Is discharge printing cheaper than plastisol

[screenxpress]

I just bought a gal of plasticharge from union ink I think the stuff I,m getting you can mix it with any color you like to make a discharge ink.  Question can you use any mfg's ZFS agent to mix with your plasticharge ink? I got a job coming up with black shirts and the ink colors are white and grey ink, I know i,ve got to get a different emulsion for this stuff.  If any of you are using plasticharge can I get some pointers.

Darryl

Plasticharge comes in white or base clear.  I assume you have the clear.  From notes I took from the Union rep on the phone, clear can be mixed with Mixopake or Maxopake, NOT ULTRASOFT.  My notes say 50/50 mix of base and ink plus the activator. 

If you have the plasticharge white, you can mix Maxopake PADM 1030 for a brighter white.  To get a less opaque print, decrease the ink percentage while increasing the clear percentage (to be expected, lol).  You can go all the way down to 10% ink and 90% base.

I do not know about other manufacturers activator, but my thoughts would be no.  Might be close, but might not formulated for the plasticharge product you're adding it to.

I've got some other notes, that I've posted on other posts, but this was what I had related to your question.  I've only printed with the Union Plasticharge white.  Tom Pitman has used some Union color discharge printing.  Maybe he'll chime in.

[mk162]

You are better off on colors using 57% ink, 39% base and 4% activator.

[IntegrityShirts]

I just picked up the maxopake kit from Union and I'm interested if you guys that use it with activated discharge base have been getting good results on dark garments printing light spot colors in one shot?  Like say yellow or red on a black garment?  Does it come out with the same opacity of an underbased plastisol print?

I could really see the benefit in savings if I don't have to run the flash and can butt-print spot color discharge or plasticharge on larger runs.  I asked Tony over on SPOF what base pigments he would recommend to a printer trying to make a poor-mans matching system and I appreciate the information he gave.  His recommendation for Nazdar to make a kit is one I support 100% as not many even medium sized shops are going to invest in 15 gallons of PC pigments....but wait!  I just checked the website and they added a "PCEXPK Pc Exp Kit Ink Only" option to the drop down list.  Erin is this a starter kit??  If so can you tell us a little more about the quantity of pigments included in the kit?

[mk162]

You will have to play around with your amount of ink/base/activator, but you have get the brightness of an underbased print, you just won't get the gloss of one.

[3Deep]

The rep that sold me the plasticharge additive didn't tell me you could only use this stuff with maxopake ink, so now I've got to get some max inks...ok what about white inks any brand or what?  Who are you guys getting your ZFS agent from? he is telling me the shipping is hazard and will cost me more than the ZFS itself...really not wanting to deal with him again.

Darryl