?
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I don't see any discharging of the garment where the orange ink was (as it is nowhere to be seen)? Or am I missing something?
I believe the back print was white only, and posted as a reference.
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Alex;
Even though it's a RFU ink I would use a base with it to get more penetration per say. I use to do this with the Rutland discharge white too it helped tremendously with penetration on triblends and so forth and also in my opinion created a softer feel.
Ross
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also, white tends to have a layer on top (which is what makes it chalky feeling). I don't see any of it in the picture which would lead me to believe that it washed off.
pierre
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What Pierre just described is an issue with the White discharge RFU inks. I couldn't think of how to word that earlier.
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Ok so to test...
Test the orange on a 100% black gildan. This will test the ink.
Then take the washed 50/50 shirt and print it again with the same inks. This will test if the shirt
If it prints ok after the washing then it was an oil or something on the shirt. I would have a hard time believing that the shirt had enough oil on it to do this. Plus if it did the white would of done something similar.
My bet is still on under-cure or bad ink. When I say under cure it could be the ink has a really high cure point for some reason, bad ink.
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Ok so I was able to get some pics, but have not been able to test the ink the presses were tied up today and I didn't want to jinx the good planning and execution since it never seems to work together! ;) My brain is mush right now and I need to get out of here but I wanted to get these pics up. Below is a pic of the backs, Rutland discharge white plus, one of the shirts is washed and the other is out of the original folded dozen from when we boxed them. Can you tell which one has been washed?
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/41f040f1-263a-4288-8c2d-cfa14d45da86_zps903fe0a3.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/41f040f1-263a-4288-8c2d-cfa14d45da86_zps903fe0a3.jpg.html)
So as you can see there really isn't any issue with the white, but wait for the orange! Below are a few pics of the print on the one that has not been washed. The one where there is orange and white is where the two colors meet.
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_153922_zps76d6fe84.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_153922_zps76d6fe84.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_154004_zpsc4af9ad9.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_154004_zpsc4af9ad9.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_154039_zps5fbe595c.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_154039_zps5fbe595c.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_154109_zpsc12625cc.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_154109_zpsc12625cc.jpg.html)
OK and now for the orange section of the washed one...
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_154608_zpsd415b9ea.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_154608_zpsd415b9ea.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140624_154454_zpsca487a5a.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140624_154454_zpsca487a5a.jpg.html)
Now I am not too sure of what all I have pictures of there, but I am going to assume that for some reason the orange did not bond to the threads. If someone smarter than me(not all that hard) cares to chime in with exactly the class is looking at that would be awesome!
So for tomorrow I plan on
-Testing that same bucket of orange on 100% cotton. Activated 5%
-Testing the same orange from the 100% cotton shirt on one of the bad 50/50 T's
-Rolling or printing fixer over the image.(yes this is probably a poor idea and a stretch but I am willing to gamble on it if it saves me $2K)
Also I called TSC and the batch of good T's we printed also came from Nicaragua...
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Great photos man!
Alright, from what I understand of discharge ink, and I'm finding out quickly that I know less than I thought, it needs to penetrate the thread in order to set properly. This has always been how I have treated it, which is why I've always required 100% cotton shirts when printing with it. I apply the same rules to waterbased ink.
Cotton is a natural fiber, and acts like a sponge, absorbing the ink. Polyester is a synthetic, non porous thread, so the discharge sits on top of it and doesn't penetrate. Both can look great once printed, but when washed, the ink falls off the poly. This is my understanding, and would make sense in this case. Except for the white.
And this is where I get confused. I've never seen a discharge white print hold like that on a blend, and didn't think it was even possible without some sort of bonding additive either added to the ink, or some sort of pretreatment to the shirt. Even on a 90/10, using Matsui inks I've always seen 10% less brightness on the final product over a cotton shirt. Now obviously I'm a bit behind the times on this, as a bunch of people on this forum seem to be discharging 50/50's and getting great results, even after a wash. So have the inks changed? Or are the shirt manufacturers doing something different in order to make their blends dischargeable? In this case, it looks like the white ink is bonding to the polyester fibers, but the orange did not. Which goes against everything I thought I knew about discharge ink. :o
Anyways, not trying to threadjack, and apologies if its coming off that way. Just trying to understand what exactly is going on here.
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I always had trouble with Matsui white inks. That was probably 3 years or so ago, but I could never get them to look right. D-White was better, and for us the Rutland white discharge worked even better. We are finishing up our last 5gal of the Rutland though, we tested a gal of the Union white discharge(same owner both companies) and it is the same damn thing but way cheaper!
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...looks pretty clear to me, from these pics, that you have a good case for bad ink here. You can see some areas where the the orange is embedded closer to the core of the threads, so penetration isn't the issue. And since the white cured properly, the dryer settings should be correct. Looks like only the orange didn't cure as it should have.
...I'd be calling the manufacturer, If I had gone thru all the trouble and testing that you have here. Of course, The whole "perform wash test before running production" caveat will probably be levied on you here. Always a loophole.
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I have always been told by reps and I could have been given misleading info or just heard it wrong but like said above a discharge ink esentaly removes the dye from the thread and replaces it with another pigment. Please correct me if this is wrong or incomplete. That being said the poly will not discharge and take the new pigment. Maybe just maybe the white has a binder that will adhear the white pigment to poly fibers and the orange does not. So in this case the orange will wash right off the poly but was able to penetrate enough into the cotton to hold in those threads. But the white stays because it is basically glued to the fibers it can not penetrate.
Have you sent this to CCI? They have some great support people. We have used the fluro orange on straight cotton with great results.
Sorry it's at your expense but this could turn into a very informative post.
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Have you sent this to CCI? They have some great support people.
Who do you talk to!? Do you have any names? I always seem to get minimal help from them at best. A lot of contradicting answers. what ever happened to the CCI guy that used to be on the boards?
Well it will be good if this post serves as a learning tool for others down the line. Let's do this, if you have read this far please send me $4, PM me for my address:D
I'll continue to update with pics tomorrow!
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Hey,
Not sure if I missed the info in any of the postings but are you running gas or electric? Just curious. We do 50/50's all the time (mostly Gildan and Anvil) and sometimes no matter what there is a situation. However, we did a run with those shirts last week and I attached a before and after multiple washing pictures. They are cropped because they are a contract job but you can see the colors. They look slightly different due to the pics taken during the day and night but in person they look the same. Not to say everything is perfect all the time. We did a 700+ three color discharge job on 50/50 Anvil's last week and about 80 of them came out different from the rest. Same lot, factory, all that. Bummer! But the customer is great because they despise plastisol.
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Alex, that is seriously rough. It looks like a problem with the Orange ink. It's barely encapsulating anything in those louped pics, whether cotton or poly thread. I would send the batch# in to them asap and save the bucket if they want to test the actual. If I manufactured that ink I'd be upset and very concerned seeing as your white is perfectly fine and penetration looks adequate under the loupe.
Binkspot may have nailed it with the comment on binder, seems like that could have been out of whack on this Orange.
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With discharge inks becoming the rage, and sometimes seemingly coming out faster than white plastisols, stories like this make me wonder if you guys aren't in that "everyman beta user" position we often seem to accept with hardware and software.
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Sorry guys, today was, um, well, a bit extreme. There was no way I was getting anything done post lunch. Blink got me some contact info for CCI and I'm gonna give then a call tomorrow. I keep putting off re ordering the shirts fooling myself they can be fixed, but I know the disappointing facts :(
I will TRY to get some more louped pics of the testing.
Side note- note no one has PM'd me for a address where they can send their $4 :D
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With discharge inks becoming the rage, and sometimes seemingly coming out faster than white plastisols, stories like this make me wonder if you guys aren't in that "everyman beta user" position we often seem to accept with hardware and software.
I believe we are. Many DC/WB inks are not really tested before being sold. A lot of the complaint about getting differing or contradictory recommendations on use from a mfg is actually due to the fact the mfg simply doesn't know as they have not thoroughly tested. This is not a knock on any one brand, both of the ones brought up in this thread have required us to do our own in house testing and we have saved major issues from occurring by not trusting a data sheet or a rep's advice and actually testing the damn stuff. It's scary how flippy floppy things can be in reality. Just one example from our camp- a "fixative" designed to ensure washfastness if running at faster dryer speeds that actually destroys certain ink's ability to stay on the garment, literally the opposite effect. That one almost went into all the ink for 15k pcs we ran last month but it didn't because we're freaking paranoid and we thoroughly tested pre-flight.
To maybe squeeze some lemonade out of a thread based on a terrible situation- I would love to know how exactly poly threads get discharged and why. Like many here we have been very successful in discharging blends and they are wash fast but I honestly don't know the technical side of why this works. My guess is the DC ink has adequate ability to encapsulate the poly, yielding a nice even print across the blend even though the poly fibers didn't discharge fully like the cotton, essentially behaving like a WB ink on the poly thread and a DC ink on the cotton. Thoughts?
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It took me a minute but I found the CCI guy that posted on the boards a while back. Just sent him a PM about this thread. Hopefully he gets email notifications for PM's and he can lend some insight. I know if I talk to someone at CCI tomorrow and try to explain it all here there is a good chance it will be a Tim Taylor and Wilson(anyone remember Home Improvement) situation.... ;)
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Sorry Brandon, I spaced on your question, dryer is gas.
Not that I'm trying to brag here, but aside from this blunder we have only had maybe 3 discharge jobs with a considerable issue. One was a week or two ago(I posted about it) and was really my fault for trying to rush through something and assuming it would work without taking the time to think it through.
Anyway guess what I am getting at is this wasn't our first time at the rodeo! We did nothing different than we have done on hundreds of other discharge jobs.
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TCT if it anything but bad ink I will send you the $4.
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Just got off the phone with 2 CCI reps, so lets hope we get some good insight here soon!
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AND it gets worse! People call me stupid for being superstitious, not more than 5 min after talking to the second CCI rep and posting my post above, another customer contacted us! This is a long story, but due to how we have to bill some of our customers their orders don't show up the same way in our system so we overlooked their orders that got this same ink... The customer that just contacted us, 145 T's Gildan 5000 color Gravel(that is a 100% cotton T) The shirt had white(Rutland) Black(CCI) and D-Flo Orange(CCI) D-Flo Orange is no good, came off all 145, other colors no issue. We just reached out to the other two jobs we printed with this orange(one is Gildan 2000's in Black the other is Gildan 5000 in Gravel again, both are 100% cotton) and I am a bit scared to hear back! :-\
Has ANYONE else printed the CCI D-Flo Orange in the last month?
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AND it gets worse! People call me stupid for being superstitious, not more than 5 min after talking to the second CCI rep and posting my post above, another customer contacted us! This is a long story, but due to how we have to bill some of our customers their orders don't show up the same way in our system so we overlooked their orders that got this same ink... The customer that just contacted us, 145 T's Gildan 5000 color Gravel(that is a 100% cotton T) The shirt had white(Rutland) Black(CCI) and D-Flo Orange(CCI) D-Flo Orange is no good, came off all 145, other colors no issue. We just reached out to the other two jobs we printed with this orange(one is Gildan 2000's in Black the other is Gildan 5000 in Gravel again, both are 100% cotton) and I am a bit scared to hear back! :-\
Has ANYONE else printed the CCI D-Flo Orange in the last month?
I hope CCI will assume some of the financial responsibility for this, make sure you point them to this thread!
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TCT I will send you the $4. I feel for you.
Who needs test print shirts. TCT is now selling them. :( :( :(
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Ok, just did some testing....
Shirts-
-Black Tultex 0202 100% Cotton
-Black Gildan 2000 100% Cotton
-Navy Tultex 0202 100% Cotton
Ink-
- CCI D-Flo Orange + 4% D-Powder
Dryer Info-
Gas dryer in chamber for 93 sec. Ink Temp 366
Below are a mess of pics of what the outcome is....
These are as they have just been printed BEFORE the dryer-
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_131821_zps6f656f8e.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_131821_zps6f656f8e.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_1318031_zpsdb9f9462.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_1318031_zpsdb9f9462.jpg.html)
After the trip through the dryer-
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_132033_zps0a668170.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_132033_zps0a668170.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_132041_zpsc37826f8.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_132041_zpsc37826f8.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_132929_zpsc553b212.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_132929_zpsc553b212.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_132808_zpsfac10ffe.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_132808_zpsfac10ffe.jpg.html)
AND now after rubbing my wet thumb over the print a few times....
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_133558_zps9453a9af.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_133558_zps9453a9af.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_133552_zps8c44d9d4.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_133552_zps8c44d9d4.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/IMG_20140626_133540_zps16f3f1c8.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/IMG_20140626_133540_zps16f3f1c8.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_133436_zps109b0491.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_133436_zps109b0491.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_133434_zps609bb6e2.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_133434_zps609bb6e2.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_133114_zpsd167196e.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_133114_zpsd167196e.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_133256_zpsa6122a6e.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_133256_zpsa6122a6e.jpg.html)
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/20140626_133118_zps44bcd5b0.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/20140626_133118_zps44bcd5b0.jpg.html)
:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
I have to send some of the ink to CCI for testing. Guess I originally thought they would find some loophole to not take responsibility, but the rep actually said he didn't know what was going to happen but they "would take care of me"....
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it is hard to imagine anything else being the problem at this point.
I am also interested in seeing what CCI does as eating all the shirts would be unlikely for almost all of the ink companies I can think of. If they actually admit it and cover at least the shirts it would speak volumes of the company and would probably end my search for WB/DC supplier instantly (several are pretty close and CCI is in the final few, but standing behind the product that way would be more important than the minor differences in performance).
pierre
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I have zero experience with this type of printing but i know the fundamentals. And from those pics it clearly looks like the shirt discharged but the pigments did not stick.
And if I ever was doing this type of printing you discovered a new "end of the oven test" By rubbing with a wet finger.
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The question I have now is how many gallons of this orange ink did CCI make? How many shirts have been printing nation wide with this ink? That is scary if you think about it.
I am sure CCI will take care of it. They have always gone out of their way for me.
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Oh man, sorry for your situation! Not fun and clients don't care if it was the ink's fault or not.
I am very interested to see where this is going. I only know of two companies that have been given a check due to bad ink. And it was a long, long time ago
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under cured?
RT Screen Designs
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Sorry didn't see the WB my bad
RT Screen Designs
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He didn't say they were going to cut a check or anything, just that they "would take care of me". I have to ship them some of the ink, that is a 4 day ship and then it needs to be tested.
I know it is a stretch to expect them to cover the cost of the garments, but it is what they should do. I doubt there would be any fabric this ink would adhere to without issue.
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So I shipped off a sample to CCI on Friday but they will not get it till late this week. I was wondering if anyone wants to or would be willing to test the ink out if I sent some? I have been consistently second guessing myself if it could be something we did. PM me your address if you are interested and I'll UPS you out some of the ink.
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damn I was going to say, send me some ink - I'll gladly test it out for you too...
I have some FLO orange from a sample kit I can print a control and see what happens.
I wonder if any other colors are going to do this......
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So I shipped off a sample to CCI on Friday but they will not get it till late this week. I was wondering if anyone wants to or would be willing to test the ink out if I sent some? I have been consistently second guessing myself if it could be something we did. PM me your address if you are interested and I'll UPS you out some of the ink.
PM sent!
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I dunno man. What if it's some weird strain of ink-virus that spreads to all my other inks? And now you're infecting the whole screen printing industry???? :o
Sorry, trying to add a little bad humor.
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I dunno man. What if it's some weird strain of ink-virus that spreads to all my other inks? And now you're infecting the whole screen printing industry???? :o
Sorry, trying to add a little bad humor.
You have found me out. >:( I am actually a undercover DTG manufacturer that is going to try to revive the T-Jet once all screen Printers have been infected!
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I dunno man. What if it's some weird strain of ink-virus that spreads to all my other inks? And now you're infecting the whole screen printing industry???? :o
Sorry, trying to add a little bad humor.
You have found me out. >:( I am actually a undercover DTG manufacturer that is going to try to revive the T-Jet once all screen Printers have been infected!
lol if there ever were a DTG horror movie, the T-Jet would definitely be the main character.
Death by Soda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at3OiAvUjH4#)
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Damn Alex you my boy and all, but you ain't nothing but TROUBLE ;D your a company killer ::) just F'ing with ya 8)..... my CCI rep is suppose to drop by sometime this week I'll see if he got some samples of flo orange we might can test while he is here.
Darryl
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Damn Alex you my boy and all, but you ain't nothing but TROUBLE ;D your a company killer ::) just F'ing with ya 8)..... my CCI rep is suppose to drop by sometime this week I'll see if he got some samples of flo orange we might can test while he is here.
Darryl
Trouble? My wife says I am "harsh" sometimes with people, I guess I just consider myself EXTREME :D
I do want to thank the HOMER and SQSLABS who said they would take time out of there busy schedules to try out the ink I have!
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I just caught this part of the post but, if you need it still, I'd be happy to send some of it down our newly installed 16' of Sprint HO. If that don't cure it I doubt anything will.
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We received the ink sample back along with the shirts used today.
See attached picture
The samples on the left are before washing.
The samples on the right are after washing.
Also included is a sample of our D-Base Premium to show that the shirt discharges.
We noticed that the white used has also washed off substantially.
All test prints were done with 155 Mesh. What mesh count was used for the actual print run?
further testing will be done on Monday.
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It was printed on a 150S. What are your thoughts of what went wrong on the ones we printed then?
Side note- would of been nice if you guys would of contacted me today and let me know about this...
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I am going to feel real stupid if the other two samples we sent out to board members are fine also!
CCI- do you have any idea why we experienced this on 3 separate jobs over a 2 week period? One of the jobs actually had CCI Spot Black and CCI mixed Teal along with Rutland white and the CCI D-Flo orange. The orange was the only color that came off those...
What % activator was used on your samples? Can you still wipe(use a wet thumb or sponge) the orange of the sample I sent?
I am at a total loss here!
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It was printed on a 150S. What are your thoughts of what went wrong on the ones we printed then?
Side note- would of been nice if you guys would of contacted me today and let me know about this...
Could be worse Alex, they could have contacted you in person and told you to shove it up your arse and then come on the forums and said they have 100% happy customers and never ever said such a thing to anyone and how dare you suggest that. Then shut down the discussion. ;)
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It was printed on a 150S. What are your thoughts of what went wrong on the ones we printed then?
Side note- would of been nice if you guys would of contacted me today and let me know about this...
Could be worse Alex, they could have contacted you in person and told you to shove it up your arse and then come on the forums and said they have 100% happy customers and never ever said such a thing to anyone and how dare you suggest that. Then shut down the discussion. ;)
Dude I know you are joking and it's all in good fun. But I don't care about blame so much right now. I just what to try to figure out WHY it happened. I have 100% lost a $25k/year customer because of this, I just want to make sure if I an doing something wrong I can rectify it before we lose more!
Homer and sqslabs received their samples of the same ink from me today(Zoo I wasn't in the shop today but I believe your sample shipped out yesterday) now I am SUPER happy I sent others out! I don't understand why the other "tests" I ran after all of this had the same issue?
CCI any insight you may have here would be appreciated!
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Wait, so they posted here instead of first contacting you directly? That's classy. :o
Sorry to hear about the customer, Alex. I'm shooting to get the ink samples on press tomorrow and the wash tests complete soon after. One way or another, we'll get it figured out.
Stay tuned!
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It was printed on a 150S. What are your thoughts of what went wrong on the ones we printed then?
Side note- would of been nice if you guys would of contacted me today and let me know about this...
Could be worse Alex, they could have contacted you in person and told you to shove it up your arse and then come on the forums and said they have 100% happy customers and never ever said such a thing to anyone and how dare you suggest that. Then shut down the discussion. ;)
Dude I know you are joking and it's all in good fun. But I don't care about blame so much right now. I just what to try to figure out WHY it happened. I have 100% lost a $25k/year customer because of this, I just want to make sure if I an doing something wrong I can rectify it before we lose more!
Homer and sqslabs received their samples of the same ink from me today(Zoo I wasn't in the shop today but I believe your sample shipped out yesterday) now I am SUPER happy I sent others out! I don't understand why the other "tests" I ran after all of this had the same issue?
CCI any insight you may have here would be appreciated!
Nice customer there. You make one mistake and they take off. That's nuts. Problems happen. Its how you take care of them that makes customers stay with you for a life time. This customer will be back. If I was you I would raise your prices on him when he returns. He would be a new customer...F-him.
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Sqslabs, dude please don't spend your 4 th on this! I doubt CCI will log back on till Monday anyway.
The customer we lost I can't necessarily blame them, it was a beginning of summer style camp for kids with learning difficulties. They have been our customer for probably 4 years. But they said they couldn't bare to see the look on the kids faces like that again. The kids in the camp have all their friends and teachers sign their shirt ect. Now they have a shirt with bright white, black and teal and faded orange. So like I said I can understand their position.
I am just really freaking out now that it was something we did wrong. But out of all the discharge jobs we have done this year(we are probably 75% or more discharge or waterbased now) these three are the only ones with issues....
Is there anyway activator powder can go bad in the bucket?
I am at a total loss.
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Maybe you could have sent a sample of activator as well. *shrug*
I'm sure cci is going to figure it out.
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Sqslabs, dude please don't spend your 4 th on this! I doubt CCI will log back on till Monday anyway.
All good man, I'll be at the shop tomorrow regardless. We are slammered at the moment.
Is there anyway activator powder can go bad in the bucket?
In my experience, yes it does lose potency over time. We now date all of our discharge agent for this reason. But if that were the case it would have likely been noticeable during the print run. How old was the agent used for this job? Are you buying it by the quart? Gallon?
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If he activated the other colors with the same activator and they worked fine, i doubt it was the activator.
I was told activator stays good for two years from the place that i buy it.
If you overload a base with pigment it can cause crocking and flake off when you scrape at it because it doesn't have enough binder to hold it. I would be curious to see what would happen if you cut the the orange 50/50 with a base and see if it holds.
But for now i guess it is a waiting game. Sorry man.
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Alex, I feel for you. Not knowing what happened or how to fix it is frustrating. Hang in there
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I think the white had flaked off as well... Right Alex?
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is the orange printed over the white?
No, straight activated D-Flo Orange
From what i understood the orange was printed direct without white under it, and the white ink came out fine. However this was a really long thread and i may have missed something.
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I was told activator stays good for two years from the place that i buy it.
I've definitely had discharge agent lose potency long before two years, but that doesn't take into consideration how long my supplier had it on their shelf before shipping it out. And I've only had this happen once, but we also go through it pretty fast under normal circumstances.
I wonder if the way the agent is stored may play a role in it as well. Would leaving the lid off a bucket of agent cause it to deteriorate faster? We usually keep ours sealed tight, but maybe I'll leave a bit uncovered for a couple weeks to see if it makes any difference. Maybe best to save that for another thread though, as not to derail this one.
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Shelf life "Minimum 6 months if stored in air tight container in a cool place"
I stand corrected on the two years. I just went and looked it up.
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Let's see if I can cover all these-
Activator we buy in 1 gal. The activator was only in our shop 2 months max. We leave the lid on. Measure out what we need and close it back up. Sits on a shelf out of sunlight.
The orange was just straight D-Flo orange with 5% activator, nothing under it. The white was Rutland and we didn't see any issue with the white. If CCI did, I'll grab a couple more shirts, hell we have over 700 of them and wash them a few more times.
The temp gun from the dryer read 366, I believe I have a pic of that, I'll look and can post.
Thanks for all the support guys! So if it turns out I just made a stupid mistake along the line somewhere, anyone still want to be friends? :D
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Alex, have you been able to repeat this issue on the same garments and on newly ordered stock? My guess would be a mill dye issue. We had something similar happen running ITC fleece about a year ago. Everything discharged beautifully except the Larges. Mill later confirmed an over-dye rendering the stock undischargable.
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I have a gut feeling it was on the garment side more than the ink side....but you DID say you had another customer call and say the orange washed off too, right?....
start at the top and start to rule things out:
Dryer temp? was it REALLY up to temp? maybe a false reading? the white did wash off too and we are talking about crossing brands of ink, close to same results of both...coincidence?
bad garments? if another custy had this happen with the same orange, but different shirt color, the common factor here is the ink ( like you already are guessing)
Acitvator?....naahhh, couldn't be
poor printing? .....naaah, this ain't your first rodeo.
what are we missing here....you used S mesh so saturation and all the techy BS has to be right...right?
I would run samples today but I want to run them down the dryer and I'm not printing today...nooo sir....
I'm just curious to know as much as you in case this ever happens to me, I think we all could benefit from this bad experience..
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Test Results
Inks Tested: CCI D-Flo Orange, CCI D-Flo Pink - Both supplied by TCT
Agent: 5% - All measurements made to within 0.01g
Heat: 75 seconds at 340 degrees through an M&R Heatwave Dryer
Screen: 150S (Manual Double Stroke)
Shirts tested: Next Level 3600 (Black), American Apparel 2001 (Black), Hanes 5170 (Heather Charcoal)
Results: All shirts discharged well, and retained color to an acceptable level following one wash/dry cycle.
Notes: While the ink was the same, none of the fabric used matched the make/model as TCT's original print. I had the 5170 on hand, which is the same color and blend, and was used to recreate the trial as closely as the original as possible.
On a side note, I dig the ink and will be using it in my shop.
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Test Results
Inks Tested: CCI D-Flo Orange, CCI D-Flo Pink - Both supplied by TCT
Agent: 5% - All measurements made to within 0.001g
Heat: 75 seconds at 340 degrees through an M&R Heatwave Dryer
Screen: 150S (Manual Double Stroke)
Shirts tested: Next Level 3600 (Black), American Apparel 2001 (Black), Hanes 5170 (Heather Charcoal)
Results: All shirts discharged well, and retained color to an acceptable level following one wash/dry cycle.
Notes: While the ink was the same, none of the fabric used matched the make/model as TCT's original print. I had the 5170 on hand, which is the same color and blend, and was used to recreate the trial as closely as the original as possible.
On a side note, I dig the ink and will be using it in my shop.
Couple of questions.
1. Just 1 wash?
2. Color acceptable?
What does that mean?
Whenever I have washed tested shirts it was always a minimum of 5 cycles through the washer and dryer. As to color level acceptable, if it faded 1 iota that was not acceptable. I have shirts from my days at Starter that the print outlasted the shirt. I would wonder sometimes if the "improvements" we see in all the supplies that come with this industry are really that, improvements. Not bashing you here, just wondering what I am missing on the testing parameters of the "new" and improved WB/DC inks. :) :)
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Well as everyone can assume I needed to change my pants when Brett(sqslabs) let me know about his results. Unless Homer pulls out something crazy looks like it is incompetence on my side. ??? Homer please if you have good results please post. I don't want to tarnish CCI's brand.
CCI - this is mainly for you... Do you have any idea what may be the issue I am having?! I think it will be SUPER beneficial for numerous customers in the future if we are able to work out a possible cause.
So what are we left with?
- Garments didn't cure all the way? If this is the issue, can I run the shirts through the dryer again EXTREMELY slow? Or is that a no go?
- Dyes in the garment? But CCI, didn't you run your tests on a piece of the garment I sent?
-What else?
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So it has to have something to do with undercure, penitration or over saturation (part of the undercure).
Here is my guessing since: the inks checked out fine and the fabric is not an issue since this happened on 3 orders of different garments.
Were you in a hurry and maybe ran the dryer faster then normal?
Was the run longer then your normal DC run?
Was is a rainy day or a high humidity day?
Its been hot, did you add fans or anything like that to your dryer area to keep the guys at the end of the dryer cool?
Could you have printed this ink thicker or oversaturated the garment then your normal DC print? That would cause this to happen since it would take much longer to evaporate and cure that print. Could have been done with not a hard enough print, too much angle, too soft a squeegee? Have you tried to run the same ink in a different head? Maybe a air cylinder malfunctioned?
That is all I got as possible options.
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Couple of questions.
1. Just 1 wash?
2. Color acceptable?
What does that mean?
Whenever I have washed tested shirts it was always a minimum of 5 cycles through the washer and dryer. As to color level acceptable, if it faded 1 iota that was not acceptable. I have shirts from my days at Starter that the print outlasted the shirt. I would wonder sometimes if the "improvements" we see in all the supplies that come with this industry are really that, improvements. Not bashing you here, just wondering what I am missing on the testing parameters of the "new" and improved WB/DC inks. :) :)
My goal wasn't to test D-Flo inks for wash fastness over time. It was to recreate the specific circumstances of Alex's print as closely as possible and record the results. His shirts were only washed once, so there was no need to wash the one I did five times. In regards to the color, I've yet to meet a discharge ink that didn't show some sort of color variation after wash on a ringspun or 50/50 shirt. I posted a bit more about that recently in another thread which you can find at the following link if you'd like to check out more of my thoughts on that. http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12293.msg116491 (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12293.msg116491)
There are certain variables that come into play with discharge inks that are just part of what they are, and should be used accordingly. The inks used in this test seem to be so loaded with pigment that the prints will almost always look more vibrant out of the dryer than they will after the top layer of ink is removed during its initial wash cycle. The level of that will depend on the ink color and fabric it is printed on. I consider that to be acceptable with discharge inks, hence my using of the term. When it isn't acceptable, I use plastisol.
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Our dryer hasn't changed speed in probably over a year. No fans to effect the dryer(today was our first day over 90 :-[ ) Humidity could be a issue I suppose, we have had quite a bit of rain this year but we usually have the doors closed.
If humidity or oversaturation is the issue, is it possible to put these bad boys through the dryer again?
I can't express how much I truly appreciate everyone's input and help with this. It is just such a odd issue! I am going to run another temp strip through the dryer just in case or temp gun is off....
CCI- is the pigment load on the D-Flo orange particularly heavy by chance?
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I don't know about the flo orange but I printed some flo pink manually a few weeks ago and it had alot of pigment. It was my first time using the flow colors so maybe they all feel like they do. I mixed in some base and some water just to get it flowing right. I printed it manually because it was only 24 shirts. If I remember correctly I ran them though the dryer twice. Most DC jobs only go though once.
With high humidity its not just the ink you have to evaporate. The shirt will hold moisture just from the air. This will make it harder to cure that shirt. When I am printing 2 or more DC colors on a shirt with decent coverage I will put my flash on for a few seconds just to help. I'm in Arizona and its dry here most of the time but when the humidity is up from a storm, I know it.
Can you run the shirts one more time and see if they cure? Good Question. Another question is if you have the shirts why have you not tried that? That would have been my first test. From my knowledge, You can not get the shirts to discharge anymore after the agent has expired. I have had inks I mixed still have some active agent after 2 weeks but that was ink in a closed container. Will the ink that was already reacted cure after the shirts have sat? I honestly don't see why not. The binders are still there. Everyone tells you, you have to evaporate all the water out before the shirt can cure so a dried binder must still work. I say try and see.
Either way there is something that did this. The fact that the other colors cured (even some flo colors on the shirts) makes me think the orange is special or it was printed differently.
You will find the answer but you will drive your self nuts until then. It bothers me and its not even my shop.
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JON- I have been to Arizona many times, you guys can't even spell humidity! :D I have tried a bunch of things with these shirts, put them through the dryer many 3 times... I think I am going to try to s l o w it down to a crawl and try to put them through again.
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Alex, how do the strips work? Do they measure temp & duration? Asking because you could have cool spots in your dryer, causing the ink to discharge but not at temp long enough for the pigment to bind/adhere to the fabric.
Chris
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I say take the shirts or a handful and let someone else run them thru there dyer and see what you get, it's your dryer or someone might have mixed the ink wrong, I do hope you get this problem solved.
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Hi
I've taken some pictures this morning of the returned shirts and a prints using the retuned ink.
In answer to some of the questions we used 155 mesh, 5% activator and our prints were done on material cut from the returned shirts.
As you can see from the pictures, I feel that the cause of the problem is not enough ink laydown/penetration; whether this is from lack of pressure, squeegee type, snap....or another reason. I don't feel this is anything to do with cure.
I know these pictures differ from ones previously posted and show far less coverage on the customer printed shirt .. I have no explanation for that but this goes a long way in explain why it washes off.
If anyone has any other questions feel free to ask or if you think we should test something else please let me know
Regards
CCI
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We used a 80 duro squeegee on the print.
1) What duro did you guys use?
2) Is the pigment load on the D-Flo shirts high?
3) Can you think of any way to salvage the shirts that we have that have not been worn, just sat in the box?
Thanks
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80's pretty hard for waterbase. We like 60 or 70, usually the former.
What does the inside of the garment look like?
No fix unfortunately.
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1) not 100% sure but I believe its 60. I hand print all tests
2) Its up there but nowhere near as high as the amount of pigment typically used in a white for example
3) That's tough...unless you can align each shirt exactly I don't see how you can save this. Maybe print a patch of color over the top and reprint with plastisol ??
I also think the white has washed of considerably but doesn't show as much because the shirt actually discharges to quite a white color ( see our original post with a d-base premium print)
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The inside of the returned shirts shows no sign of the discharge or print which is another indication of possible lack of pressure. My test prints all show a reasonable amount of the print on the inside; I don't feel like I'm pressing very hard when I print.
I've attached a picture from the inside of my test print and the returned shirt before washing. The area directly to the right of my print is the inside area of the returned shirt.
The picture looks more discharged than real life if anyone's thinking we have too much ink going through the shirt
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Alex - I have the tests printing right now too....I'll follow up after a few wash cycles...
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80 durometer seems WAY to hard and won't put down enough ink. we use 60, but what do I know?
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I just ran a 3 color using 55/90/55. I will typically use 65/90/65's for my waterbase/discharge printing.
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We use 60/90/60s on just about every job except for highly detailed halftones.
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we use 60, but what do I know?
Clearly more than me! ;D
This whole thing has me thrown in a crazy way. We have printed thousands of shirts the way we printed these(not saying how we did it is right) but never had a issue till these 3 jobs.... I totally understand the reasoning of the poor penetration and I'm not arguing it, it just has me so confused! I am a guy that like it when 2+2=4, there is no gray area left. This situation is adding up to more of a 3.8 ;D
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SORRY!!! Now I really look like a fool! It is a 70 duro squeegee we used! Everyone questioning it had me check again, green is 70!
Anyone have a rock I can hide under?
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I'd think that 70 would still have at least decent penetration..
How fast were you running the print stroke?
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here's my test print. 110 was all I had at the moment, 60 duro, manual print. washed with a power washer for 3 minutes...slight movement of the ink in spots but nothing crazy....pretty nasty pic but you get the idea....I have a few test shirts in the wash machine, made one for myself... ;D..sooo looks like it wasn't the ink.. :(
(http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u27/Homer__/CCI_zps9ff65a57.jpg)
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Alex,
You have non rubber topped pallets, right? If so you should be using softer squeegees (55/90/55 65/90/65 and 60's and 70's) not for just waterbase. I learned this after a few trials. The harder the print surface the softer the squeegee. It works the other way also. For fleece you want a harder squeegee. For waterbase a soft squeegee prints better. The harder squeegee more detail thing does not really translate as much for waterbase. Water base inks have no body so they don't need the hard squeegee to shear or hold pressure.
This still does not sound like the answer to why these shirts washed out. No way. The print looks good before wash, even a soft print would stay more then the 10 to 25 percent these did. I guess a combo of soft print and under cure would do this but still does not feel right to me.
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This still does not sound like the answer to why these shirts washed out. No way. The print looks good before wash, even a soft print would stay more then the 10 to 25 percent these did. I guess a combo of soft print and under cure would do this but still does not feel right to me.
I'd agree if we were talking about a 100% cotton tee, but keep in mind that these are 50/50. Now this ink does perform outstanding on 50/50 as I saw in my own tests, but between that and the lack of pressure there may be a possibility that it was just the perfect storm. And at this point, I think we should probably begin looking at a perfect storm scenario. Of course, that doesn't explain the similar results he got on cotton shirts, but if they were less faded than the blends were after a wash it might. I haven't seen those.
As mentioned in another thread, I once had a run look great out of the dryer that faded drastically after a wash. This was due to running a single stroke at likely not enough pressure. And those were 100% cotton tees. As discharge (and waterbased) ink prints completely different than plastisol and must be driven into the shirt as opposed to laid on top of the shirt, pressure is a good thing, and even dropping the off contact a bit closer to the shirt can be very helpful in achieving proper penetration. If the ink is just laid on top of the shirt, there's a good chance that it might look great until it is washed due to the reaction still taking place with the top layer of fabric, but not much underneath.
Alex, I know you have been running S-Mesh at your shop and am wondering if there's a chance you've translated the lack of pressure required for a plastisol print to your discharge prints as well when using these screens. The excellent wash results that you've seen in the past would contradict this, but I'm sure you don't want to leave any stone unturned in solving the problem, so I figured I'd ask after seeing the photo of the back of the prints that CCI posted. What PSI are you running your discharge prints at?
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Alex to try and save the printed shirts did you try heat pressing them with a decent amount of heat/pressure yet? I'd try it and do a wash test if you haven't already.
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Well I think this brings this to a close....
Tried heat pressing like Danny suggested. 4 different ways, 1) With water 2) With Fixer 3) With Binder 4) With Penetrant. All were with 80psi, 375* for 50sec. and the results were all the same as the original. :-\
Now the question becomes, do we re print the 700 of them the same way, with just more pressure?! ???
This hasn't been all bad, probably a good learning thread for people. I also REALLY appreciate all the help and advice everyone has given, really showcases what a great community this forum is! It will also be a added bonus if we can keep the CCI rep on the boards for advice and questions.
On one last note, I may have to give up printing and start teaching.... Thanks to Binkspot I have made more money off this post than screen printing!...
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab14/twincitytees/70545d85-b9b1-433a-8ff7-4de728ea946f_zps592d11f9.jpg) (http://s845.photobucket.com/user/twincitytees/media/70545d85-b9b1-433a-8ff7-4de728ea946f_zps592d11f9.jpg.html)
Binkspot- Too funny!!!!! I feel guilty depositing your check. Maybe I will and when we meet up in Chicago in a few weeks I can repay it with dividends in form of a few frosty beverages ;D
Thanks again everyone!
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I know I learned something, no one told me that the activator had a shelf life of 6 months :o
darryl
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I know I learned something, no one told me that the activator had a shelf life of 6 months :o
darryl
Sorry but I don't think this is the case. As it gets older the powder will smell more or may clump together if the container is opened and closed frequently but should still work fine. In ideal conditions it will be ok for at least a year...probably longer
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If anything the (unfortunately expensive) lesson here is that even if an ink discharges to the correct color
it doesn't necessarily mean it's correctly discharged. Always check penetration, and even better, wash test.
Even if it means a pressure wash test.
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Shelf life "Minimum 6 months if stored in air tight container in a cool place"
I stand corrected on the two years. I just went and looked it up.
it can and does last longer, than 6 months, which is why it says "minimum". I just copy and pasted right off the data sheet of zfs.
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You asked for $4 from anyone who read to the third page.
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Sorry but I don't think this is the case. As it gets older the powder will smell more or may clump together if the container is opened and closed frequently but should still work fine. In ideal conditions it will be ok for at least a year...probably longer
A year from when though? If it's been sitting in my supplier's warehouse for 8 months, do I still get a year from when I receive it? Or is it a year from when it gets to my shop?
I know that may be a bit of an extreme example, but I have had discharge powder lose its potency within a few months.
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You asked for $4 from anyone who read to the third page.
Yes I did, I bet you got a gold star in school for "listens well" ;D
Seriously, that made my day!