IC Legacy White non-phthalate

[ZooCity]

We're trying out a sample of the IC legacy white today.  Out of the bucket, stirred in a tornado mixer and cycled through a few dozen prints, the ink is too short bodied for automatic printing.  It's 70 some degrees today so temp and the thixotropic nature of the ink isn't the concern.  We don't like to modify inks here but this one requires it.  We are going to try adding some Wilflex viscosity buster at 1-2% and/or cutting it with the longer bodied Quick White.

I have to assume that this ink must be modified to use on an auto.  If I'm correct, how is everyone modifying their IC legacy white?  If not, how are you printing it out of the bucket?

[mimosatexas]

Didn't Danny say they have to modify it too?  I don't think he mentioned how...

Not an auto printer and don't use that ink, but it does get mentioned a lot so people are definitely making it work I would think.

[kingscreen]

We use Legacy straight out of the bucket.  We run it all day on our auto with no issues.   

[ZooCity]

Yep, I knew going into it that Danny mods his, figured others are doing the same and I know there are some wilflex shops on here (we're pretty much all wilflex for plasti) that are using the legacy white as an alternative to quick, so I wanted to put a feeler out.

King, the ink climbs our winged floodbars like mad, which is the main issue my prod manager is bringing up with it, you don't experience this?

[Homer]

If I remember correctly, we didn't care for Legacy that much either, I remember it being very stiff. we don't modify inks, especially white simply due to the fact of repeatability..... we use IC Knock out 7007 and 7005 as our main whites...absolutely beautiful inks. We were all Wilflex but IC is it across the board...

[jvanick]

we experienced the same thing with the climbing and the Legacy white... pretty much ruled it out right away.

[kingscreen]

Yep, I knew going into it that Danny mods his, figured others are doing the same and I know there are some wilflex shops on here (we're pretty much all wilflex for plasti) that are using the legacy white as an alternative to quick, so I wanted to put a feeler out.

King, the ink climbs our winged floodbars like mad, which is the main issue my prod manager is bringing up with it, you don't experience this?

No, we don't.  This just came off a 450pc. run just minutes ago. 
We switched from Street Fighter to Legacy bc it was creamier and easier to print.

[ZooCity]

huh, maybe temp at our locations?....although 'creamy' isn't a descriptor I would use to describe legacy white given the little bit of time I've had with it.  This is the non-phthatlate?  That could well be the difference.

We added 2% viscosity buster and it behaved with the flood.  Out of the can it was literally lifting up the ink on the flood bar.  I like short bodied inks but there needs to be that balance. 

[DannyGruninger]

I just got into a new 43 gal bucket of legacy after going through around 60 gallons of it in the last month. Chris is right as it won't flood worth a crap on our autos here without modifying it. We do mod the ink on our end but I'm working with the ink guys on some re formulations so this will not be needed in the future. I have some test gallons that actually shipped today so I should be testing those before the weeks over. Hopefully we can solve the flood issue without creating another issue. We do not modify our ink with a reducer, viscosity buster, or base but we use a super long bodied white to get the legacy to flood. The white we are using was a special white that I had made last year which we are all out of. I no longer work with the company who produced the white for us, hence the reason I'm now working on the re formulation to get this to flood properly as we are out of our long bodied special white. Once we get the ink up to working temp(legacy does not work well unless its mixed well and warm) we are running our print speeds from 7-10 on our m&r presses. I have ran several jobs where we are running the squeegee blade as fast as the print head will allow. That has been the key for me here, warm the ink and run it super fast.

[ZooCity]

That answered my question I was about to email you about Danny.  Glad to hear you're working on a reformulation with IC. 

I did some testing at the end of the day with it and found that it does indeed respond very well to higher print speed.  Our motivation to use it stems from quick white having two issues: the cratering in the UB at times and poor performance of certain top colors when printing wow.  We need to get more ink in (supplier sent a quart...) to actually make a call on it.

[dirkdiggler]

we run it everyday with no problems, creamiest ink I have ever used with good opacity.  Printing 1600 piece job today and it NEVER climbs anything.

[scott316]

We sell a ton of the legacy white and haven't had this problem. It's so creamy you can poor up a 5 gallon paul into singles with no problem.

[Screened Gear]

It doesn't climb in my shop out of the bucket. The last few jobs i have been adding some reducer to get the speed of the ink up and get a smoother finish. Over all its doing really well. Only been using it for a week so my experience with it is limited.

[pwalsh]

We're trying out a sample of the IC legacy white today.  Out of the bucket, stirred in a tornado mixer and cycled through a few dozen prints, the ink is too short bodied for automatic printing.  It's 70 some degrees today so temp and the thixotropic nature of the ink isn't the concern.  We don't like to modify inks here but this one requires it.  We are going to try adding some Wilflex viscosity buster at 1-2% and/or cutting it with the longer bodied Quick White.

I have to assume that this ink must be modified to use on an auto.  If I'm correct, how is everyone modifying their IC legacy white?  If not, how are you printing it out of the bucket?

Alex:  There was another post/thread a couple of weeks ago on TSB from an ink manufacturer describing their recommended method to perform a “side-by-side" or "apples-to-apple” comparison between two different white inks.  While the testing method outlined had some merit, a number of printers commented that the test didn’t provide a complete picture of how a specific ink would perform in a production setting.  The reality (as I see it) is that all of the major screen-printing ink manufacturers produce inks that perform really well in some areas, some things that they are ok at, and some performance characteristics that might be considered marginal. 

In any case, it’s likely that the printer might have to change some parts of their process to include; Screen Mesh Selection, Stencil Profile, On-Press Set-up, Squeegee and Flood-bar settings to optimize the performance of any specific ink.  When I read this post and see that you are having performance issues with the International Coatings Legacy White, and then there are other printers posting that they are having great results. Which has me thinking that there might be some other issues with process variables going on, that are impacting the results that you are getting.  I am going to forward this post to the President and the Director Of Sales & Marketing at International Coatings and see if I can get them to join us as contributors at TSB and to provide a response to this post.   

[ZooCity]

Thanks Peter, I'm Chris, not Alex though.  I know it's confusing with all the users here.  Manufacturer input is always great.  We do examine variables with testing new inks.