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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: Shanarchy on January 20, 2013, 10:50:42 AM
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I have a gallon of Excalibur TKO white ink I am trying to use up. I'm printing manually with it. It's not exactly a thick ink, but is extremely sticky. I mean it feels like they used super glue for the plasticizer. I gave it a good stirring with the drill and have added curable reducer to it. It's still extremely sticky and doesn't clear the screen well. Suggestions? More reducer? Soft hand clear? I'm trying not to add too much so I don not effect the opacity. Thoughts? Kinda weird, I've seen thick white ink before, but this is ind of a different animal.
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See Jeff? ;D
(Just yesterday I asked Jeff Proctor of Excaliber Inks to join us and give Lancer/Excaliber a presence here.)
So far, Shane, it sounds like you have done what I would have.
Years ago, I remember learning from Union tech, that though a little counter intuitive, the addition of a reducer to white can actually improve opacity. That's if it helps it to clear the screen.
Otherwise, I'm not familiar with that particular white from them.
In fact, it's difficult to even get Excaliber out here, though in the past, I was a fan of their Arctic White.
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WARNING.....mooseman madness follows ....proceed with caution.
I had a similar situation with some old junk white someone gave me no name brand in a quart container......the stuff was Play Dough in a screen, you could have set concrete block with it. Would go through a 110 but pulled the fabric up when i tried to raise the screen.
Scraped the junk out of the screen and trashed it out. I used some laquer thinner on a rag to clean the spatula and holy crap the stuff just competely transformed from sticky goo to what looked and acted like normal white ink. i dripped some into the screen agitated it up some with the squeegee and the properties changed big time it was like normal ink again. threw another old shirt on the pallet and hit it with the squeegee and the result was 10000000 time better
The stuff went out the door but I was amazed at how much the tackiness of the ink changed with a very small amount of lacquer thinner that was on the cleaning rag.
Take a walk on the wild side ........get a sample of your sticky white add a little lacquer thinner and stir it up and see what you get I am guessing the sticky will completely go away :o
mooseman
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Jeff, we really need you now! :o
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Jeff, we really need you now! :o
;D
mooseman
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See Jeff? ;D
(Just yesterday I asked Jeff Proctor of Excaliber Inks to join us and give Lancer/Excaliber a presence here.)
So far, Shane, it sounds like you have done what I would have.
Years ago, I remember learning from Union tech, that though a little counter intuitive, the addition of a reducer to white can actually improve opacity. That's if it helps it to clear the screen.
Otherwise, I'm not familiar with that particular white from them.
In fact, it's difficult to even get Excaliber out here, though in the past, I was a fan of their Arctic White.
I think it would be great if Jeff joined in here. I've heard a lot of good things about Excalibur inks. This just seems to be an odd characteristic. If there is a way to make this ink more user friendly I would be interested in continuing to use more. The price was good and I can get it semi-locally.
I am going to try to continue increasing the reducer in small amounts to see if I can get it to a point where I get better results. I definitely get the point that a thinner ink that actually clears the screen will be more opaque than a thicker one which does not. Although I may avoid the lacquer thinner (love ya mooseman!)
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Is there anything in laquer thinner that could screw something up, at small quantities? Moose, did it shorten up the body or did it act like a curable reducer and "thin" it out?
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Alan I have messed around with this several times since I fell into it.
Still evaluating the whole thing but this is what I like about the addition of a VERY SMALL amount of thinner.
on some of the One Stroke inks I have the addition of LQ (lacquer thinner) adds lubricity, greately shortens the body, seems not to impact the opacity, reduces climbing and makes my arms happier. the ability of the squeegee to shear the ink just seems to go up exponentially ???
Where screens tended to stick to the deposit they now smoothly pop off at the end of the stroke even with 1/6 or less OC
The lubricity thing is a big deal with me as we print manually and after just 3 or 4 years at this my arms are not holding up terribly well.
We recently tried some One stroke Versamax scarlet in a 230 mesh it went but with a lot of muscle. Our 230's are at least running @ 25Nm on Sefar mesh
We added just a few drops to the ink in the well and mixed it there with a spatula.... the stuff went through the 230 with @ 1/2 the effort which my arms really appreciated.
We can't speak about duarbility long term effects on the ink, adhesion to an underbase or any real changes to flash times but so far at this point we really think this stuff beats cuarble reducer by a long shot.
Try this experiment in your shop..... take a shot glass amount of ink stir it with a popsicle stick, then add ONE (1) DROP of LQ (which is probably more than you need for a shot glass amount) and repeate the stir and tell me what you think. I think you will be surprised how the ink reacts. Love to have your thoughts after you try this test.
mooseman
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Alan I have messed around with this several times since I fell into it.
Still evaluating the whole thing but this is what I like about the addition of a VERY SMALL amount of thinner.
on some of the One Stroke inks I have the addition of LQ (lacquer thinner) adds lubricity, greately shortens the body, seems not to impact the opacity, reduces climbing and makes my arms happier. the ability of the squeegee to shear the ink just seems to go up exponentially ???
Where screens tended to stick to the deposit they now smoothly pop off at the end of the stroke even with 1/6 or less OC
The lubricity thing is a big deal with me as we print manually and after just 3 or 4 years at this my arms are not holding up terribly well.
We recently tried some One stroke Versamax scarlet in a 230 mesh it went but with a lot of muscle. Our 230's are at least running @ 25Nm on Sefar mesh
We added just a few drops to the ink in the well and mixed it there with a spatula.... the stuff went through the 230 with @ 1/2 the effort which my arms really appreciated.
We can't speak about duarbility long term effects on the ink, adhesion to an underbase or any real changes to flash times but so far at this point we really think this stuff beats cuarble reducer by a long shot.
Try this experiment in your shop..... take a shot glass amount of ink stir it with a popsicle stick, then add ONE (1) DROP of LQ (which is probably more than you need for a shot glass amount) and repeate the stir and tell me what you think. I think you will be surprised how the ink reacts. Love to have your thoughts after you try this test.
mooseman
As soon as I get back into the screen printing department I'm going to test this. I'll test the flash times and washability and anything else I can think of, not that I don't trust you, but I want to see exactly how much we can use and all there is to know about it.
I'm going to be in the embroidery building trying to straighten some things up instead of running the screen printing side so it might be a few weeks to a month before I get to mess around with it.
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Just let us know if you see merit to this, more eyes and angles bring better answers besides what we print from the dark side of the moon may not work well in the light of day ::)
mooseman
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Maybe you have it but One Stroke has their Miscuc (I think that's what it's called). It is a lubricant to add to ink to make it move. I use it mostly in the winter and works well when the ink is more like a thick glue.
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I was not aware of that product but I did get some Visco-minus from One stroke, looked exactly like STP or honey and it was pretty useless.
I try not to call OS too ofetn except when i need som ink. They tend to hound the hell out of me and they seem to change salesprople every 6 months and the door knocking starts all over again. real PITA when you are not needing anything.
mooseman
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That's the stuff, surprised you didn't like it. It made a huge difference in our shop.
I know what you mean about the phone calls. You have to give them credit they are persistent.
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That's the stuff, surprised you didn't like it. It made a huge difference in our shop.
I know what you mean about the phone calls. You have to give them credit they are persistent.
Persistent bordering on PITA
mooseman
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All I can say is bad idea on so many levels. Depending on your area your VOC laws may end up costing yo a bunch of money for running that through the drier. Another thing would be building up the fumes in a poorly vented or defective dryer could = BOOM!
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Having been through 1000's of gallons of the stuff in the early days, I would say no, mostly for the health reasons. It was spectacular at cutting ink though and getting the screens clean, but had a small load factor, meaning that it got dirty and useless rather quickly, didn't let the solids settle to be scooped out, and the remaining fluid didn't work so well. However, I've heard stranger stuff, sometimes the thing you would never consider is just the ticket.
Steve
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My shop gets kind of cold in the winter (I'm too cheap to run the heater for very long...) and there have been times when white ink was so stiff I could swear I wasn't going to be able to print without reducing it....But it's amazing how fast you can break down the false body with a few nice, slow squeegee strokes and a good hot flash between prints.
I'd be paranoid about laquer thinner. Reducer has plasticiser in it and shouldn't affect the cure, but laquer thinner doesn't. Would suck if the customer called a week later and said the prints washed off the shirts in the laundry.
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Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.
I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?
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Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.
I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?
We were mixing qcm 159 into triangle phoenix, and there have been a few others from rutland that we mixed with the qcm 159. It does work to do that if there is some particular attributes you look for in a white ink. I don't like the short bodied, or the long bodied, so I mix one of each to "usually" get a more medium body.
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Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.
I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?
Alan, what type of ratio are you mixing? I originally thought it would be crazy to mix my own ink as opposed to just finding one that I like, but this stuff printed like a dream.
We were mixing qcm 159 into triangle phoenix, and there have been a few others from rutland that we mixed with the qcm 159. It does work to do that if there is some particular attributes you look for in a white ink. I don't like the short bodied, or the long bodied, so I mix one of each to "usually" get a more medium body.
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With the 159 and phoenix it was 50/50. We've done different ratios with other mixes though, so it's basically up to you on what you're trying to get. If you have a super short bodied white and mix it with a fairly short bodied white then you'd only use maybe 10-15% of the shortest bodied but if you have a long body mixed with an average short bodied, then I'd start at 50/50 and then adjust from there.
Ideally this isn't something the super busy shops will want to do because it does take some time, but sometimes the results are so good that it makes sense to do it. I loved the triangle/159 mix and I'd still be doing it if I hadn't found the Miami Superior and Smooth whites. I've got some samples of Rutland coming in next week, I don't know what versions yet but I'll post info on it once I test them out.
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Alan, for us manual guys trying to work with this Miami Smooth... would you recommend mixing something into it to get that same effect? Reducer helps, but I want magic like Shane's getting.
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I've never been a fan of additives so I'm not as knowledgeable on them as I'd like to be. I typically stay away from reducer except in spot colors and I like the qcm wet on wet base and this new stuff I got from Rutland called shape, new to me, not new to the industry. I like what it does but I have not added it to white ink yet. The shape seems to be like a soft hand clear additive and will reduce opacity at a certain level, probably in the 5-10% range. If I were needing to get our white easier to print, I'd lean towards an additive that is effective at much smaller ratios than most of the reducers and soft hands out there. I think there are things like viscosity busters that will do the job at 1% or less but I'd have to research it. Reason I say that is no matter what sales people say, I've always lost some opacity when adding any base to an ink, even at low quantities. That's why I stopped using soft hand clear, it was having a noticeable affect in our inks at less than 5% ratios. The wet on wet base seems to not have as much of an effect as curable reducer and soft hand clear though and makes the ink easier to print with.
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Alan,
How does the wow base work? Can you add it to any ink and be able to print wow with it?
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I've never been a fan of additives so I'm not as knowledgeable on them as I'd like to be. I typically stay away from reducer except in spot colors and I like the qcm wet on wet base and this new stuff I got from Rutland called shape, new to me, not new to the industry. I like what it does but I have not added it to white ink yet. The shape seems to be like a soft hand clear additive and will reduce opacity at a certain level, probably in the 5-10% range. If I were needing to get our white easier to print, I'd lean towards an additive that is effective at much smaller ratios than most of the reducers and soft hands out there. I think there are things like viscosity busters that will do the job at 1% or less but I'd have to research it. Reason I say that is no matter what sales people say, I've always lost some opacity when adding any base to an ink, even at low quantities. That's why I stopped using soft hand clear, it was having a noticeable affect in our inks at less than 5% ratios. The wet on wet base seems to not have as much of an effect as curable reducer and soft hand clear though and makes the ink easier to print with.
What about mixing some inks together? Think that might work?
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Gilligan we use white ink straight out of the buckets for our base whites. Have for a long time. If we need to dick with additives and reducers to get it to print right it is not the right ink for us to begin with. It goes for the auto and the manual. On the manual your biggest issue is going to be screen choice, setup, and the biggest one of them all is print technique. 9 times out of 10 that third one fixes your problems. Basing out your ink does nothing for you if you have to hit it 3 times to get the same opacity you should have gotten on the first pull.
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Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.
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Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.
I'll put some in my next order Shane. Thanks!
Works good for everything (underbase, one hit white, hi-light)?
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Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.
I'll put some in my next order Shane. Thanks!
Works good for everything (underbase, one hit white, hi-light)?
It works great for everything in my opinion. I'm not exactly sold on the one hit white though. I think that is all in the opinion of the printer. I've printed a lot of designs on black with this ink and thought the one pass of white looked good and passable, but sending it around for a P-F-P always seemed to be the right way to go. It just gives it such nice extra pop. Give it a try and see how you like it. QCM pricing isn't that bad. Not as good as the Miami, but better than Epic.
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Alan,
How does the wow base work? Can you add it to any ink and be able to print wow with it?
Not everything, but I've only found the really cheap inks that are full of plastisizer can't be helped. Every common brand of ink has worked well with the wow base and it really does allow it to print better and with less buildup. It really works when added to qcm's xolb series which are terrible at wow printing.
Gilligan, I'd much rather mix in a soft white to a thick white to get it to print easier than putting in an additive. That's one of the reasons why we were mixing our white inks together. And I second the advice on the qcm 158. It's not as opaque as the 159 but it's still a good creamy ink. It's easier to print and a much softer consistency than the 159. We stopped using it because of the climbing on the auto.
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When we need to underbase plastisol we use discharge. Much easier and cheaper. Less flashing as well.
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When we need to underbase plastisol we use discharge. Much easier and cheaper. Less flashing as well.
I think my goal for this year has to be to learn this. My understanding is you underbase (using discharge) with screen 1. Then screen two will print the top color, etc. The print won't look bright until you put it through the dryer. At that point the underbase will discharge, leaving the top colors nice and bright as if printed on a light/cream color tee?
How much time does this need to be in the dryer for and what brand discharge are you using? I don't have a very long dryer and do not have forced/scrub air. I'm not sure if my dryer will be efficient for this.
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Retention time depends on the efficiency of your dryer. Pretty much all brands work well and are priced similarly. You will need base (binder) and white. The mix ratio is up to you but don't use 100% white. Steam it off just a tic. Then plastisol on top. Once you get the variables worked out you'll be suprised how easy it is and how much your print quality will improve.
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Retention time depends on the efficiency of your dryer. Pretty much all brands work well and are priced similarly. You will need base (binder) and white. The mix ratio is up to you but don't use 100% white. Steam it off just a tic. Then plastisol on top. Once you get the variables worked out you'll be suprised how easy it is and how much your print quality will improve.
I'm definitely going to test it. It seems like this gives a much better quality, and saving on the flash is an very nice perk.
What do you mean when you say "steam it off just a tic"
Thanks!
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Flash it for just a couple of seconds. You dont need it to completely discharge the base. The dryer will finish it off.
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Flash it for just a couple of seconds. You dont need it to completely discharge the base. The dryer will finish it off.
Thanks for the tip!