Troubleshooting difficult WOW colors

[ZooCity]

Talking about plastisol here.  Any given bright red seems to be a no-go for WOW in here.  I wonder if this is something on our end or more of a universal?

I feel like we do a ton of things right with WOW runs and get acceptable to excellent results on most.  However the reds just won't cooperate.  They will outright pickup right off the base. 

We run Wilflex Amazing Base mixed with PCs.  The bright reds typically are on the higher end of the pigment loading.

I don't mind recapping all the basics here but what are overall thoughts on this phenomenon?  My m.o. has been to setup for a flash after reds but I'm wondering how much effort we should put into trying to get it to fly WOW. 

[blue moon]

no problems with WOW reds, but I just can't get anything that really pops.

pierre

[alan802]

Me thinks you need a different base.  Email me when you get a chance Chris...and Pierre.

[DannyGruninger]

I'm going to throw this out there...... If I remember reading correct you run quick white for your go to white.....I was a long time quick user and always thought of it as the "best"..... Recently I've run through around 20 gallons of non quick and am pretty happy with the results on one of the new whites I've been testing. The reason why I prefer it over quick is the top colors stick/hold to it much better then I thought quick did..... Some colors like purple, blues, etc are super transparent and I always had a tough time getting certain colors to look opaque on quick white. Since switching those same translucent colors no longer look like that with these other whites. My suggestion is to try a different white first and see what you think because quick gave me what I thought was good results until I switched and saw amazing results

[ZooCity]

9/10 reds are bright and rich here it seems, we do aim to have them as vibrant as possible.  I understand that there's only so much pig you can load a good WOW base with before that ink is no longer any good for WOW printing so a balance needs to be found there for sure but it's hard to get, say, 185c to really pop at lower pigment loads. 

Well shoot Danny, I am doing exactly as you did.  Quick just has always performed so flawlessly in all other areas that I haven't considered it being the wrong ink for WOW on top of a solid UB.  Are you seeing the big improvements moving to another LB white with similar dye blocking ability or is this a cotton white?

Email sent Alan.

[Screened Gear]

Not that this will help much but I run all my reds and yellows at the end or as much at the end as I can. Those two colors suck.

Look for this. Is your ink thickening? If so reduce it some. You should not need a thick high pigment ink on top of a underbase. {This maybe part of the problem.} Check the screens after the red screen. Is the red drying or getting hard on the back of the screen?. This happens when you over flash or get the boards too hot. WOW printing needs to be done with the boards a cool as possible. This keeps the inks from thickening and getting sticky. If the color is picking up that much your too hot.

I have printed up to 7 colors wow with only flashing the under base. Yes I could have just flashed more. I wanted to see if I could do it. I learned a ton during the process. Heat is your enemy and printing to much ink can also be a problem.

[alan802]

That's about 4 more colors in a row than most can do Jon, impressive for sure.  Spot colors I presume?  7 WOW spot colors in a row is printing LIKE A BOSS!!!

[Screened Gear]

That's about 4 more colors in a row than most can do Jon, impressive for sure.  Spot colors I presume?  7 WOW spot colors in a row is printing LIKE A BOSS!!!

I have to admit 3 of the colors were very small areas. I only have one flash and I didn't want to rotate it around. It took about 50 shirts to get it running smooth with no adjusting then after that it ran the last 300 with no problems.

[CSPGarrett]

I was doing a 3 color WOW today and usually it goes awesome, I accidentally put the navy blue down first, then cardinal and green.  After I noticed the Navy picking up some (not much but enough) I added reducer and it started to print just like the other colors.  Funny thing is the cardinal wasn't a good WOW ink, was a XOLB with reducer, but it printed the best out of all 3.

[brandon]

Hey Chris,

Plastisol red but what about the base? Does it have to be plastisol? Discharge underbase always makes our prints pop way more and that is all we use for HSA inks and plastisol if we have to use it.

[ZooCity]

DC UB is our go to as well, anywhere we can use it.  I love the way it runs on press and how nice the hand is, it's close to a perfect compromise of color integrity, consistency and soft hand.  Talking about plasti on plasti, should have clarified that.

With DC UB we can pretty easily pull a Jon every time with no flashing after the base gets some water flashed out of it.  It's like magic fun time compared to plastisol base which averages about 3 WOW colors before we need a flash either to prevent buildup problems or, more common, because a color went down like a white, yellow or red that just needs the flash.   

Full disclosure though, we seem to kill it with the halftone stuff but it's spot colors that are bringing us down.  There's just so much more uninterrupted surface area with spot art.  I imagine a lot of the stick that happens is just plain old physics.  A press with peel might be helpful here I suppose. 

I hate adding reducers or really anything to plastisol, we quit that habit long ago and weeded out all the inks with "soft hand" and "fashion" additives and all that other junk.  I have a hunch it's not the base but the pigment load.  Now, show me an additive that buffers higher pig mixes and somehow keeps them from picking off the base and being just plain sticky and I'll change my tune on additives. 

[tonypep]

Reds can be highly  metameric and more prone to shifting when subjected to heat, pressure, etc. Try stepping on a DC red and then repeat; printing the red last. You should see a difference.

[dirkdiggler]

Long time user of quick here and always had good results,  reds on top are never a problem.  We switched to Legacy a year ago and never looked back.  We print 8 spots in a row without a flash 100's of times with no issues.  One thing for sure is once you start, DONT STOP.  Stopping always brings issues with large spot colors on darks.  BTW, my red of choice is Wilflex Super Drake or National.  One other thing is your UB, make sure its not to thick.

[ZooCity]

We keep a bucket of Super Drake on hand but I never put it in a wow sequence, it works for WOW out of the bucket or are you modifying.

Our main red is 185c mixed in house with Amazing base and more pig than standard book, pretty close to max what the base will hold.  I think that may be a key part of the issue, we're going to start keeping a based back mix with each of our house colors.

Does anyone have a Wilflex base they recommend for this purpose?

[dirkdiggler]

Super Drake out of the bucket ZERO mods, been doing that for decades!