Silicone ink Help

[Maxie]

i just got my first gallon of silicone white for printing on polyester sweatshirts.
What screen should I use?
Do we pfp like regular white?
Anything we should do to get a good result?
Does silicone cure at the same temp as regular plastisol?

[Orion]

Don't know what brand you are using Maxie, but this may help you:

http://sourceone.nazdar.com/Portals/0/TDS/ImageStar-Silicone-InfoGuide_2015-web.pdf

[blue moon]

i just got my first gallon of silicone white for printing on polyester sweatshirts.
What screen should I use?
Do we pfp like regular white?
Anything we should do to get a good result?
Does silicone cure at the same temp as regular plastisol?

is it from Nazdar?

pierre

[Frog]

Hey Maxie, isn't there a tech sheet explaining about mixing the catalyst? I would think that that would include cure information.
The whole point of this stuff is the lower required temps not affecting the poly dyes.

[jsheridan]

Ive been using the nazdar stuff for a few jobs and this is how we do it, pretty much same way the info sheet tells you.

We use 150 S for the screen, make two if this is a long run as it requires a P F P for every color.

Setup like normal

Activate the ink you plan to use for the run with 5% activator
 
Add to screen and using enough pressure to print with, print the first hit, FLASH, not to much now, just enough to gell and print it again.
Better to have the flash a couple heads away as the ink is heat sensitive and can cure in the screen if not careful.

cure at 280 in the dryer.


You just printed silicone!

As soon as your run is done, clean the screen and tools as you do plastisol.

[Maxie]

I have a gallon of Printop white, I found the info sheet and see that they did not sent me the catalyst or retardant.
We've been printing 100% polyester with regular whites and the results are terrible.
I'm hoping this silicone will solve our problem.

[Frog]

I just looked them up and see they definitely mention the catalyst and retarder. Very surprising that at least the catalyst doesn't automatically ship.

http://www.printop.com/wap/content/en/products.php?p=1214&c=97

[JBLUE]

You can use a smoothing screen too but it has to be before the flash done on the wet ink. Once you flash it the fibers are trapped in the position they are in. The smoothing screen wont help. Silicone has very little to almost no fiber matte down capabilities so fuzzy poly stuff does not work well at all.

[pwalsh]

I just looked them up and see they definitely mention the catalyst and retarder. Very surprising that at least the catalyst doesn't automatically ship.

Mr. Frog, this is a great question / observation about the catalyst not shipping automatically with the Silicone inks.  I can’t speak for the folks at Printop, but hopefully my answer on how Nazdar SourceOne packages and ships the catalyst with the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks will be helpful. 

With many ink systems the amount of catalyst to be added to ink is set at a fixed ratio.  (For example 3% weight by volume catalyst to base ink)  In these ink systems the manufacturer supplies the correct size container of catalyst to match up with the specific size container of ink making it simple for the user to just empty the full amount of the catalyst into the bucket of ink and print on. 

With the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks the required ratio of catalyst to ink can vary from 3% to 5% weight by volume dependent on the ambient printing conditions, and the curing system being used. A couple of considerations that Nazdar had when deciding how to package the catalyst were the cost of the material, and the possibility of the printer adding more catalyst than was required and compromising the ink performance and screen stability. 

After taking these factors into account we decided to package the catalyst as a standalone additive in bulk packaging sizes of 1 Pint, 1 Quart, and 1 Gallon.  We feel that this is the most cost effective option for our customers, and will help them in using the correct amount of catalyst for their specific ambient printing and curing conditions. 

[Frog]

I just looked them up and see they definitely mention the catalyst and retarder. Very surprising that at least the catalyst doesn't automatically ship.

Mr. Frog, this is a great question / observation about the catalyst not shipping automatically with the Silicone inks.  I can’t speak for the folks at Printop, but hopefully my answer on how Nazdar SourceOne packages and ships the catalyst with the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks will be helpful. 

With many ink systems the amount of catalyst to be added to ink is set at a fixed ratio.  (For example 3% weight by volume catalyst to base ink)  In these ink systems the manufacturer supplies the correct size container of catalyst to match up with the specific size container of ink making it simple for the user to just empty the full amount of the catalyst into the bucket of ink and print on. 

With the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks the required ratio of catalyst to ink can vary from 3% to 5% weight by volume dependent on the ambient printing conditions, and the curing system being used. A couple of considerations that Nazdar had when deciding how to package the catalyst were the cost of the material, and the possibility of the printer adding more catalyst than was required and compromising the ink performance and screen stability. 

After taking these factors into account we decided to package the catalyst as a standalone additive in bulk packaging sizes of 1 Pint, 1 Quart, and 1 Gallon.  We feel that this is the most cost effective option for our customers, and will help them in using the correct amount of catalyst for their specific ambient printing and curing conditions.

Hopefully though, something or someone in the ordering process of this product automatically clicks in with something like "do you want fries with that?" 

In my mind, with a relatively new product (though years of almost release), especially one with a premium price tag, a little extra help should be forthcoming from the manufacturers and distributors to help the user have a good experience.

[pwalsh]

I just looked them up and see they definitely mention the catalyst and retarder. Very surprising that at least the catalyst doesn't automatically ship.

Mr. Frog, this is a great question / observation about the catalyst not shipping automatically with the Silicone inks.  I can’t speak for the folks at Printop, but hopefully my answer on how Nazdar SourceOne packages and ships the catalyst with the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks will be helpful. 

With many ink systems the amount of catalyst to be added to ink is set at a fixed ratio.  (For example 3% weight by volume catalyst to base ink)  In these ink systems the manufacturer supplies the correct size container of catalyst to match up with the specific size container of ink making it simple for the user to just empty the full amount of the catalyst into the bucket of ink and print on. 

With the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks the required ratio of catalyst to ink can vary from 3% to 5% weight by volume dependent on the ambient printing conditions, and the curing system being used. A couple of considerations that Nazdar had when deciding how to package the catalyst were the cost of the material, and the possibility of the printer adding more catalyst than was required and compromising the ink performance and screen stability. 

After taking these factors into account we decided to package the catalyst as a standalone additive in bulk packaging sizes of 1 Pint, 1 Quart, and 1 Gallon.  We feel that this is the most cost effective option for our customers, and will help them in using the correct amount of catalyst for their specific ambient printing and curing conditions.

Hopefully though, something or someone in the ordering process of this product automatically clicks in with something like "do you want fries with that?" 

In my mind, with a relatively new product (though years of almost release), especially one with a premium price tag, a little extra help should be forthcoming from the manufacturers and distributors to help the user have a good experience.

Andy:  All members of the Nazdar SourceOne Customer Service and Sales Teams have been trained to reinforce the requirement of adding catalyst to the ink.  In addition any time a SourceOne CSR looks up a Silicone Ink in our System they get the following Messages:  "IMS35xx items are RFU colors.  All RFU colors require IMS2200 Catalyst" and "IMS3102 is the standard mixing base."

[Frog]

I just looked them up and see they definitely mention the catalyst and retarder. Very surprising that at least the catalyst doesn't automatically ship.

Mr. Frog, this is a great question / observation about the catalyst not shipping automatically with the Silicone inks.  I can’t speak for the folks at Printop, but hopefully my answer on how Nazdar SourceOne packages and ships the catalyst with the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks will be helpful. 

With many ink systems the amount of catalyst to be added to ink is set at a fixed ratio.  (For example 3% weight by volume catalyst to base ink)  In these ink systems the manufacturer supplies the correct size container of catalyst to match up with the specific size container of ink making it simple for the user to just empty the full amount of the catalyst into the bucket of ink and print on. 

With the Nazdar ImageStar Silicone inks the required ratio of catalyst to ink can vary from 3% to 5% weight by volume dependent on the ambient printing conditions, and the curing system being used. A couple of considerations that Nazdar had when deciding how to package the catalyst were the cost of the material, and the possibility of the printer adding more catalyst than was required and compromising the ink performance and screen stability. 

After taking these factors into account we decided to package the catalyst as a standalone additive in bulk packaging sizes of 1 Pint, 1 Quart, and 1 Gallon.  We feel that this is the most cost effective option for our customers, and will help them in using the correct amount of catalyst for their specific ambient printing and curing conditions.

Hopefully though, something or someone in the ordering process of this product automatically clicks in with something like "do you want fries with that?" 

In my mind, with a relatively new product (though years of almost release), especially one with a premium price tag, a little extra help should be forthcoming from the manufacturers and distributors to help the user have a good experience.

Andy:  All members of the Nazdar SourceOne Customer Service and Sales Teams have been trained to reinforce the requirement of adding catalyst to the ink.  In addition any time a SourceOne CSR looks up a Silicone Ink in our System they get the following Messages:  "IMS35xx items are RFU colors.  All RFU colors require IMS2200 Catalyst" and "IMS3102 is the standard mixing base."

A shame that Nazdar doesn't have a branch in Israel. Maxie's Printop distributor obviously dropped the ball.