My beef with purple inks and Wilflex bases.

[Rockers]

We did a job of 600 tees a week  ago, 3 color front+3 color back with one of those colors being a purple, like a mid purple. Not too light and not too dark. It printed on a white underbase which changed to look of the purple completely. It became very light colored, my wife referred to it as being almost transparent. It was mixed with Wilflex Epic Amazing base using the instructions of the IMS 3.0. No wet on wet after the purple. We get this as well sometimes with certain shades of blue, navy blues I think. Wondering why that is and how to avoid it.

[Nation03]

I'm curious how to avoid this as well. I get it with various different inks. I just did a 5 color job, one of the colors being 7427c (Kind of a cardinal red). First hit on the white underbase made it look a lot lighter then the actual color. I ended up flashing it and printing a second coat on top to make it look more accurate.

I'm curious if this is because I'm printing on a PFPF white UB, since I'm printing manually. I feel like if I printed the color on a print flash UB the color would probably look more accurate upon the first hit.

I use to think it had to do with the ink viscosity, but this particular pantone color was a pretty thick mix.

[sqslabs]

I recently posted a thread about this same topic, and got a lot of great answers from some very knowledgeable people on how to solve it.  You can find that here:

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,17931.0.html

The solution for me was ZooCity's suggestion to bump up the pigment load in the mixes.  This can be done in the IMS software by cloning the formula and then adjusting the amount of base in the mix.

[Colin]

Basically:

You are now printing a layer of ink that is probably 1/3 the thickness that it would be on a white swatch of shirt.  This directly ties into the inks inherent translucency value.  Some pigments are just weak in terms of opacity.  Yellows, purples, flourescents of course, ultramarine blue off the top of my head.  Also, some pms colors are very very bright and "clean" (cardinal, navy, bright pink/magenta, etc).  The only way to truly match those colors is to have a lower pigmentation load.  Which furthers our issues when printing on a solid slab of white ink.

So what do we do with these weaker pigments to make them more opaque?  We either add white - which can pastel/lighten the color a little bit.  Or we add a blowing agent to the base = opaque bases.  Neither option truly gets us - the printer - where we want to be.  So we up the pigment load.  MORE COLOR FOR EVERYONE!

Usually, we can now match the color with a double to sometimes triple pigment load.  The only drawback is the potential for crocking (rubbing off of color) and the potential for not getting a full cure on the ink.  This is because of an imbalance in the ink chemistry due to to much plasticiser/pigment (many nuances here).

TLDR: yea, up the pigment load and do a wash test for full cure and crock

[Rockers]

Basically:

You are now printing a layer of ink that is probably 1/3 the thickness that it would be on a white swatch of shirt.  This directly ties into the inks inherent translucency value.  Some pigments are just weak in terms of opacity.  Yellows, purples, flourescents of course, ultramarine blue off the top of my head.  Also, some pms colors are very very bright and "clean" (cardinal, navy, bright pink/magenta, etc).  The only way to truly match those colors is to have a lower pigmentation load.  Which furthers our issues when printing on a solid slab of white ink.

So what do we do with these weaker pigments to make them more opaque?  We either add white - which can pastel/lighten the color a little bit.  Or we add a blowing agent to the base = opaque bases.  Neither option truly gets us - the printer - where we want to be.  So we up the pigment load.  MORE COLOR FOR EVERYONE!

Usually, we can now match the color with a double to sometimes triple pigment load.  The only drawback is the potential for crocking (rubbing off of color) and the potential for not getting a full cure on the ink.  This is because of an imbalance in the ink chemistry due to to much plasticiser/pigment (many nuances here).

TLDR: yea, up the pigment load and do a wash test for full cure and crock
[/quote
Good you mention the crocking. I had our Union distributer pop in last week asking us to check a print another shop did. The color in question was the Union Brite Red Ultasoft ink. That was crocking like crazy. We first thought the other shop did not cure it proper but after sending it through our gas dryer we just managed to get a slight improvement. It was still crocking, just not as badly. Had the same with the Wilflex National Red which I printed to compare it.

[AAMike]

From what I understand, if you are making inks with pc's,  you can make an ink that will not fully cure if you overload the pigment. If you are using equalizers, this shouldn't happen. With that being said, pc's have stronger color than equalizers.

[Colin]

Equalizers are essentially a very very condensed rfu ink.  Depending on who you talk to they can cure...... after like 3 minutes in a gas dryer ... there are resins/plasticisers/and pigments in the ink....  But that's fine!  They are meant to be put into a balanced base.  Adding the base balances/Equalizes (see what I did there ) the pigment load and resin to plasticizer balance.

As a result, you can reallllly load up your base with equalizers.  Wilflex's system is basically the same as Rutlands M3 system.  You can regularly have the base equal to half your mix or less!  It sounds like 50%+ pigment loading, but in reality its not.  The pigment loading isn't nearly the same as if it were a pigment system.

So... Pigments are a whole nother world!  Its just a plasticiser base with a pigment dispersed in it.  NO Resin whatsoever.  As a result you can make an ink that will never cure really quickly if you don't pay attention.

Ah... the joys of opaque reds and crocking issues...... I have always seen those color shades from Wilflex have issues.  It, again is directly related to pigment loading.  More opacity = stronger pigment load = more potential for crocking.  They do have several warnings within their literature about the potential for it.

Here at my work, I mix everything with the C3 system from Rutland and match to the color we want and adjust our formulas to the desired opacity.  This is based on mesh selection, flashing, etc.  We then wash and crock test.  So far so good.

Hope this helps!

[abchung]

I'm curious how to avoid this as well. I get it with various different inks. I just did a 5 color job, one of the colors being 7427c (Kind of a cardinal red). First hit on the white underbase made it look a lot lighter then the actual color. I ended up flashing it and printing a second coat on top to make it look more accurate.

I'm curious if this is because I'm printing on a PFPF white UB, since I'm printing manually. I feel like if I printed the color on a print flash UB the color would probably look more accurate upon the first hit.

I use to think it had to do with the ink viscosity, but this particular pantone color was a pretty thick mix.

Are you talking about this effect?
https://printwearmag.com/features/grays-anatomy

[Nation03]

Good read. Yes that is exactly what I'm experiencing. I suppose this is where a DC UB comes in handy. Only problem with that is I print a good amount of 50/50 blends.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Rockers]

Equalizers are essentially a very very condensed rfu ink.  Depending on who you talk to they can cure...... after like 3 minutes in a gas dryer ... there are resins/plasticisers/and pigments in the ink....  But that's fine!  They are meant to be put into a balanced base.  Adding the base balances/Equalizes (see what I did there ) the pigment load and resin to plasticizer balance.

As a result, you can reallllly load up your base with equalizers.  Wilflex's system is basically the same as Rutlands M3 system.  You can regularly have the base equal to half your mix or less!  It sounds like 50%+ pigment loading, but in reality its not.  The pigment loading isn't nearly the same as if it were a pigment system.

So... Pigments are a whole nother world!  Its just a plasticiser base with a pigment dispersed in it.  NO Resin whatsoever.  As a result you can make an ink that will never cure really quickly if you don't pay attention.

Ah... the joys of opaque reds and crocking issues...... I have always seen those color shades from Wilflex have issues.  It, again is directly related to pigment loading.  More opacity = stronger pigment load = more potential for crocking.  They do have several warnings within their literature about the potential for it.

Here at my work, I mix everything with the C3 system from Rutland and match to the color we want and adjust our formulas to the desired opacity.  This is based on mesh selection, flashing, etc.  We then wash and crock test.  So far so good.

Hope this helps!

It`s fair to say the crocking of red inks is not exclusive to Wilflex inks. We have run into this last week with Union Brite Red. On request of our Union distributer we checked some shirts of another print shop. That Union Brite Red was crocking like crazy. Even after we send it through our gas dryer for a extend period of time.

[Colin]

I missed the part about union in my response....  Yea, same parameters apply to all companies opaque shades of red.  I know Wilflex was really good about putting notes in their literature.

For all inks:  You can add a little bit of base to the ink and that will help diminish the crocking issue.  And yes, your opacity can go down.