OK maybe this application could be considered as rare but........."Spiritwear" is all the rage at High Schools and campuses so perhaps not. We print overflow for Boxercraft as needed. Often their wildly popular flannel pants. They come in a dizzying array of colors and patterns. These patterns are rotary printed yard goods which are then cut and sewn to spec. The popular decoration is a white block letter team or campus screenprint. Well, the ink used for rotary printed is similar to the waterbased products we use, albeit thinner and typically use more penetrant. This makes them extremely stubborn to print over. They just plain bleed like crazy. In some cases three white hits of plastisol with flashes in between(yes every combination of ink/print technique was tried) were required to sufficiently block the pattern. So it was time consuming and heavy handed.
Since these are 100% cotton goods I started formulating different discharge "blocking agents". Now with a single pass I can partially discharge the pattern and block the rotary ink from migrating. Then a single hit of Streetfighter 160 mesh and we're done. Then I came up with some weaker formulations that purposely "tint" the patterns for a moe subtle, fashion forward appeal. This worked especially well on the plaids.
So now we can decorate these much more cost efficiently while at the same time delivering a much better final product.
