Ladies and gentleman, your 'guaranteed dischargeable' T....

[ZooCity]

Left is a G5000, right is an NL 3600. 

This is starting to really bum everyone out here.   Of course harder to see in the quick cell phone pic but the NL print looks like garbage in real life next to the 5000. 

Does anyone know of a solid alternate to NL for DC runs?  It's a shame because this is good product but if it's going to trash print runs like this we need to move on for DC runs. 

[mimosatexas]

I don't think any brand is perfect when it comes to this honestly.

[ericheartsu]

We've been seeing more and more of this as well. and lately even our whites which have been traditionally amazing, are starting to not be as bright.

[jvanick]

where did you get the NL3600 from, I was told that only ones that come directly from them or certain lot #'s are guaranteed discharable...

you might have gotten a re-dye...  you'd likely be able to tell after washing if the white changes...  (white always seems to look great initially, even on re-dyes... it's after a few washings that your white print turns yellow or brown or green or whatever tone the shirt is.

[sqslabs]

Well that's a bummer.  I've also noticed G5's giving brighter results when we do test prints on them, but haven't run into any major issues with the 3600 yet.  Not looking forward to it as it's been our go-to for quite some time as well.

We've had good luck with the Canvas 3001 and even the Alstyle 5301 lately.  My Alstyle rep promised no more consistency issues once their new plant had opened, but then Gildan entered the picture so who knows what's gonna happen with that. 

[3Deep]

I'm learning very fast that DC is a hit and miss, so you have to be careful, even garment that printed great for one run might not print well on the next.

[GoWestRob]

The Canvas #3001U is supposed to be guaranteed discharge friendly, but about 3 times the price of a Gildan #5000.  The last I heard only their USA line (with the U) is guaranteed discharge friendly.

[ZooCity]

where did you get the NL3600 from, I was told that only ones that come directly from them or certain lot #'s are guaranteed discharable...

you might have gotten a re-dye...  you'd likely be able to tell after washing if the white changes...  (white always seems to look great initially, even on re-dyes... it's after a few washings that your white print turns yellow or brown or green or whatever tone the shirt is.

You do not need to specify for discharge from NL, they did away with that a year or two ago. The shirts in this run from China look just as lame as the ones from Nicaragua. 

Speak with NL's "guru" on this if you'd like to hear somebody talk out both sides of their mouth and their ass at the same time but, long story short, they don't track these or do anything to ensure that the product you get will produce an acceptable discharge print.  They do all "discharge", but that's it.   

I don't need a guarantee, all I'd like is something that resembles consistency.  I tried to get a handle on how we might be able to spec product form a certain location or warehouse in bulk but there's no navigating it unfortunately.

We love these shirts and print mountains of them, don't get me wrong.  I understand this is life doing this type of printing, needed to vent a little and see what else is performing well right now.  We'll check out Canvas for a alternative. 

[jvanick]

this is good to know tho, as we haven't really done much NL stuff lately (mostly Canvas 3001's)

-J

[dirkdiggler]

Canvas 3001 here with good results, the G5000 has good results to, but the youth sizes tend to have lots or redyes.

[ebscreen]

Man I hate it when that happens. Oddly enough ours has been the other direction with G5000 giving us the occasional dud. I've always thought the overall muted meant cheap dye as opposed to redyes.

Does anyone know Next Level's backstory? When we first started using them it was almost all out of China, then we started getting the SA shipments later. I wonder if their expansion has anything to do with the crap dyes again.

[ZooCity]

We don't run a ton of the coe shirts but do a good grip of G5000 since it's the solid low cost option for events and such.  I agree that re-dyes seem to be the main problem there. 

I think all us DC printers should get together and make a major purchase order of Black NL 3600s or similar and spec out a singular dye recipe that we approve.  Break the shipment up when it hits the states and we'd all have a solid stash.  Space willing, we'd probably take about 25k annually.  Who's in?

[TCT]

I'm in.

The 5000 for as "basic" as they are, do well, the 64000's not to shabby either. We have more of a issue saying it's a Gildan, people assume it's basic and not fashionable.

Canvas ones have worked for us. The nicest shirt we have done discharge on and used to buy pallets of, was belive it out not, from Cotton Heritage. They even opened up a warehouse in WI. The shirts have a great feel and substrate. Customer service and the way the company handles things was the ultimate downfall in our relationship.

Zoo I'd probably get in on a big buy. If the price was right and there were terms of some sort I would be in for half a container maybe...

[TCT]

Man I hate it when that happens. Oddly enough ours has been the other direction with G5000 giving us the occasional dud. I've always thought the overall muted meant cheap dye as opposed to redyes.

Does anyone know Next Level's backstory? When we first started using them it was almost all out of China, then we started getting the SA shipments later. I wonder if their expansion has anything to do with the crap dyes again.

Funny, we were just talking about this yesterday. Their "official" name is something like Y S Garments. I had speculated that maybe they were one of those random never heard of manufacturers you see every year at Long Beach but never make it a second year, only they got a big purchase and made it to beyond the second year... Would be interesting to know the real story though.

[jvanick]

what would even be better than a next level 'group' purchase would be to figure out a group buy to get several containers of shirts made on spec (fabric, cut, dye, etc).

we could have a 'TSB' t-shirt, etc that was unbranded (except maybe for size, country, fabric and r/n number? somewhere.)

*given what I saw with the container of those hoodies, they weren't terrible... (actually for a 100% poly hoodie they were quite nice), and 1/2 the cost of anything else we can find as of today... the issue was that nobody gave the vendor there true 'specs'... they just gave a 'we need this number of cases in womens small, medium, etc...' and never checked the size charts for those shirts.

I really have no idea how you'd arrange something like that, but you gotta think that if we were ordering multiple containers of black/(other colors?), we might be able to get a killer deal, on something that we would KNOW is going to work for our needs.  Heck if you REALLY wanted to get crazy, you may even be able to bleach the cotton before dyeing it, so that the actual discharge color with clear base comes out whiter than the stuff we normally use.

we'd likely be in for 1/4 to half a container of black shirts as well depending on how the pricing came in.