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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: LoneWolf2 on March 27, 2015, 04:04:36 PM
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What white inks are yall using for these awful garment dyed shirts? 90% of what I print is comfort colors and getting a good bright white is not the easiest thing in the world. I've been using mainly triangle glacier white and Phoenix white and have had decent results, but they're tough to clear the screen unless
I'm using a double stroke, and the suppliers I have to get them from are 2 days shipping from me, which isn't ideal for time sensitive reorders. I've also tried Wilflex amazing white, and rutland snap white. Both left a lot to be desired and I found myself going back to the Triangle. Have any of yall had any success with other inks? I actually don't have any "cotton" whites on hand since I rarely print anything 100% cotton that's not garment dyed, but I'm looking to work in a cotton white for those colors that don't bleed, so any recommendations for that are appreciated as well.
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Well, I use Rutland Street Fighter, but it seems to have fallen into disrepute with some here.
I should mention that I print manually.
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My go to white for everything is triangle poly excel. I also print manually. It mats down nicely, is super creamy, handles bleed well, etc. I actually just printed about 200 comfort colors yesterday and it handled perfectly. The print was giant block white letters with a thin colored stroke, standard college/frat type crap.
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I just got burned on some comfort colors shirts. White imprint on dark read, we used a low bleed white and should have used a poly white. Had to eat 24 of them. My printer says he looked at the tag and it said 100% cotton so he used our cotton white...but it didn't work out so well. One Stroke Production on comfort colors from now on, but I think any decent poly white will be fine, just don't trust a low bleed. I'm not saying they won't work, but there's no guarantee they won't bleed so print at your own risk.
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Do you guys have trouble with all garment dyed shirts or just Comfort Colors?
Since "garment dyed" only really means dyed after it's made into a shirt, I assume that different dyes can be used.
Are these Pigment dyed, is that the real killer?
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We used sonnys mustang white to good success this past week on some red comfort colors... prefer discharge when applicable though..
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Do you guys have trouble with all garment dyed shirts or just Comfort Colors?
Since "garment dyed" only really means dyed after it's made into a shirt, I assume that different dyes can be used.
Are these Pigment dyed, is that the real killer?
It's mainly the pigment dyed ones that suck. Half of their offerings are "pigment" and the other are "reactive dyed", which aren't as bad.
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Lone wolf is correct. The reactive dyed shirts will print white. The pigment dyed shirts will turn the white ink a shade of the dye. Just need to inform the customer of that. Some of the colors are really bad. The darker reds and greens are the worse. And as for dye blocking inks, well that doesn't work on pigment dyed shirts so we just print cotton white. If the customer isn't ok with the ink dis coloring then use a reactive color. Most people are fine with it.
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Has anybody ran LC additive in their whites when they print CC shirts?
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We have had a couple of them turn on us, depending on the art I would use a poly white or use a under base grey/white mix as a base. We had one set of shirts, Moss Green turned the white pink.
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We have a job coming in this week with these tees. We should be getting them by the end of the week. How do you determine if they are reactive dyed shirts or pigment dyed?
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We are running our first Comfort Colors this week. 450 pieces, assorted colors.
This thread is well timed. We've elected to print the run using One Stroke Dry Fit Poly White
If I hadn't read this thread, we would have most likely printed using Street Fighter 100%.
The dye used should be listed on the product spec page.
V/r -John
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ELT White, or ELT-S White from One Stroke Inks were developed with lots of input from a certain very large screen printer in Carroll Iowa to eliminate this type of problem as well as the Under Armor Hoodie fronts from shrinking when printed and cured above 290F. The ELT-S is a slightly softer, better matte down more opaque, ever so slightly less bleed resistant version of the ELT White. For all of you printers out there not familiar with One Stroke Inks, white ink is the vast majority of our business for a reason! We have many customers who buy only our white, and other ink companies color lines.( boy that must drive em crazy!!). Best results though are to use the full series,, white and colors.
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We are running our first Comfort Colors this week. 450 pieces, assorted colors.
This thread is well timed. We've elected to print the run using One Stroke Dry Fit Poly White
If I hadn't read this thread, we would have most likely printed using Street Fighter 100%.
The dye used should be listed on the product spec page.
V/r -John
It's a contract job... guess we'll wait until we get the tees and go from there. Thanks.
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The PIA ones the tags are the same color as the shirt. Belive it or not IMO the Crunch Berry ones print best even though they look like they will be a disaster.
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Watch out for ink adherent problems with Comfort Colors' apparent attempt at one-upmanship to Gildan's oil stains
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These shirts always come with built-in stains, crooked seams, and holes/rips galore.
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I think the pockets are sewn on by blind dogs. I don't think they could be any more crooked if you tried.
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But it's that aforementioned buttery finish that makes them smell so good in the dryer! ;D
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About to jump into this 450 piece assorted Comfort Color pigment dyed order (dyed tags)
White POLY ink..
Any last minute heads up or advice?
We will dial back flash and dryer temps to try and mitigate as much migration as we can...
but other than that I am planning on having production run the job as normal.
Thanks.
John
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the best advice i can give you is print BLACK INK instead of white. The red shades and darker colors HATE white ink.
especially the color brick.
run them through the dryer first to get some of that dye to evaporate first, or it'll make it's way up through and into your white ink.
also - they can migrate in the box up to 3 hours later, so watch out for that. They can look GREAT at the end of your dryer and look terrible at time of delivery.
other than that, they are a piece of cake! We hate those shirts. I mean, we REALLY hate those shirts. Not bad if printing dark on light though.
J
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Thanks for the feedback.
These are mostly lights, so I will move forward with confidence.
8 years in business, and this is the first time these have crossed
our production floor.
V/r - John
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We are getting ready to do a 600 plus order... different colored shirts, white ink (we don't have a choice on the ink color). We are going to use 100% poly ink... any issues with ghosting on these things things?
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We are getting ready to do a 600 plus order... different colored shirts, white ink (we don't have a choice on the ink color). We are going to use 100% poly ink... any issues with ghosting on these things things?
I haven't had any issues except on the neon ones, but those are a whole different animal in themselves.
Just be careful and keep an eye on them. Wouldn't be a bad idea to set a fan up towards the end of your belt to help cool them off a bit more.
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I agree, the neon comfort color shirts I tested on became boardy and stiff if the were ran through an oven over 290F. Don't know if it was a reaction of the dye with the shirt somehow. I had never seen a cotton shirt stiffen like that before.