Sim Process Help

[ericheartsu]

Hi All! hoping you can explain to me what we are dealing with, and what is going on.

In June we printed some tees for a customer, where we outsourced them to a bigger shop in town. It was an 8 color sim process print. We handled the seps, and they just did the printing for us, because at the time, we were not ready to do such a complicated design, nor did we have the time. Overall, i don't think they were anything special, but the band was happy with them.

Fast forward till Friday, and we have these set up to reprint, only this time we are handling everything in house.

Everything is going great. Screens all came out great, everything is lining up well, prints are looking good. Then we made one small adjustment, and spent the rest of the day chasing how it was moments before.

We changed the angle on the squeegee for the black screen, and it's almost like we lost all of our black!

Here is my print order, with all plastisol

Head 2: 225s: White Plastisol (tried DCUB, didn't look right)
Head 3: Flash
Head 4:
Head 5: 330s/Union Maxopaque Yellow G/S
Head 6: 330s/ L. Blue 3215
Heat 7: 330S/ Green 3398
Head 8:
Head 9: 330S/ Red 1795
Head 10: 305/ Blue 2735
Head 11: 330S/ Black
Head 12: 330S/ White

The Heather Gray (right pic), is our current print. The Athletic Gray (left print), is what we were trying to match.

On the pictures below
1.  the Heather Gray (right pic) is what we printed, where the A. Gray (left pic), was from the previous run.
2. is a little bit closer pic of the prints side by side
3. Close up pic of the biggest problems area (people's clothes, the building corner, their reflection in the water)
4. Close up pic of the issues above on the original print.

What could we have done differently? Our prints were a little more red then the original. We switched out that ink twice, as well as our squeegees, and messed with the pressure and speed a TON on the red and yellow screens, to get them to blend more. In fact everything printed great up until the black screen, where it just looked so muted.

any suggestions?

[tonyt79]

Somehow read it wrong. Always seem to do that on tapatalk

[ericheartsu]

Judging from the pictures, your print looks better.

Sent from my SM-N915T using Tapatalk

ours is the one on the lighter gray.

[abchung]

May be this article might help.

http://www.theinkkitchen.com/2014/02/misprint-monday-cold-press-blues/

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

Try 50/50 black and finesse or curable reducer yet?

[ericheartsu]

May be this article might help.

http://www.theinkkitchen.com/2014/02/misprint-monday-cold-press-blues/

I don't think this was the case, because there really wasn't any shifting during our run. Only before while we were setting it up!

[ericheartsu]

Try 50/50 black and finesse or curable reducer yet?

We had tried switching from our wilflex black, to a union process black, but that didn't really make any difference.

[zanegun08]

I hate trying to match another printers ink.  There are so many variables and it is always a battle, even with the same exact separations you always get different results.

Another difference is a different color of shirt, which depending on the base could be a factor.

I would say that your print looks rough, so probably a rough base, head 4 could've been a flattening screen to smooth the base.  The red could've possibly switched earlier in the print order to get away from over saturation, as well as a harder squeegee.

But I think the roughness of the print is due to a rough underbase.  To get smooth gradients like the other print, start with a nice smooth base.

I'm not a believer in process black I just like to run a hard squeegee with a fast pull.  The other artist with years my experiences always does process black, and spot black, but I disagree.

[ericheartsu]

thanks! we are working on getting smoother gradients, as we know thats something we haven't dialed in yet. I still have the job set up from Friday, so i'm going to run some more tests in the morning, with a harder squeegee on the red, as well as a smoothing screen.

[DannyGruninger]

Are you only running a flash after the base? From what I see that darker shirt looks like they flashed after the red...

[ericheartsu]

Are you only running a flash after the base? From what I see that darker shirt looks like they flashed after the red...

yep, only a flash after the base!

[Colin]

Zane, I agree with the white base looking a little rough.  Eric, the roughness could be garment specific this run.  Like Zane said, run a smoothing screen right after your flash, make sure the ink is still hot enough to be pliable when it is hit with the smoothing screen and you will see a world of difference.  Also, check to see if there is a weave difference between the garments, with one being more open....

As for your black looking weak, I contribute 90% of it to your printing on a lighter fabric.  I know you can get better black saturation by applying more pressure and slowing down your squeegee, but this creates a lot of black dot gain, as we both know. 

This is SPECIFICALLY why I like to split my 75%-100% blacks into another "spot" screen.  Yes, it is only doable when you have the extra space.....  I LOVE to print my  1%-75% black tonal screen (I actually leave it up to 100% black but I pull my curve way back so my visual dot gain is actually a little light) right after my flashed white.  I then print my colors directly on top.  This gives you incredibly rich, clean, smooth colorful blends.  Your shadow colors actually LOOK like shadow colors....  Print your darker colors first like reds and rich blues, lighter at the end (it does matter how much white your lighter colors have for proper print order, but that's another topic).  Then we come back with a clipped black that actually covers and makes your solid blacks look solid.  This way gives you much more CONTROL over the halftones you are printing.  This is also printable on any shirt color.

Zane:

The reason why I wouldn't do a quick print stroke on my black screen to "control" my dot gain is that I would then have Zero fiber trap.  One wash and allllllll my shadow areas look light.

With 2 black screens you can achieve fantastic fibre trap that lasts many washes.

My 2 cents

[zanegun08]

With 2 black screens you can achieve fantastic fibre trap that lasts many washes.

That's a valid point, and one that I hadn't thought about.

It is true and unfortunate that I rarely get to see the designs post wash.  Usually we just hope that the ink doesn't fall off with our fingers crossed   

On the next one I'm going to do a wash test, one with two blacks, one with one, and see if it makes a difference.  Thanks for your input.

[ericheartsu]

Understood about the base. Our only question there is, even without the base we were still getting the same results. Our test prints were on gray tees, as well as white tees.

Re the garment: Understood as well. The sample we were trying to match was on a triblend TR401, where the real shirts were being printed on 0202s!

[Colin]

Zane:

I completely understand about not seeing the print again once it walks out the door! 

We usually have a mill defect or two during those kind of runs that we occasionally will take home and do wash tests on.  From this we have learned what works best in our shop for mesh counts and ink mixes..... and what kind of garments are just crap

Also, we make a custom black here using Primer Clear/C3 Black pigment from RC Screen and an off the shelf black that we mix about 50/50.

The primer clear traps fibers better than an Ultrasoft/Chino/Insert super soft base of choice here.  But the wet-on-wet abilities are not as good.  You will eventually get a waxy/paraffin build up you need to clean.

Eric:

Hopefully all this info will get you closer to a perfect print!