TSB
screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Shawn (EIP) on November 05, 2011, 01:20:27 PM
-
Stunk up my shop to high heaven, people in my building are bitching but anyhow...
Here's a close up pic of the Gildan 5000
(http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/300357_314039295279877_100000214276131_1436802_1160094089_n.jpg)
Full print pic
(http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/305827_314037801946693_100000214276131_1436790_1467984187_n.jpg)
Wish I snapped off some shot of the AA before I mailed them out.
6 foot dryer , ran em through twice , 110 screen (all I had on hand) discharge from Excalubure 3 part system (wetting agent,clear base,activator) 15 x 21 print size
The Gildan 5000's discharged much brighter then the American Apparel shirt's maybe because AA has a tighter weave?
The customer wanted zero feel to the print we opted out of the white discharge base and went with clear.
At any rate, how's it look?
-
Pretty bright, considering only clear base. Good detail, too, for a 110.
Next time the other tenants bitch, tell 'em you're sorry but you had Mexican for dinner the night before.
-
looks good to me.
-
Yes, very nice. 1 color? can anyone say AWESOMENESS! 8)
-
great design
-
Yes, very nice. 1 color? can anyone say AWESOMENESS! 8)
Thanks! Yes, 1 color 1 hit of discharge (clear) and twice through the dryer.
The artwork is not my own but submitted (I wish I drew that!)
-
Awesome design.
Nice job.
Like Tom, I'm a little amazed that just clear produced such a white finished print. Usually the oxidation of discharge leaves the raw cotton (tan) color.
-
Awesome design.
Nice job.
http://www.lancergroup.com/lancer/ink_catalog/water_based/catalog7_sm3.html (http://www.lancergroup.com/lancer/ink_catalog/water_based/catalog7_sm3.html)
-
Ohhhhh, was that waterbase Shawn?
I've never dabbled with waterbase.
Altho, having said that, the Union Plasticharge is a hybrid that after you add the activator, the cleanup is with water. So maybe in a way, I have, lol.
-
Ohhhhh, was that waterbase Shawn?
I've never dabbled with waterbase.
Yup according to my supplier waterbase works way better than the plasticharge stuff, I dont have the experience to back that up yet though but clean up was breeze. I was worried the ink would dry in my screen since I had to run around like a crazy person sending the shirts through twice after every 3 printed shirts but no issues at all. This stuff says low oder man I'd hate the smell the reg stuff. The wetting agent seems to make it alittle foamer like melted icecream.
-
Hey Shawn, nice prints, try a 150/48 "s" mesh next time, it's supposedly the jam for discharge with more open area and better ability to hold detail than a standard 110. I bet double stroking the AA might've helped with the penetration.
A ?: where did the stankiness come from- the discharge ink on-press or from dryer emissions curing the shirts?
I ask because I've never handled discharge before (have done some wb) and hvac is one of the last things I need to complete in our new shop. I'm going to vent our dryer, which has about 6' of forced, hot air, appropriately and also install fume catchers on both the intake and outtake.
But, I'm contemplating having some make-up air and exhaust around the press. This may dry the ink quicker but I plan on humidifying as needed as well. But, what if we flash discharge (I'm going to make it my goal to never do this but sh!t happens as we all know) on-press? Better have a vent hood over that flash and/or the cool-down I would imagine.
I don't want our shop to reek and I'm not sure how the rest of you put up with it. I feel like we're in an age where we don't have to inhale weird crap to be screen printers anymore. What do some of you "larger than one man" shops do regarding this?
-
I just tried Ryonets white discharge 2 strokes on a 140 mesh on Gildan 5000s. I like it alot. I am going to try it with 1 stroke because it does leave a slight hand after washing but I was amazed that the odor was not strong at all. I have used Jantex discharge and that stinks to high heaven. Pics suck, I have a new cheap digital camera coming so that will help on that.
-
those prints rock guys, keep 'em coming. Also, has anybody ever tried printing plastisol over a discharge base? Just wondering if it's possible.
-
those prints rock guys, keep 'em coming. Also, has anybody ever tried printing plastisol over a discharge base? Just wondering if it's possible.
I've never tried it but I would think it work great. Anyone?
-
That was the first way that I ever saw it done. Almost 20 years ago, I was pulling on an auto,at a place then printing some jobs for Disney Epcot Center and don't remember if they flashed the base or not.
I remember that the smell was bad. It scared me away from discharge until the hybrids were introduced.
Interestingly, some here have said the that the plastisol hybrids smell worse.
-
those prints rock guys, keep 'em coming. Also, has anybody ever tried printing plastisol over a discharge base? Just wondering if it's possible.
Yup. 230-305 -almost no hand at all. wet on wet all the way through. I ran some glitter in the last head, double stroke and they turned out beautiful. try it, only way to learn. Now if I could only get my dye figured out, they always look so flat and muted.
-
Printed 2 colors plastisol wet on wet on top of an unflashed waterbase discharge base the hand was softer than flashing the discharge unbase first for some reason.
Really though the smell is enough to keep me away from making this a regular used ink in the shop, only when asked for.
-
have you tried the Ryonet stuff?
-
I only did a sample with that Ryonet white discharge and used the Jantex discharge agent that I have any seriously I did not notice a strong smell at all but when using the Jantex discharge base it will smell the shop up for a couple days.
-
Nice print. Pretty damn good detail for a 110 as well.
The "Ryonet" branded white and clear discharge bases are fantastic. That's because it's CCI product, like most of the chemicals that Ryonet sells. (you can call CCI and order it directly...). It's very smooth and prints really easy. Stinks a little less too.
BTW - if you really want to smell bad ink, toss a lid on the pot of discharge at the end of the day and don't open it for a week...
-
Oh and in my experience, Gildan shirts discharge much better than AA shirts in general.
-
Oh and in my experience, Gildan shirts discharge much better than AA shirts in general.
AA's never seemed to work awesome for discharge, to much material to wet to make it work right.
I like to use Anvil 779 as they discharge great and have tear away tags. Did this 6 color wet on wet a couple weeks ago.
I've still got to try the CCI base, it's all I hear lately but my home brew white mix with the matsui is perfect now.
-
Very nice. We got xlnt results with the Wilflex NF discharge and Gildan T's. We also got good results with American Apparel t's yet it was a very different yet distinct discharge. In my test, every brand T's dye reacts differently to the various discharge bases out there, finding the right mix of discharge brand and t shirt brand is the hardest part of the R&D. Once you got it, it smooth sailing from there. Looks like you nailed it, very nice samples
-
Once you got it, it smooth sailing from there.
Eh, mostly. I have run into weird batches of shirts where the dye is just stubborn. Sometimes even just a half dozen or so in a box. Everything else will discharge perfectly, and there are some duds in a batch.
Gildan is relatively consistent though, as is Fruit of the Loom. (in my experience anyway)
-
Someone asked if it was printing the ink that stinks or the curing, as a wet ink you can only smell it if you stuck your face in it, but exiting the dryer it smokes (steam) or mix of both and man does it stink!
-
Someone asked if it was printing the ink that stinks or the curing, as a wet ink you can only smell it if you stuck your face in it, but exiting the dryer it smokes (steam) or mix of both and man does it stink!
Many shops that do discharge on a regular basis will add extra exhaust goods at each end of the tunnel. It really is a great test of your current exhaust, eh?
-
Someone asked if it was printing the ink that stinks or the curing, as a wet ink you can only smell it if you stuck your face in it, but exiting the dryer it smokes (steam) or mix of both and man does it stink!
That was me. Excellent to know. I figured venting the hell out of the dryer all around would do the trick with a small hood over the flash if that becomes a frequent habit.
Next I'm wondering if it would be best to straight up pre-launder the discharge prints so there's a soft hand out of the box, no smell and hopefully less formaldehyde at that point than the shirt had as a preservative in it's cotton before printing. It'd be nice for retailers too as when people asks "does it shrink" they could say they're pre-laundered so just wash cold, tumble medium and no shrinkage. It'd also be very handy to have a washer/dryer in the shop for wash testing garments right away. Big runs would have to go to a laundry service at an additional fee of course.
-
Someone asked if it was printing the ink that stinks or the curing, as a wet ink you can only smell it if you stuck your face in it, but exiting the dryer it smokes (steam) or mix of both and man does it stink!
That was me. Excellent to know. I figured venting the hell out of the dryer all around would do the trick with a small hood over the flash if that becomes a frequent habit.
Next I'm wondering if it would be best to straight up pre-launder the discharge prints so there's a soft hand out of the box, no smell and hopefully less formaldehyde at that point than the shirt had as a preservative in it's cotton before printing. It'd be nice for retailers too as when people asks "does it shrink" they could say they're pre-laundered so just wash cold, tumble medium and no shrinkage. It'd also be very handy to have a washer/dryer in the shop for wash testing garments right away. Big runs would have to go to a laundry service at an additional fee of course.
I would be too afraid of getting complaints the shirts look used. Then there is the issue of more time needed to complete the job, no washer and dryer at the shop. How do you charge for laundry service?
-
I just tried discharge a few weeks ago I posted how bad it stunk I tried it in my house VERY BAD IDEA. Anyway I loved it, it was Ryonet's discharge on Gildan 6.1 oz shirts it worked great, so great I am moving my shop to my garage so I can use it more. Super easy to work with, by the way it was my first jump into water based inks I really liked the end results and the clean up was great. A trick someone told was to keep a spray bottle of water by the press and every 20 minutes or so wet down the ink and screen lightly, it helps keep it from drying in the screen.
-
Oh and in my experience, Gildan shirts discharge much better than AA shirts in general.
AA's never seemed to work awesome for discharge, to much material to wet to make it work right.
I like to use Anvil 779 as they discharge great and have tear away tags. Did this 6 color wet on wet a couple weeks ago.
I've still got to try the CCI base, it's all I hear lately but my home brew white mix with the matsui is perfect now.
Just curious of the print order. Care to divulge? ;D
-
Just curious of the print order. Care to divulge? ;D
what was it... hmm..
black, brown, green, blue, yellow white. All inks were based with 15-20% H20 to encourage blending and less pick up on other screens.
-
I've still got to try the CCI base, it's all I hear lately but my home brew white mix with the matsui is perfect now.
Call CCI and get some of their pre-mix white and their clear base. You won't look back.
The pre-mix white is everything Matsui should have been. I used to take the Matsui and base it down, add water, some fixer, a little Pringen C, etc then whip the hell out of it trying to get it smoother and easier to print. The CCI is EXACTLY what I was going for, straight out of the container.
And their clear base plays well with my existing stock of Matsui PMS pigments.
-
CCI is working on a pigment line and will probably be releasing it early next year. It will purportedly be sold in easily dispensible containers.
-
CCI is working on a pigment line and will probably be releasing it early next year. It will purportedly be sold in easily dispensible containers.
Followed shortly by partially used gallons of Rutland WB99 pigments for sale.
-
CCI is working on a pigment line and will probably be releasing it early next year. It will purportedly be sold in easily dispensible containers.
I think I'll hold out for cci's pigments, sounds like a good thing. Thx for the update Tony.
-
After reading all this, one thing I can add, at least for Wilflex users...printing plastisol over discharge all wet, if any of your colors contain an appreciable amount of maroon pigment (PC, Eq, MX maroon), watch out for color shifting, discharge will eat away at that pigment and cause the color to come out off. You can avoid this by flashing, but the smell and the fumes, we have 2 pretty large exaust fans in our roof that will pull out most of the fumes quickly, one is set center between and above presses. Also, don't count on discharge colors always looking great WOW, I've seen more than a couple of cases where a strategic flash or 2 makes the print go from ho-hum to really nice, as mentioned sh!t happens.
Our dryers have fume hoods front and rear (built in), forced air and stong exhuast, so when we run discharge without flashing the smell is not that noticable. Hope that helps ya Zoo.
Here's a 9 color we did back in the spring (sorry for partial censorship), meshes were all 150, print order I believe was black, purples, royal, maroon, orange, yellow, red, flash, white. All sericol ink except the white. The black was for the drop shadow on the text for the other color shirts we did.
(http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/4193/multidischarge.jpg)
-
That does help, thanks squeeg. Since I've been having sh!t luck all year I may as well plan on flashing discharge right now and vent appropriately. While I shoot for the moon in terms of production and encourage my staff to do the same on every job I frequently find myself on the phone with my printer saying "just get it done, that's fine if you have to flash it 3 times." etc. Just try an learn how to avoid it next time seems to be a pretty constant theme around here. But it can be a little bit lofty to expect no more than a single flash on any job...or no flashing ever like some out there advocate.
That print looks like a prime candidate for the over printing method Tony's always talking about (and doing). Maybe could get that 9 color down to a six? I'm banking on using the living hell out of this method once initial r&d gets done. I think I'm actually going to build a set of stock discharge color mixes, test on all the shirts 'till I find a couple of sweetheart brands/colors and only (mostly?) offer or do that style of printing on those brands/colors with those stock inks in various overprint configurations. It'll probably be a six color set plus white and black... but I'm not exactly sure on that part yet, need to get my feet wet and do some studyin up on color theory as well.
-
It'll probably be a six color set plus white and black... but I'm not exactly sure on that part yet, need to get my feet wet and do some studyin up on color theory as well.
Discharge and water base ink in general is very forgiving for printing wet-on-wet to mix colors. Just try to keep white pigment out of the mix until the last screen. (it builds up on the screens really quick)
This was done with 4 colors on Gildan "sand" shirts. The gold and orange are discharge, (the make them "pop", the black and light blue are regular Matsui wb.
(http://evoscreenprinting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/om_durga1.jpg)
The gold and orange fade down and up respectively from 100% to 0% to simulate a split fountain. The blue, orange and gold mix at varying percentages to make secondary and tertiary colors. (light and dark greens, light blue, browns, tans, etc.)
Most of the extra colors are buried in the details... hard to see in the pic.
This was mostly separated in GIMP, then pulled into Corel Photo-Paint to do the fades/channels.
-
That print looks like a prime candidate for the over printing method Tony's always talking about (and doing). Maybe could get that 9 color down to a six? I'm banking on using the living hell out of this method once initial r&d gets done. I think I'm actually going to build a set of stock discharge color mixes, test on all the shirts 'till I find a couple of sweetheart brands/colors and only (mostly?) offer or do that style of printing on those brands/colors with those stock inks in various overprint configurations. It'll probably be a six color set plus white and black... but I'm not exactly sure on that part yet, need to get my feet wet and do some studyin up on color theory as well.
Actually no I don't think so, the only color that could easily be made by blending IMO would have been the orange. Maybe, in a stretch, the maroon or the dark purple could be made by shading the red or light purple with black, but honestly that wouldn't look as good or pure. It also probably would have taken at least 2 tries per color to get the black percentages right on press. The orange by blending yes, but we have a nice pure orange discharge and I'd only get one head back anyway.
Beyond that the artwork was generated months before press time so had I set up the customer with an expectation of subjectivity in the art, I would have been more comfortable trying that. It just wasn't practical enough to go to the trouble in this case and we have enough heads anyway.
-
The reflex blue and the scarlet would make a pretty dull purple. The process has its limits. But kudos to putting your own formulas together and creating stock colors. Thats how to get started. Next try over printing 2" circles (no halftones) and crushing them together with a third screen and see what you get.
-
Opps, forgot about mixing for purple, but the blue was more of a royal, I agree it wouldn't have made either of the purples I was looking for.
Tony, when you say crush, you mean like a blank screen right, with a little base for lube?
That would give a different color result than color over a color less the crush?
-
Gotcha on the "keep it simple" approach squeegee. That's one of the benefits of having all those heads right, you can do whatever you want to make it easier on-press.
I think Tony is referring to making test prints of small circles and "stepping" on them with a screen to see how that will affect the finished print. You mentioned this before I think Tony? A setup with a tester screen and a big ass hair dyer or something like that? It sounds like a great place to start. From there I'd like to basically print a set of color wheels posing as some art on some discharge-friendly Ts, check for repeatability and then use them as samples and client displays. Next I'd calibrate a workspace and build a swatch kit around the colors so my art was geared to the whole process from the onset. The idea with the standard set of colors is I'll hopefully know more or less exactly what those mixes are going to do and can use that to my advantage despite the inherent limitations of having a smaller color set. I'm sure I'll extend the set overtime with experimentation but would like to stick to that basic group as much as possible.
On thing that's maybe not being considered here is using fill percentages of higher-lpi dots combined with the overprinting as well as running an additional wet white (not necessarily discharge).
-
That sounds like a solid plan Zoo. I am working constantly on enlarging our discharge color palette. When the right piece of art comes along, I'll take a stab or three at blending colors, it sounds like fun.
I'd really like to find the time to try a sim process job using discharge. Sometimes I wish I had a press out in my garage just to monkey with stuff for fun.
I have taken to the heat gun method of testing colors, what a time saver that is. I gotta say thanks to Tony for all the tips, lots of invaluable information that has helped me a lot.
-
I have taken to the heat gun method of testing colors, what a time saver that is. I gotta say thanks to Tony for all the tips, lots of invaluable information that has helped me a lot.
Can you explain that? Is that related to discharge?
-
It's just a simple, inexpensive way to cure ink swatches of any type without using a flash cure or dryer. A lot of ink rooms use these and often I've seen manual printers use them to selectively flash images on heat sensitive fabrics.. A crush screen can be an un-imaged, exposed screen with base as a lube for testing swatches. For production purposes it can be any non-blending color. On the New Balance shirt the crush screen was the white type.
I have a swatch of an Indian Motorcycle pinup girl, sim process ten color discharge no base. I'll try to get a good j-peg of it and post later.
-
Just bumping this as Pierre added the pic after I posted. There are no dots visible even under a magnifying loupe.
-
I had seen this before and thought it was really cool, I don't know when but at some point I want to try it.
What I wonder is done differently from seps perspective for this?
-
My shop sample of the discharged shirt is starting to stink up the shop, smells like a dead mouse (thought it was).
-
That means discharging was not complete. There should be very little if any smell post dryer.
-
It'll probably be a six color set plus white and black... but I'm not exactly sure on that part yet, need to get my feet wet and do some studyin up on color theory as well.
Discharge and water base ink in general is very forgiving for printing wet-on-wet to mix colors. Just try to keep white pigment out of the mix until the last screen. (it builds up on the screens really quick)
This was done with 4 colors on Gildan "sand" shirts. The gold and orange are discharge, (the make them "pop", the black and light blue are regular Matsui wb.
([url]http://evoscreenprinting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/om_durga1.jpg[/url])
The gold and orange fade down and up respectively from 100% to 0% to simulate a split fountain. The blue, orange and gold mix at varying percentages to make secondary and tertiary colors. (light and dark greens, light blue, browns, tans, etc.)
Most of the extra colors are buried in the details... hard to see in the pic.
This was mostly separated in GIMP, then pulled into Corel Photo-Paint to do the fades/channels.
Beautiful OM print! One of my old friends has a poster shop in Emeryville (actually they just moved to Alameda) called Monolith Press that does the posters, an old friend of mine did that art... Do you know those guys Evo?!
http://monolithpress.net/ (http://monolithpress.net/)
The specific OM poster post is back from Sept 2009 on that link above...
-
That means discharging was not complete. There should be very little if any smell post dryer.
Right on, if your final print is stinky, best to run them all through the dryer again, cook em til they don't stank.
-
Beautiful OM print! One of my old friends has a poster shop in Emeryville (actually they just moved to Alameda) called Monolith Press that does the posters, an old friend of mine did that art... Do you know those guys Evo?!
[url]http://monolithpress.net/[/url] ([url]http://monolithpress.net/[/url])
The specific OM poster post is back from Sept 2009 on that link above...
I do know those guys. I worked on the colors for the shirt with Davey, this was actually printed to simulate the split fountain that Monolith did on the posters.
-
Beautiful OM print! One of my old friends has a poster shop in Emeryville (actually they just moved to Alameda) called Monolith Press that does the posters, an old friend of mine did that art... Do you know those guys Evo?!
[url]http://monolithpress.net/[/url] ([url]http://monolithpress.net/[/url])
The specific OM poster post is back from Sept 2009 on that link above...
I do know those guys. I worked on the colors for the shirt with Davey, this was actually printed to simulate the split fountain that Monolith did on the posters.
It looks great.
Crazy, another little coincidence on TSB (Inkwerks and I figured out a couple months ago that we were old friends in high school but hadn't seen or talked to each other for like 20 years). Mauz is an old buddy of mine from SoCal where we both grew up. Our families go camping every year, and I think he may even be bringing his family and mom over to our place for Thanksgiving. Did you know he just moved? Got a nice much larger shop on the old Alameda Naval Weapons station. He bought a new press last year too, things are looking great around there...
I recently read an older post from you selling equipment. We needed that dryer for a new shop in Napa, but when I had finally seen the post, you had already sold everything. I was bummed I missed it cause that would have been perfect...
-
His press was pretty sweet too. I should have got a hold of that baby. Hey Dan are coming back down here for turkey day?
-
What's up Jason?! I've been thinkin I owe you a call. Nope, not going down for Thanksgiving, we're hosting at my house this year... I will be down there the weekend before Christmas though, we should def go grab a beer then. Also, ISS a month later.
-
Cool. I will give you a call Friday. I am interested to hear how the other place is doing.