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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: alan802 on March 15, 2013, 05:50:25 PM
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Plastisol ink from Rutland last week and I thought I'd share that with the gang. It's EL9330 NPT FF LB Tidy White and damn was it great. I'm still using the Miami Smooth with a rotating gaggle of Poly whites like Rutland Poly, Triangle Excel and Xenon's Horse (worst name for an ink I've ever heard but oh well). I was sent this gallon to try out for this test print among a few other experiments and I must say I really liked working with it.
This Tidy white seemed like it was going to be a bit too short at first but I put it in the auto for a One Hit experiment I've been working on with an industry guru, he sells squeegee blades and I won't name drop but his name starts with Joe. We've been doing some sample printing trying to get this one design as a one hit white and doing testing whenever I can. I successfully achieved the one hit white with the Tidy while all other inks have failed to give me the opacity, print speed etc that I needed. I have gotten really close with the other whites I've tried but I'd get around to the 90% opacity, sometimes close to 95% then we'd reach the failure point of one or more variables and have to change mesh counts, ink, stencil or whatever. So I've got a few photos and I'm not sure how they're going to turn out but I've got a PFP of the shiner logo along with a CCI D-White print, along with two of my One Hit prints. In person and at 1' away you can tell what is what, but my iphone pics will have to do for now. The opacity level of the one hits isn't as bright as the PFP but they are more opaque than about 90% of the shirts I see come through our door from other print shops and at retail stores. I know a lot of our competitors would be jumping up and down with this print but honestly it's not up to our PFP white prints and it would be impossible for it to be. The PFP was done on a 123/55 mesh at 25 newtons, Manny blade and was about 75% opaque from the UB strike so the flash and additional stroke took it way beyond the needed 100% mark. I did the One Hit test prints with a 100/55 mesh at 25 newtons, Dr J as my fill blade, at 20"/sec, then the White Knight squeegee blade printing with an 86 degree angle at 30"/sec, .12" off contact and 22-23 psi print pressure. It did take some time to get to the level I was looking to be at, with Joe on speaker phone but we finally nailed it. I have also done 3 production jobs that were fairly large print area, both full fronts and backs equivalent to the shiner print size using the same techniques and tools with one stroke and down the dryer. We are starting to do more and more jobs this way but I do see a limit to the size of the print area that can achieve the opacity with one stroke, so it's not like we'll be doing this for every job, but we are doing it on jobs now that I never thought would be possible.
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr211/alan802/Tshirt%20Pics/IMG_4305_zpsf64bad3f.jpg)
One hit on navy
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr211/alan802/Tshirt%20Pics/IMG_4303_zps2e0291be.jpg)
One hit on black
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr211/alan802/Tshirt%20Pics/IMG_4304_zpseb2ef8b8.jpg)
I called to check the 5 gal price of the Tidy white...and here is the giant fart noise. $380!!! I'm seriously considering buying a fiver and just not worrying about the cost, it's really a good white, fast flashing, creamy, short bodied but not too short, and optically white. It's not so thick that you can't work it really fast and with very little print pressure. Two thumbs up on performance, two down on price, dayum Rutland, throw me a bone for plugging this great white ink.
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Thats a price of 76 a gal.
Pretty good in my estimation of price that I pay. Close to 100 a gallon.
Shane
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Alan, thanks for posting. I'm constantly testing different/new whites to find that ultimate "out of the bucket" white. The only thing is @ $380 for 5 it would need to be totally badass. Right now our white we are paying $240.00 for five for a 50/50 style type of white. Out of the bucket we have to modify it slightly but it's been a good white for us. We were using quick white for a long time paying $296 for 5 but that was getting a bit pricy imo. We usually print 10-15 gallons of white a week so that increase would hurt us. I suppose it would be nice to have it around for the 1 hit's or the trouble jobs that come up where we need a stronger white. Just out of curiosity how many gallons of white are you rolling through?
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I have a few kicking around here too - I still love phoenix white though, it just needs to stay a little warmer than some others we tried, it's 70/gal but i'm ok with that... We were given some CCI 1803 to try, and Brad from Maverick brought me a sample of something else but it was rather.....thick..... Have any of you guys tried Wilflex Solar white? I guess it's not technically a wilflex formula but it's 200.00 /5g. I was looking for a quick, cheap down n dirty cotton white...from my testing, playing with the squeegie duro and angle play just as much of a role as the ink....it's just so hard to stick with one white when there are soo many to pick from and prices ranging from uber cheap to sell your first born...
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i just bit the bullet and bought a 5'r of the ICC poly white. It's expensive, but the best poly ink i've ever used.
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Alan, thanks for posting. I'm constantly testing different/new whites to find that ultimate "out of the bucket" white. The only thing is @ $380 for 5 it would need to be totally badass. Right now our white we are paying $240.00 for five for a 50/50 style type of white. Out of the bucket we have to modify it slightly but it's been a good white for us. We were using quick white for a long time paying $296 for 5 but that was getting a bit pricy imo. We usually print 10-15 gallons of white a week so that increase would hurt us. I suppose it would be nice to have it around for the 1 hit's or the trouble jobs that come up where we need a stronger white. Just out of curiosity how many gallons of white are you rolling through?
I counted 45 gallons of empty white ink buckets in the corner the other day but it's been since October/November since I had the last load hauled off. I'll have to look at my purchasing book and see but it's probably close to 5 gallons a week on an average week, but I have had a few weeks recently where we went through about 10 in a week. Those 5K piece jobs with a giant front and back print will such down some white ink, and we've been fortunate enough to have several of those already this year. I really hated that the 7K piece job was all 50/50's of assorted colors and I had to burn through a ton of $100/gal poly white. I let the sales person know how much more the job cost us since they were 50/50's. All cotton and I could have used the $40/gal...stung a little bit.
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Delicates charge. Add one to your system. Tell your sales team that anything that's not 100% cotton gets it. You could even make a new price matrix for it I suppose. I have it setup in ours so that it displays on the line as "Delicates/poly" so the client knows that's part of the run, but is rolled into the pricing so there's no 'dinger' fees at the bottom line. $0.25 per is the start point and I'll go higher if it's, god forbid, a 12x12 slab of epic performance ink going on a shirt or something.
The inks needed for poly and bad 50/50 bleeders cost exponentially more nowadays and it needs to be addressed in pricing. The cost is not gonna go down although the tech seems to be improving (silicone). Epic perf white is $125-150 a gal so that's double ink costs which justifies an added price.
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Delicates charge. Add one to your system. Tell your sales team that anything that's not 100% cotton gets it. You could even make a new price matrix for it I suppose. I have it setup in ours so that it displays on the line as "Delicates/poly" so the client knows that's part of the run, but is rolled into the pricing so there's no 'dinger' fees at the bottom line. $0.25 per is the start point and I'll go higher if it's, god forbid, a 12x12 slab of epic performance ink going on a shirt or something.
The inks needed for poly and bad 50/50 bleeders cost exponentially more nowadays and it needs to be addressed in pricing. The cost is not gonna go down although the tech seems to be improving (silicone). Epic perf white is $125-150 a gal so that's double ink costs which justifies an added price.
I agree and have thought about that a lot since that big run. It literally took $350 right out of the bottom line and it was something I just took for granted that they'd be cottons and about 2 hours before starting the run I just thought I'd look at the tag and started cursing. I've sat down with every sales person and have stressed that the extra cost of ink for poly's is significant and to try to steer the customer to cotton. In the past I was more concerned with the print quality being so much better and easier to attain on cotton shirts versus poly but now the cost of ink is a bigger concern. I may take a look at making a combo ink with the wilflex UB grey mixed with a cheap low bleed white and do some testing. I believe I could have saved us 250-300 bucks on that last big run if I would have mixed up something. The great ability of the UB grey would probably mean only a 10-25% ratio with a low bleed white making the cost per gallon around $50-65/gal. I got lazy and complacent and we lost money. Oh well, you live and learn.
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If you are already having them steer toward cotton, take it a step further and setup a preferred cotton line that discharges well, standardize a set of good DC colors and give swatch kits to the sales team, charge for any DC mixes outside standard and revert to plastisol or DCUB/plasti for any garment not in the preferred set.
You'll save so much in ink on the bulk of the runs that you can just afford to have quality low bleed and poly inks and run them as needed, it'll balance out.
Don't beat yourself up over the fact that some of our basic consumables have nearly tripled in price over a very short period of time. We all need to address the issue and it starts with pricing. There's no reason a shop should not be able to reach for the right ink and have to revert to concocting mixes that are affordable but still effective.
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Alan did you not have a problem with the Tidy white climbing the squeegee? I had a gallon bucket here, loved the end result but it would stick to the squeegee. I couldn't even get a flood out of it because it was stuck to the squeegee or floodbar depending. wondering if they made any changes to the formula. I agree that it is very optically bright white and had a nice smooth matte finish. Wish it didn't climb my squeegee. Did you do anything to it?
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Alan did you not have a problem with the Tidy white climbing the squeegee? I had a gallon bucket here, loved the end result but it would stick to the squeegee. I couldn't even get a flood out of it because it was stuck to the squeegee or floodbar depending. wondering if they made any changes to the formula. I agree that it is very optically bright white and had a nice smooth matte finish. Wish it didn't climb my squeegee. Did you do anything to it?
I thought it would climb really bad but it didn't. Once I got it stirred and moving it rolled really well and wasn't climbing bad at all. I'd liken it to a really stirred and warm batch of qcm 158. Granted I have not done a long run of more than 100 shirts but it wasn't climbing noticeably on the smal runs I've used it for.
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Have any of you guys tried Wilflex Solar white? I guess it's not technically a wilflex formula but it's 200.00 /5g.
we use solar white everyday - last year we used over 600 gallons of it.
S9027 Solar White was an ink from Plast-O-Meric.
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the more i read about white inks, well inks in general, not many members here use Union inks?
am i missing the boat?
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the more i read about white inks, well inks in general, not many members here use Union inks?
am i missing the boat?
I use tons of union.
I think Unions problem is they do not have a lot of vendors, we buy directly since they are close by but I would be beyond thrilled if a general screen supply company with in one or two days sold Union.
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Inkman, Valley Litho sells Union, good pricing too compared to Tublite, not sure how close they are too you, but I've ordered Union from them for a while till Tubelite would beat them by 10% off to sell 5 gals at a time. I love their maxopaque scarlet red, and maxopaque royal.
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the more i read about white inks, well inks in general, not many members here use Union inks?
am i missing the boat?
I use tons of union.
I think Unions problem is they do not have a lot of vendors, we buy directly since they are close by but I would be beyond thrilled if a general screen supply company with in one or two days sold Union.
Garston sells it...they have a new website -order online if interested. too bad it's garston. ::)
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I order from Jennings..he is 40 minutes away...
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I think union makes great spot colors in the ultrasoft series and maxopaque series. I used to use their white inks but I haven't tried one in years. The diamond white used to be great right out of the bucket but after a few days of taking the ink in and out of screens it would get gritty and hard, the consistency would change a lot.
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the more i read about white inks, well inks in general, not many members here use Union inks?
am i missing the boat?
I use tons of union.
I think Unions problem is they do not have a lot of vendors, we buy directly since they are close by but I would be beyond thrilled if a general screen supply company with in one or two days sold Union.
Garston sells it...they have a new website -order online if interested. too bad it's garston. ::)
Garston? Whos Garston?
Just Kidding
We wont deal with them, I tried in the past and got screwed royally on something, plus also they had horrible stock of Union at least they did back then.
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the more i read about white inks, well inks in general, not many members here use Union inks?
am i missing the boat?
I use tons of union.
I think Unions problem is they do not have a lot of vendors, we buy directly since they are close by but I would be beyond thrilled if a general screen supply company with in one or two days sold Union.
Garston sells it...they have a new website -order online if interested. too bad it's garston. ::)
Garston? Whos Garston?
Just Kidding
We wont deal with them, I tried in the past and got screwed royally on something, plus also they had horrible stock of Union at least they did back then.
garston is mostly a wilflex dealer. they sell union ink, but union is owned by rutland.
we use the union maxopaques... ive been trying to get the shop to change over to the Amazing base, but the artists love the Maxopaques.
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The never ending quest for the perfect white. In my case If it works for me I ain't changing it. Wliflex Sprint for cottons, Triangle Phoenix for 50/50, Union Lo-bleed for poly and CCI D-white if discharging. Switching whites all of the time..."ain't nobody got time for all that." ;D
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The perfect white?
I have the perfect white, its called white tshirts
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*perfect white ink. ::)
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What are white t shirts?
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The never ending quest for the perfect white.
After 27 years.. I'm still waiting......................................
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What are white t shirts?
I was thinking the same thing. It's like aliens, you assume there could be aliens, but you never see them.
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What's a really thick white ink that still floods well? I want to try something that has more difficulty going in the shirt and will stay on top nicer, shouldn't be a problem to print since we use S mesh....maybe take quick white and add thickener...hmm
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What's a really thick white ink that still floods well? I want to try something that has more difficulty going in the shirt and will stay on top nicer, shouldn't be a problem to print since we use S mesh....maybe take quick white and add thickener...hmm
Add thickener? Quick prints great for us through S mesh.
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What's a really thick white ink that still floods well? I want to try something that has more difficulty going in the shirt and will stay on top nicer, shouldn't be a problem to print since we use S mesh....maybe take quick white and add thickener...hmm
Add thickener? Quick prints great for us through S mesh.
It prints great for us too, just trying to think of what could make it even better.
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Yep. Warm Quick flows very well. Pre warm yer white ink! and keep it warm.
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What's a really thick white ink that still floods well? I want to try something that has more difficulty going in the shirt and will stay on top ;)nicer, shouldn't be a problem to print since we use S mesh....maybe take quick white and add thickener...hmm
Add thickener? Quick prints great for us through S mesh.
It prints great for us too, just trying to think of what could make it even better.
Put the phthalates back in it so it works like it used too.... ;)
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Thanks to another member here, I was able to get a 5'er of Tidy white from Reece Supply for a very reasonable price. I'm going to be testing this ink more thoroughly in the next few weeks so stay tuned.
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Thanks to another member here, I was able to get a 5'er of Tidy white from Reece Supply for a very reasonable price. I'm going to be testing this ink more thoroughly in the next few weeks so stay tuned.
would love to hear more about this
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What's a really thick white ink that still floods well? I want to try something that has more difficulty going in the shirt and will stay on top ;)nicer, shouldn't be a problem to print since we use S mesh....maybe take quick white and add thickener...hmm
Add thickener? Quick prints great for us through S mesh.
It prints great for us too, just trying to think of what could make it even better.
Put the phthalates back in it so it works like it used too.... ;)
In that case put the lead back in inks as well, then you can throw away all your flashes.
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pthalates aren't near the problem lead is. it's overblown, way overblown.
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You didn't have to flash with lead in the ink?
I think the research shows that phthalates are definitely "icky" but not the end of the world for fully developed adults. Very bad for kiddos though. I've been phthatlate-free since day one so I don't know what we were missing. I do notice plasti prints from some other shops feel "oily/greasy" and maybe a little more supple compared to ours which are more like a drier, rubbery feel.
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You didn't have to flash with lead in the ink?
I think the research shows that phthalates are definitely "icky" but not the end of the world for fully developed adults. Very bad for kiddos though. I've been phthatlate-free since day one so I don't know what we were missing. I do notice plasti prints from some other shops feel "oily/greasy" and maybe a little more supple compared to ours which are more like a drier, rubbery feel.
White ink with lead is thick as all hell but boy did it cover!
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McDonalds and Burger King is worse for your kids than the ink on their shirt.... ::)
and the soda..
and the video games...
and MTV...
and the other crap on tv...
;D holy crap I'm old.....I'm turned into that guy
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I know how you feel Homer.
I never got to print with lead ink. The pthalates one is fine because most companies have found ways around that since they can use a non-banned one. I haven't noticed a difference in inks much with the conversion.
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I'd like to print with lead based inks just out of curiosity. I've heard the reds are spectacular
and that lead based paints were a painters dream.
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I'd like to print with lead based inks just out of curiosity. I've heard the reds are spectacular
and that lead based paints were a painters dream.
I heard they taste better too.
We have a pms ink that looks like pistachio pudding and a stock one that looks like chocolate pudding - star spice brown. Taste nothing like pudding though.
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Put the phthalates back in it so it works like it used too.... ;)
I found an old gallon of Rutland M1 black in the ink room few months ago.. WOW did that stuff print awesome.. single pass cleared the screen with nothing more than basic pressure.
I have to base down the current black and it still doesn't clear the screen completely.
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It's weird how some black and navy inks don't like to shear completely.
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phthalates = lubrication
good example.. ever used a non lubricated condom an try to stuff it in there.. yeah you get the idea ;)
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I have never tried to f*ck a screen if that is what you are implying.
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I have never tried to f*ck a screen if that is what you are implying.
Go for the 330 tpi....
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phthalates = lubrication
good example.. ever used a non lubricated condom an try to stuff it in there.. yeah you get the idea ;)
Wait a minute... you mean now they're using cornstarch instead of phthalates? Now it all makes sense. Damn you dilatant flow!
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I tried a new white today and all I can say is by bye bye CCI and hello Rutland discharge.
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I tried a new white today and all I can say is by bye bye CCI and hello Rutland discharge.
Care to embellish? Running low on D-White and have a CCI rep coming here in 2 weeks with a 5 gallon bucket of D-White. I know Tony said he had better results with the Rutland, but we've been satisfied with the D-White. Any photos of comparisons? It is more vibrant? The D-White is pretty bright when we've used it.
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I'll have to give the Rutland discharge white another shot. It was too thin when we used to run it,
and would change consistency to quickly in this California sunshine.
Our local distributor only carries the Rutland base, which we're currently using. I'm seeing strange things happening,
penetration isn't as good, reds aren't behaving like usual, etc.
I think more than one product being better than another, we learn to work with a certain products characteristics,
and then change that product and blame it on the new one rather than our set in stone methods.
Which reminds me why we haven't tried anything new in a while.
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This is on a 50/50 heather Gildan sweat. It is as white as white gets. I noticed it from across the shop. I thought the guys screwed up and were using plastisol. I have gone through a lot of CCI white and this on this sweat blows it away. We did run Nextlevel Vintage black tri blends with the same graphic and it was not too much better than the others on the tri blends except for the white was whiter and not a bone. I need to play with it a little more on the tri blends to get it to pop more.
(http://i594.photobucket.com/albums/tt25/Inkwerksspd/photo-5_zps5905001a.jpg)
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That is very nice on a 50/50! You did a wash test? Let me know if you end up doing a wash test and if it stays as true. I'd greatly appreciate it.
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Looks like a heatherish fleece? Most heathers we've tried actually discharge pretty well, save the usual suspects,
kelly, royal, etc.
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I tried a new white today and all I can say is by bye bye CCI and hello Rutland discharge.
Is the exact product # WB9067 Discharge White Plus?
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I tried a new white today and all I can say is by bye bye CCI and hello Rutland discharge.
Is the exact product # WB9067 Discharge White Plus?
Thats it. These sweats were Gildan 18500 Dark Heather 50/50. Like Eb said a lot of heathers do discharge well. I was just surprised by the whites optical brightness and how white it actually was compared to CCI, Sericol, and Mattsui.
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Has anyone tried it on 50/50 Tshirt or fleece in red or royal and it not migrate after a week or two?
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Forgot to add that was straight out of the bucket. No water and no base. 5% agent only.
It is printed on a couple of red Ts now from some test prints. I will hold onto them to see if it migrates. We have run CCI on 50/50's and tri blends with no migration issues after the fact. Just saw one customer that we did a month or so ago with re NL Tris and they looked just as good.
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It better be good at twice the price. But I'll spend the extra if its that good.
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I've never seen migration with WB, as far as I know garment dyes don't sublimate into wb inks, but
I could be wrong.
Reds and blues tend to be what you see is what you get off the bat. If it discharges it discharges, though
that doesn't mean all pieces in the run will...
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It better be good at twice the price. But I'll spend the extra if its that good.
It pays to call your supplier and slap them around a little :). A few emails and the next thing you know, it's under $300 with free delivery!!! It went from too bad to hell yeah real quick. And I got the Rutland Poly White at $15/gal cheaper than I was getting the Triangle Excel so that's another $75/mo saved on ink just by asking a few questions.
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A stork dropped this off at my front door. Go figure. Hope it's the right stuff...
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It is. That what I used on those 50/50 sweats.
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Picked up a sample of the Tidy White at a trade show last weekend, and Two Thumbs Up! Nice stuff.
Thanks for the heads up Alan!
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Picked up a sample of the Tidy White at a trade show last weekend, and Two Thumbs Up! Nice stuff.
Thanks for the heads up Alan!
I got a 5'er coming in next week. So is it one of the better whites you've used? I can't wait to use more than a gallon of it because I've found more than a few products that wow me on the first gallon then over the course of time something happens and the honeymoon is over.
Keep us informed Brian, I've also got a gallon of the Rutland DC white but won't get to it till later next week.
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Picked up a sample of the Tidy White at a trade show last weekend, and Two Thumbs Up! Nice stuff.
Thanks for the heads up Alan!
I got a 5'er coming in next week. So is it one of the better whites you've used? I can't wait to use more than a gallon of it because I've found more than a few products that wow me on the first gallon then over the course of time something happens and the honeymoon is over.
Keep us informed Brian, I've also got a gallon of the Rutland DC white but won't get to it till later next week.
I would say it is one of the better ones we have used. We have used cotton white, bright white and diamond white from Union. Both Sabre White and Arctic White from Excalibur. Hybrid white, Versamax white and one other white from One Stroke. And Phoenix White from Triangle. So far out of all of those the Hybrid White from One Stroke was my favorite all around.
I ordered a 5 gallon so we can use it a bit more, the one I got from the show was tiny. But it worked well on the manual and there was just enough left to get a few shirts out on the auto with it.
I also like that there is not a gloss look to it once it is cured. A few of the other ones we have used over the years looked like that and I didn't care for it.
Thanks again!
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The EJ special white auto from OneStroke is great. The problem is the price. I don't mind paying more for ink, but if I can find an ink that prints the almost as good at half the price, it's hard to justify the cost.
And I am a person that generally doesn't care about pricing on ink since a $20 a gallon might save you hundreds or thousands in time and headaches over the life of that gallon. Like silicone ink, it's more expensive, but a single hit, no PFP on colors and lower over temps make an ink that costs double really cost less.
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I agree the EJ Fast Flash is a great ink. But I personally consider that more of a speciality ink. It is nice to have that feature when running some jobs on the auto. But I don't think we would ever use it on a manual job.
The Tidy White is just a nice all around multi purpose white.
The only down side is the name, found myself asking for the Tidy Whitey when I ordered it;D
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Ha, that's funny.
I used to use EJ for all my cotton and poly blends, especially underbases.
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For the Rutland WB9067 what is the price per gal?