Your thoughts on a Poly White

[bimmridder]

Looking for feedback on what is important to you in choosing a poly white.

[bimmridder]

Sorry if you voted already. I added cost as a choice

[Frog]

Sorry if you voted already. I added cost as a choice

You can edit the poll and check "Allow Voters to Change Vote" (and then change it back if you want to after a while)

[DannyGruninger]

I will start....... The most important factors to me are

1. ability to block dye
2. fiber mat down
3. receptive to colors overprinting
4. after flash tack
5. low cure

Cost is one of the items that aren't a huge factor for me when it comes to white ink. I'm looking for printability/finished results more then I am concerned about cost. After printability comes speed. I would rather have a really nice poly white that prints well/mats the fibers/blocks the dye that runs slower in compared to an ink that can print faster but has a lesser ability to block dye/mat fibers. Again I am more concerned with finished results then speed.

Ideally I would love to see a poly white that is shorter bodied then what is on the market right now. It seems most of the polys carry a long honey like body along with a gloss finish that I do not care much for. Having a poly white that prints and works like a nice short bodied cotton white would be ideal.

I will add more later but just some initial thoughts to get this going

[Frog]

I will start....... The most important factors to me are

1. ability to block dye
2. fiber mat down
3. receptive to colors overprinting
4. after flash tack
5. low cure

Cost is one of the items that aren't a huge factor for me when it comes to white ink. I'm looking for printability/finished results more then I am concerned about cost. After printability comes speed. I would rather have a really nice poly white that prints well/mats the fibers/blocks the dye that runs slower in compared to an ink that can print faster but has a lesser ability to block dye/mat fibers. Again I am more concerned with finished results then speed.

Ideally I would love to see a poly white that is shorter bodied then what is on the market right now. It seems most of the polys carry a long honey like body along with a gloss finish that I do not care much for. Having a poly white that prints and works like a nice short bodied cotton white would be ideal.

I will add more later but just some initial thoughts to get this going

It's already going as a poll. Did you vote?

[Colin]

Is there a poly white that actually has good fiber matte?

I have never seen one actually matte well, even if it had a ton of puff in it.  You could always still see threads popping up.

Ideally I would love to see a poly white that is shorter bodied then what is on the market right now. It seems most of the polys carry a long honey like body along with a gloss finish that I do not care much for. Having a poly white that prints and works like a nice short bodied cotton white would be ideal.

The resins used in Poly white are typically very long bodied.  This makes it difficult to make a nice creamy Poly ink that still has good body.

Just lowering the viscocity of a poly ink does not make it a better ink..... 

I have noticed the low cure temp Poly whites don't truly have better bleed blocking powers, they have good bleed block coupled with low cure temps which help.....

I think I am miffed with poly inks lately.... Which really means I still hate bad poly fabric....

[alan802]

I like Danny's list but would squeeze the "puffiness" of the ink in there in the top 3 and if I was being picky I might swap 3 and 4 but at that point we're splitting hairs.

The shortest poly inks I've used were One Stroke's.  I really like their Bravo Flex, .357 and Production white.  Overall, the best of those I think is the Bravo but .357 is very close in performance to me.  I use Production for 90% of our poly printing and have a gallon of .357 on hand most of the time for those really bad bleeders as it's their best blocker.  It's been about 6 months since I've tried any other poly whites other than One Stroke but way back then I had concluded that nobody made a poly white as good as OSI once you factored in all of the variables.  You can almost print the OSI poly whites as fast and light pressure as a good cotton white which in the past and with other brands of poly you cannot come close to printing like that.  I think for us that has as much to do with our fiber matte down than anything, fast and light pressure is key. 

One thing I would ask on the subject of fiber matte down and poly inks, how big of a role do you guys think that the nature of poly fabrics, most importantly blends and poly/spandex blends which are awful to print on due to fibrillation, have more to do with it than a poly whites ability to matte down?  I realize there is a lot more that goes into it but thought I'd provoke some thoughts and replies on that specifically.

[jvanick]

I really like the OSI Bravo Flex White too, but man is that stuff puffy if you cure at 340+...

[mimosatexas]

I see people listing fiber matte down as crucial, and maybe I just don't print on the same stuff as y'all, but when I am printing poly (that needs a great poly specific ink) it always seems to need little or no matte down.  The stuff prints like paper...

Triblends are horrible for fibrillation, so are some other heathered poly cottons, and some 100% cotton ringspun/sueded/whatever flavor of the month effect/etc, but I'm not using hardcore poly inks on those most of the time and my poly excel is working fine for those.  The bad bleeding 100% poly jerseys and wicking shirts etc are as smooth as anything...

[DannyGruninger]

I see people listing fiber matte down as crucial, and maybe I just don't print on the same stuff as y'all, but when I am printing poly (that needs a great poly specific ink) it always seems to need little or no matte down.  The stuff prints like paper...

Triblends are horrible for fibrillation, so are some other heathered poly cottons, and some 100% cotton ringspun/sueded/whatever flavor of the month effect/etc, but I'm not using hardcore poly inks on those most of the time and my poly excel is working fine for those.  The bad bleeding 100% poly jerseys and wicking shirts etc are as smooth as anything...

The problem fabrics that come to mind are not the 100% poly garments rather these "dry blend" style of shirts that gildan, nike, etc offer. I will look up style numbers tomorrow but I know some of the other members here know the fabric I'm talking about. They are absolutely horrible to print on, bleed like crazy and the only way we have been able to mat the fibers is using multiple base blocking screens. As for the 100% poly shirts like a4, yeah those print very well with almost any ink we have tested(some better then others but for the most part they print awesome). We cringe when po's come to us using those style of garments LOL

[Rockers]

Just tried the Wilfex Epic Amazing Bright White, which is generally a poly/cotton white. That`s so easy to print flashes fast and cures at a reasonable temperature and works very well on black and navy 100% poly dry fit tees.

[dirkdiggler]

I would just about rather take a beating than to use poly on triblends, or gildan dryblends that Danny mentioned.  We print them a lot, and they suck balls!

[screenprintguy]

I like the use onestroke versa max white for triblends. Our goto poly white is Rutland Super poly white.

[JBLUE]

We have printed 1000's upon tens of thousands of 100% poly in every color and shape. Rutlands Super Poly White has never let us down and prints super smooth with a few tricks. The only time we had an issue was on some over dyed poly shirts from Egypt. Even the manufactures labels bled....lol

Higher count S mesh and warm ink are keys to a clean shear with minimal deposit. Low mesh is not your friend with poly inks contrary to the belief of many. We have a 6500 pc 8 color on black 100% poly next week and they will run at 700+ pieces per hour with no issues. High mesh rollers and run like hell.