"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
Everything that you guys are mentioning have been done over and over with the same exact result. Mixing the agent direct, or diluted same thing, only mixing the agent direct ended with a grit to the texture. This mix of matsui was from a brand new bucket just delivered yesterday from a different distributor than the last pre mix whites that we have got in the past. Trust me when I say, every person leaving a comment with instructions, minus a few that don't post on this board, I have tried everyone's methods only to get the same result. Now you can see why it's been so frustrating. 5 people can say no no, mix the activator by itself into the mix, 5 others will say no no no, dilute it first, matsui will say yes, dilute the activator for white. The bottom line is, its' all coming out the same. I actually thought last night, man, what if there is something in our water here that is making that clumping happen. I'll try a mix today using distilled water. My wife is laughing at me because she's like how many different methods are you going to keep trying and getting the same mix result. When I say we have had to add a ton of water to get it loose, man, it almost seems to double the amount of the mix and still ends up as in the pics. I'll see what the distilled water has to do vs the tap water. Again though, Jason, John, Dan, Tony, all you guys, I really appreciate everyone wanting to help me out. I've been trying to get time to run over to Pat's at Real Thread since all he does is W/B printing and shadow him for a few hours, it's just been, thankfully, too busy to leave. Mike
(all amounts are mixed by weight)75% pre-mix white discharge25% brite discharge baseMixAdd 3% Fixer NAdd 3% Printgen C softener (if printing 230 or higher mesh counts)MixAdd 1-3% waterMix WELLAdd 5% activatorMix VERY WELLLet stand 3-5 minutesMix wellThe only way to get it all from clumping is to make sure the activator is the VERY last thing added after all other additives, pigments, water, etc and nothing else.
And some of you wonder why us plastisol guys haven't been all that eager to make the switch Seriously though, that is a little intimidating when we are so used to flinging ink into a screen and being done with it. I'll be ordering this CCI stuff in the next week or so and give it a whirl on some of our white only designs.
It may say it on the bucket but it's not necessary. I've been mixing discharge with a stainless steel ink knife for forever with zero problems.Whatever floats your boat though. Certainly won't hurt.
You mean one of those paint whips that you put on a dril?