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screen printing => Newbie => Topic started by: psychocitron on August 08, 2013, 02:33:19 PM
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Hello....
We are fairly new to discharge printing, as we mainly print plastisol. We haven't yet worked out all the kinks. We were working with Gildan 90%cotton 10%polyester Antique cherry red t-shirt garments. our formula was 95% matsui discharge bright, drips of yellow and a tiny black ink to produce the off white look they were asking for, a minute amount of water, to keep it fluid and activator. Our trouble was with keeping the fine lines, the subtext, if you will, of the print clear. Every 8-10 shirts, even with keeping the holes flooded between prints, and printing at a pretty fast pace ( for a manual printer) there were certain areas of the finer details (the tittles over the i's and the tails on the capital B's, as well as build up towards the tops of the stems of the larger letters) kept clogging. It got so bad that it was easier to take down the screen, wash it out and start all over. The discharge screen was a 125 mesh. What am I doing wrong so the screen does not dry out? Too much activator? Screen mesh? zero off contact vs. slight off contact? If there is anyone who can decipher my issue and let me know what they think, I'll be in their debt. Thanks! We successfully got it out and the client was completely satisfied with what they got, but it took us entirely too long from start to finish than we would have liked.
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Hello....
We are fairly new to discharge printing, as we mainly print plastisol. We haven't yet worked out all the kinks. We were working with Gildan 90%cotton 10%polyester Antique cherry red t-shirt garments. our formula was 95% binder, drips of yellow and a tiny black ink to produce the off white look they were asking for, a minute amount of water, to keep it fluid and activator. Our trouble was with keeping the fine lines, the subtext, if you will, of the print clear. Every 8-10 shirts, even with keeping the holes flooded between prints, and printing at a pretty fast pace ( for a manual printer) there were certain areas of the finer details (the tittles over the i's and the tails on the capital B's, as well as build up towards the tops of the stems of the larger letters) kept clogging. It got so bad that it was easier to take down the screen, wash it out and start all over. The discharge screen was a 125 mesh. For the water based print which accompanied this order on a few other shirts (which was a red ink on oxford and dark heather), was rather runny and not bold enough to our liking (SOMEWHAT TRANSLUCENT, STILL LOOKED GOOD, BUT...), however, print after print on the waterbased, the tittles and tails did not dry up and we used a 110 mesh screen. My question is this... is there an ULTIMATE recipe for the best discharge AND the best water based prints? What am I doing wrong so the screen does not dry out? Too much activator? Screen mesh? zero off contact vs. slight off contact? If there is anyone who can decipher my issue and let me know what they think, I'll be in their debt. Thanks!
We switched to doing 156 screens for most of our discharge prints. Make sure they screen is flooded, when you are switching plattens or loading the next shirt. That's a big thing. You can also try adding some retarder, or extender in your ink. That tends to help us alot as well.
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Looks like it's just dry in. Your mesh is probably fine but I would opt for a 150/48 on this. The more open area to the mesh, the easier time you'll have with dry in. Use the most open mesh available that can hold the image.
Add more H20 to the white, I personally think DC white prints best when it's runnier and it will help the white pigment pass through the mesh opening, thus reducing the likelihood of dry in.
Also, just fatten up that text a little next time.
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this and opacity is why I prefer Magna Super White over the others. Its runny already and the brightest discharge white I have ever seen.
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A couple of questions for you. How hot is it in your shop? And do you have any fans or A/C blowing on the screening area? both could be factors. Usually a little retarder in the ink will fix it for you, just make sure you don't use too much as it can affect drying time in the dryer.
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this and opacity is why I prefer Magna Super White over the others. Its runny already and the brightest discharge white I have ever seen.
Howdy.
I'm interested in getting the magna super white myself. This may not be the place, but sounds like you like it and was wondering if its the one without the formaldehyde. No crazy smell in the shop? My shop gets pretty hot and a lot of humidity due to being in hawaii. Think it'll work for me? I stopped using discharge cause of the fumes.
Thanks and sorry for side tracking this post.
Aloha
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that's the trade off, the ZF is the one that works best, but it also is worst smelling one on the market. That white is so blinging, but it stinks up the whole block around here. Just decide whats more important to ya. A awesome print and taking 5 years off of your life, or a dull NF print and living 5 more years! ;D
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Ventilate appropriately and you can have both!
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that's the trade off, the ZF is the one that works best, but it also is worst smelling one on the market. That white is so blinging, but it stinks up the whole block around here. Just decide whats more important to ya. A awesome print and taking 5 years off of your life, or a dull NF print and living 5 more years! ;D
From what I saw on the magna site, the super white is formaldehyde free. But I may be wrong.
http://www.magnacolours.com/upload/g5983g5989magnaprintdischargeulfsystem1.pdf (http://www.magnacolours.com/upload/g5983g5989magnaprintdischargeulfsystem1.pdf)
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there must be 2 versions, because the good one is definitely ZFS.
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Yes, there are 2 versions, when I tried the ZFS version on dirks recommendation I loved it compared to the others.
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Looks like this one mentions:
MagnaPrint® Discharge Super White ULF Ultra GA –
ready made white discharge base for white shades
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The Magna ULF series bases are for use with Activator M (the NF activator). The AB AW bases are for use with the standard ZFS activator. I have had really good results with the NF activator, but haven't tested the ZFS system. My neighbors would pitch a fit! I have been impressed with the washability too. Sourceone (Nazdar) is still offering an introductory pigment set and a gallon of the base of your choice for less than $100. A great way to try out the Magna line regardless of base type.
The NF system has been great for me as I could never swing the ZFS in my print setting. But remember that the Activator M won't ship on anything other than a truck delivery, no Fedex or UPS even if it would go ground. Will call all the way for me.
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The Magna ULF series bases are for use with Activator M (the NF activator). The AB AW bases are for use with the standard ZFS activator. I have had really good results with the NF activator, but haven't tested the ZFS system. My neighbors would pitch a fit! I have been impressed with the washability too. Sourceone (Nazdar) is still offering an introductory pigment set and a gallon of the base of your choice for less than $100. A great way to try out the Magna line regardless of base type.
The NF system has been great for me as I could never swing the ZFS in my print setting. But remember that the Activator M won't ship on anything other than a truck delivery, no Fedex or UPS even if it would go ground. Will call all the way for me.
This has to be a problem with US shipping regulations.As I have mentioned several times before , we got a whole lot of activator M shipped directly from the UK to Japan with FedEx. No issues at all. But then I would not put it past those cheeky Brits to have issued fake shipping documents.
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Anyone using Magna's regular waterbase or either of the high solids bases alongside the DC base?
I finally looked at their lineup and it looks quite versatile. The pigs are clearly very concentrated, rated at 6% max load and, judging by the price, the base looks to be quality.
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the pigments are super strong, that's why they are so expensive, you don't use that much. Their base, I don't like, its to runny, and it stinks. CCI base with their pigments works great in my shop.
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I don't know anything about the Magna inks, but we use Matsui discharge for 100+ jobs with fine detail all the time. Here are a few things we do and tips/tricks we have learned through experimentation:
The lowest mesh count we use for discharge is 156, and we use almost exclusively 156 unless the design calls for some kind of halftone gradient work that isnt two inks mixing to form the gradient. In other words if it is white ink and a black shirt and we are fading from the white to the black we would use 230. If it is a black shirt but we are fading from blue to yellow, we would print wet on wet and use 156 mesh and the halftones will end up blurring and mixing to create really awesome gradients.
We use 1/1 emulsion coating for relatively thin stencils.
We print on contact.
We do single pulls at roughly 45 degrees with moderate to high pressure. Additional pulls will cause buildup and loss of detail.
We use 3-5% retarder (printgen) depending on the temperature in our shop and the color of the ink. Some colors seem to gum up quicker.
We use 2-3% fixer.
We use 6-8% activator.
We double reds and half black when mixing. This gives us better color matching and much brighter reds. There are a bunch of other small rules like this we have developed through experimentation, but these two are pretty hard and fast, if that makes sense.
For white we mix 10% clear base and 5% water with 85% white, then use the above amounts of fixer/activator/retarder.
We reuse activated inks for up to 6 weeks and keep them in a fridge, sealed. When we bring them out to reuse, we add 1% activator and enough water to dissolve the activator, then drill mix the ink. It is as good as new, we wash test regularly. I actually think it would be good longer than 6 weeks, but we have a small fridge and toss small amounts of uncommon colors to make space often.
If you have any other questions feel free to pm me or respond in the thread and I will answer them if I can.
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Good stuff there Mimosa. A great summary to help point out the right direction for people.
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Thanks! I won't say I am some kind of master printer when it comes to discharge, and we still end up with jobs where it takes way too long to color match some weird orange or yellow on blue, or we have whatever other random unforeseen hiccup, but we spend A LOT of time experimenting and testing when we have down time and it makes sense to do so for us. I like saving headaches during production whenever possible, and if it takes 5 hours of messing around on a weekend with different formulas to get a nice firetruck red, it will save a hell of a lot more time and money down the road during crunch time.
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Speaking of a red discharge ink, does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations on how to achieve a BRIGHT RED result. I've tried mixing to a couple different pantone colors with ryonet's CMS software but have had poor results. I either end up with a pink print or a really dull deep red. I need to achieve a bright red but have yet to have any success. Anyone out there that has had good results have any input for me? Thanks!
-Frustrated Printer
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I don't know anything about the Magna inks, but we use Matsui discharge for 100+ jobs with fine detail all the time. Here are a few things we do and tips/tricks we have learned through experimentation:
The lowest mesh count we use for discharge is 156, and we use almost exclusively 156 unless the design calls for some kind of halftone gradient work that isnt two inks mixing to form the gradient. In other words if it is white ink and a black shirt and we are fading from the white to the black we would use 230. If it is a black shirt but we are fading from blue to yellow, we would print wet on wet and use 156 mesh and the halftones will end up blurring and mixing to create really awesome gradients.
We use 1/1 emulsion coating for relatively thin stencils.
We print on contact.
We do single pulls at roughly 45 degrees with moderate to high pressure. Additional pulls will cause buildup and loss of detail.
We use 3-5% retarder (printgen) depending on the temperature in our shop and the color of the ink. Some colors seem to gum up quicker.
We use 2-3% fixer.
We use 6-8% activator.
We double reds and half black when mixing. This gives us better color matching and much brighter reds. There are a bunch of other small rules like this we have developed through experimentation, but these two are pretty hard and fast, if that makes sense.
For white we mix 10% clear base and 5% water with 85% white, then use the above amounts of fixer/activator/retarder.
We reuse activated inks for up to 6 weeks and keep them in a fridge, sealed. When we bring them out to reuse, we add 1% activator and enough water to dissolve the activator, then drill mix the ink. It is as good as new, we wash test regularly. I actually think it would be good longer than 6 weeks, but we have a small fridge and toss small amounts of uncommon colors to make space often.
If you have any other questions feel free to pm me or respond in the thread and I will answer them if I can.
Just wanted to thank you for this post. And, I'd thank you twice if I could.
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We have red formulas that are richer than plastisols as they contain no fillers
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Speaking of a red discharge ink, does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations on how to achieve a BRIGHT RED result. I've tried mixing to a couple different pantone colors with ryonet's CMS software but have had poor results. I either end up with a pink print or a really dull deep red. I need to achieve a bright red but have yet to have any success. Anyone out there that has had good results have any input for me? Thanks!
-Frustrated Printer
I just got thr R2O pigments from ryonet. Also got the clear waterbase base and the discharge base from them. Did a discharge job with 185c red on black shirts and the red was pretty dead on. Did a wash test and it did good. I tried doing a red along time ago with union plasticharge and it was so dull.