Author Topic: What's gone wrong here?  (Read 2297 times)

Offline Wildcard

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What's gone wrong here?
« on: June 07, 2016, 05:45:52 AM »
I've just had one of THOSE days...

Had my casual guy in doing these prints so I'm not sure of everything that happened. The print is on poly/cotton hoodies with white underbase and highlight white (Sericol multi purpose low bleed). The dryer had an issue halfway through the job where it lost temperature and the hoodies weren't fully curing. So I fired up the heat press (330 for 6-10sec, med pressure) to make sure the prints were cured and this happened: the white parts of the print stuck to the Teflon sheet and delaminated while the gold print was fine.
This is the first one and worst example because it surprised me, the rest I pressed with much lighter pressure than normal and peeled carefully so they look okay BUT I'm worried that they are going to fall apart in the first wash.

To me it looks like the underbase might have been over flashed and the issue is unrelated to my dryer/curing problems. However perhaps I've missed something else?
I'm going to give this hoodie a wash tonight to see how it goes, but is there any way to be confident the other hoodies will be fine? Any ideas on what went wrong?



Offline tonypep

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2016, 06:17:15 AM »
Right hand pic seems to show some issues with the gold as well. Try cold peeling with transfer paper or teflon

Offline Wildcard

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2016, 07:11:19 AM »
Right hand pic seems to show some issues with the gold as well. Try cold peeling with transfer paper or teflon
Thanks for the input Tony.
The gold didn't have the same issues with sticking to the Teflon but it may also be buggered... Who knows?

I've got some transfer paper so I can try that tomorrow. Is it possible to overcook the print in the heat press? Recommended temperature, pressure and dwell times for rescuing dodgy prints?

Offline tonypep

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2016, 07:32:35 AM »
Cut the time in half

Offline mimosatexas

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2016, 07:40:38 AM »
I remember testing one ink a while back that did this.  It was a cheap cotton white and it got super sticky when heat pressed for whatever reason.  Could just be an issue with the ink in general, but I have no experience with that sericol ink.

It does seem odd to me that the top white is straight up coming off the underbase.  I think that points to some other issue somewhere as well...

Offline abchung

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2016, 11:20:23 AM »
What mesh sizes did you use?
I think the white is thicker and needed more time to cure. (Just think when you throw a frozen meat pie into the oven with high heat, outside would be all burnt but the inside is still frozen).
Also different colored inks cook at different rate.

I would never heat press something lower than 20 secs just to make sure, because I learnt it the hard way when I heat pressed silver ink at 10sec. They all washed off after the first wash.

Offline Wildcard

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2016, 09:52:53 PM »
The washed hoodie seemed fine, no worse than going in. Not sure if one wash is enough to test though.
So possibly the problem was with the white ink getting tacky under the heat press due to the under curing?

Offline abchung

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Re: What's gone wrong here?
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2016, 11:19:02 PM »
I think so. We just put it in the dryer or flash a little longer.