Bleed issues with Silicone ink

[Atownsend]

Long time lurker here, but first time post!

So I'm doing our first print run with Nazdar / Dow Corning's new silicone ink. So far... not impressed. Im sure it would be fine if this was a straight black or red 100% poly shirt. But we're printing on Sport Tech 370's (iron grey) camo shirts. White ink. Coating method = 2/2 wet on wet + a face coat with the round side of the scope coater, so we have a good stencil. 110 mesh, newman from @ 50N. The first few tests I ran without the flash since it looked great with one hit. Dryer is set @ 240F, dwell time = 60 seconds, per spec sheet. Dye migration like crazy. I called nazdar and they suggested increasing the catalyst from my 4% to 5%, and p/f/p. Ive been flashing for 5 seconds @ 240, and am still getting migration. I followed their recommendations and am still getting migration. I thought silicone ink would be the solution for these garments, but apparently not for camo. Am i missing something here? Ive tried all kinds of variations with the dryer / flash etc. The spec sheet says that the ink can be cured at a lower temp at a slower speed, but I tried that and the ink was not even gelling. I definitely dont want to run into any adhesion issues either. Anybody have suggestions? I need to get these shirts out the door unfortunately.

[blue moon]

let it sit over night, it'll clear by tomorrow. . . printed camo is the only thing that bleeds, but it all goes away a little bit later.

pierre

[Atownsend]

Wow! Thats good to know! I will be truly amazed if the migration dissipates. Wish I knew that before I tossed the first 3 shirts and burned 3 hours fiddling with dryer temps...

Should I still P/F/P if it looks good on the first pass? Or is the 2nd layer of ink going to be insurance against migration?

thanks,

-Aaron

[blue moon]

Wow! Thats good to know! I will be truly amazed if the migration dissipates. Wish I knew that before I tossed the first 3 shirts and burned 3 hours fiddling with dryer temps...

Should I still P/F/P if it looks good on the first pass? Or is the 2nd layer of ink going to be insurance against migration?

thanks,

-Aaron

we very rarely PFP the silicone. One layer shout be enough as long as it is printed right. If that does not work though, try two hits!

the silicone is porous and the gases are seeping through it. Once they all get through you should be back to normal.

pierre

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

In for pics to see it go back to solid white...

[AntonySharples]

We printed a bunch of these earlier this year.  Bled horrible through the poly inks.  Was going to try silicone  until the sales manager at sanmar told us nothing was going to help.  They are supposed to look that way she said.  We just explained to customers what was going to happen and actually designed the art to work with it.  Can't wait to see if the silicone actually worked or not.

[Denis Kolar]

Those are dye sub shirts and they will bleed no matter what. I had to apply vinyl numbers to some of them, WOW, that was not fun.
Luckily, that was for my kids, but the vinyl took the pattern from the shirt completely.
Not sure if the silicone help, would like to know if it cleared up.

[Rocky Bihl]

We have ink combinations that work on the SanMar digital camo. Most of my formula development of the ELT  Digital Black Underbase was done printing on the SanMar Camo (bleeds far worse than Badgers!). This print was done in March and is made with the ELT Digital Black Underbase with 357 White on top.

[Robert Clark]

This is just another example of problems that can arise with these garments. There is a fix to these garments and its name is ELT. You don't need to mix catalyst you wont have any waste. Just read the instructions, dip the ink out of the bucket and start printing. Or call your One Stroke Account Manger and they will walk you thru it.   

We tried to make it as easy as possible with the ELT Series. For our long term customers that use our Universal series ( Bravo, Smart, NP Dry Fit, Production,.357 ) the ELT Digital Black is compatible with these series.  Or for our newer customers you can choose between just ELT or a mixture of the two.   

 Take a look at our ELT Sample kit, that I attached. If anyone has any questions please give me a call .

[Atownsend]

Wow! Thats good to know! I will be truly amazed if the migration dissipates. Wish I knew that before I tossed the first 3 shirts and burned 3 hours fiddling with dryer temps...

Should I still P/F/P if it looks good on the first pass? Or is the 2nd layer of ink going to be insurance against migration?

thanks,

-Aaron

we very rarely PFP the silicone. One layer shout be enough as long as it is printed right. If that does not work though, try two hits!

the silicone is porous and the gases are seeping through it. Once they all get through you should be back to normal.

pierre

I risked it and ran 100 of the with one hit last night (no flash). Cured @ 260F with 60 second dwell time. 110 mesh, 50N tension. Thick stencil. We did have some migration once they came out of the dryer and were stacked. I finished the run around 10pm, 11 hours later there is no trace of migration in any of the prints. I definitely have to take back what I said about not being impressed with the Si ink. I am truly blown away.

The ELT black looks like good stuff too, but I don't think you can beat the hand that you get with the Si ink. Esp. you have to base and then overprint. For me to print this with ELT, i'd need a base, then a flash and another print. Right? I would rather deal with the ink waste then the screen set up / time waste.

Definitely mind the clock once this stuff hits the screen. It lasts longer in the mixing container, but once you start printing its go time. It will get pretty rubbery towards the end if you take too long, or if you put too much ink in the screen at the beginning like I did.

Now what i'm wondering, has any used this stuff to print on other substrates? IE nylon or polypropleyne bags? I've used nylabond quite a bit in the past, and this seems like it would excel and possibly replace nylabond for us.

[blue moon]

retarder is available, it will keep the ink from drying but will require slightly longer time in the dryer. We usually add 1% retarder to every batch and have not had issues in a long time. Very early on (almost three years back. Yes, we worked with Nazdar on testing this stuff) while they were still on the first chemical formula we had a batch of black that was drying in an hour, but we regularly get several hours out of it without any problems.

Very, very important is to keep the containers hermetically sealed as any humidity will ruin the ink (before it's activated) and to avoid ANY contamination with plastisol as it will stop the ink from curing (not sure if this was related to the first formula or not, but we've just stuck with having everything super clean before using silicone).

pierre

[jvanick]

not the greatest print as we were just experimenting on the manual but:



Matsui White CL (it is a HSA ink) over black matsui underbase.... (cured at 230!) wash tests have been great (just don't run them through a clothes dryer as they will bleed then)

anybody know if the silicone or OneStop ELT prevents the bleeding if the end customers mistreat them?

[Robert Clark]

The Print that Rocky posted has been used and abused thru the washing machine and dryer. It will hold up rather nicely.

[jvanick]

@Rob, I might need to order the sample kit and see how it works and compare to the waterbase we've been playing with.

thankfully we don't deal with digi-camo too often....

[Rocky Bihl]

As Robert (Ink Guy) stated, the print I posted was washed hot and dried on the highest setting I do believe 6 or seven times. We strive and test for "LONG TERM BLEED RESISTANCE", that just good enough bleed resistance to get out the door is something we strive to eliminate. So that is how we test. We want Your customers to be happy long term, not just until they accidentally throw a print into a HOT Dryer (against label directions).

Sorry for the upside down picture!! Robert says I am really messing with his obsessive compulsive disorder with that! 

I am a computer rookie!