Athletic printing, struggling getting a good (acceptable even) UB white down.

[Stinkhorn Press]

We struggle to get a good opaque-enough UB white. What should we try? (none of us here have ever worked at any other shop so our biggest struggle is not knowing what we don't know – speak slowly and don't assume too much of what we ought to know...)

This is especially evident when printing athletic- white and top colors on darks. The bad solution is to revolve and print the UB white twice.

Ink – white is synergy poly, orange is wilflex epic (and epic super, but without a good UB the high opacity stuff makes no difference with orange).

Mesh – murakami S 150 UB, 225 top.

Printing on roughly 60% Jerzees 29M blend, 20% G2000, 20% fleece.


A semi-acceptable solution would be 2 white screens and 2 flashes on the press both before the top color, only going around once but still not a good solution.

[kingscreen]

We stir/mix Poly White on our Turnabout before any poly run.  [Wilflex Top Score]

[Stinkhorn Press]

not clear - by athletic I mean chunky solid color artwork, not that it's on poly garments... we do print with poly ink, but poly ink from synergy works as a regular white ink as well...

[LoneWolf2]

Have you tried experimenting with a smoothing screen after the flash?

[Colin]

Whats your trap?
Squeegee selection?
pressure?
flash time?
Mesh tension?
etc...

I see lots of fibers coming through the print.  That will kill opacity and make the print rough.

Also, when dealing with transparent color shades - and some orange inks/pms colors are much more transparent than we want - you will need to bite the bullet and do whats needed for a brighter under base...

[abchung]

Put an extra layer of emulsion on the ink side of the frame. Made a huge difference for us....


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[sqslabs]

We've moved from 150S to 135S for spot color underbases and have seen a noticeable difference. I'm going to be ordering a few lower counts from Shurloc on our next order to try some testing as well.

I'd also second the roller/smoothing screen if you're not currently using one. And for certain top colors (like the ones in your photo), we often run either a PFP base or PFP 225S top (the latter offering a thinner final print) if that's what it takes to get the print to our standard.

[Nation03]

We print a lot of 50/50 and poly. Our go to for a while was Versamax white from Onestroke. Rarely had any bleeding issues, but it didn't lay as flat as I'd like it to. My 2 standard whites are now Wilflex Epic Lava LB for the majority of what I print, and then for bad poly bleeders I use Epic Polywhite. Both work great. Depending on the artwork I try to use the 135-S. It gives you great coverage.

I've been a manual shop up until recently so everything we did was generally a pfpf. I'll probably do the same on the auto, but all the jobs on it so far have been 1 color on cotton so we'll see.

[alan802]

I'd like to know some of the questions Colin asked, most importantly what mesh counts are you running for everything, especially the UB.  Squeegee blades are important in that they need to be sharp and a fairly soft duro, then work on printing the base as fast as possible.  That will increase your opacity more than any other factor if the other parts of the system are solid.  If you're using standard mesh counts then do yourself a favor and throw them away, for this type of printing it's especially important to print fast and thin thread allows you to do that.  Standard mesh counts don't have the open area and restrict shearing speed to a joke.

[Stinkhorn Press]

recap of suggested tweaks:

Do more to pre-mix ink, get it flowing. (can do, really need to get equip to do this well)

Add smoothing screen post-flash. (I'm not totally clear on what that does?)

Add emulsion to squeegee side.  (our screens are face and back coated for emulsion surface smoothness - and most of our prints have big fat UB print areas so more EOM will only make the edges slightly thicker)

Lower from 150 S down to 135 S (or lower).  (working on this, not seeing much difference at 135, might try a thin thread 100...)

Try different white ink.  (duh - as in we should have thought of this...)

print as fast as  possible with the 'right' squeegee.  (working on speed, working on squeegee knowledge - duro, bevel, edge...)

[Stinkhorn Press]

Whats your trap?
Squeegee selection?
pressure?
flash time?
Mesh tension?
etc...

I see lots of fibers coming through the print.  That will kill opacity and make the print rough.

I'd like to know some of the questions Colin asked, most importantly what mesh counts are you running for everything, especially the UB.  Squeegee blades are important in that they need to be sharp and a fairly soft duro, then work on printing the base as fast as possible.  That will increase your opacity more than any other factor if the other parts of the system are solid.  If you're using standard mesh counts then do yourself a favor and throw them away, for this type of printing it's especially important to print fast and thin thread allows you to do that.  Standard mesh counts don't have the open area and restrict shearing speed to a joke.

trap - .75 point (from center, so half that)
squeegee on UB is usually Joe Clarke's single bevel (bevel edge print) hinged hard squeegee (should be double bevel, but we need to order a new one in)
squeegee on top is usually single duro basic blade unknown duro (green, hardish, came with press) that have maintained sharp edge

ub screen mesh is 135/150 thin thread
top screen mesh is 200/225 thin thread

pressure is RPM reported (which may not be applicable to other makes) UB white roughly 30, top color minimal 25 or lower (as much as it takes to clear and no more)

speed UB white 12-24 inch per second (adjusted upwards as the print progresses – possibly stirring beforehand would reduce this)
top color 20-25 inch per second

tension lowish, static screens with thin thread, not much recorded but probably 20-24 N

flash time 2.5 seconds if single stroking all colors, 1.5 seconds twice if double stroking any colors (thanks ALAN! We were waaaaay long on flashes – alan helped us figure out some stuff, but I probably never got back – the solution was new style bulbs, and chopping the legs in half (RPM flash sits in the screen holder))

[Stinkhorn Press]

Also, when dealing with transparent color shades - and some orange inks/pms colors are much more transparent than we want - you will need to bite the bullet and do whats needed for a brighter under base...

I'd also second the roller/smoothing screen if you're not currently using one. And for certain top colors (like the ones in your photo), we often run either a PFP base or PFP 225S top (the latter offering a thinner final print) if that's what it takes to get the print to our standard.

I've been a manual shop up until recently so everything we did was generally a pfpf. I'll probably do the same on the auto, but all the jobs on it so far have been 1 color on cotton so we'll see.

That's three votes for “certain colors” it's damn hard to do.
Anyone out there want to pipe up to claim that they consistently print:
large open area UB that is
opaque enough
once around the press to properly support
harder top colors (gold/yellow/orange)?

Our main local school's colors are Black/Orange/White so this is something that would pay dividends to learn how to do repeatably.

[sqslabs]

That's three votes for “certain colors” it's damn hard to do.
Anyone out there want to pipe up to claim that they consistently print:
large open area UB that is
opaque enough
once around the press to properly support
harder top colors (gold/yellow/orange)?

Our main local school's colors are Black/Orange/White so this is something that would pay dividends to learn how to do repeatably.

I think if you ran Union Maxopake as the top color on a 180S you'd probably get the coverage you're looking for. The print will be a bit heavier, but likely not noticeable by most customers.

[Colin]

Maxo's are good inks - BUT - It still depends on the tonal shade your customer is happy with.

Where we are at, our customers are fairly picky (living in the shadow of Nike - literally).  So even with our C3 system and working on making a color as opaque as possible, while still maintaining the color space our customer wants..... we will occasionally need to print/flash/print either the base or the top color.

Tis' the world we live in here.  Some printers only have to visit

SMOOTHING SCREEN:

It is designed to smooth out your print by pressing down on hot ink with either a squeegee (lubricated by any ink/curable reducer/etc) or a roller squeegee.  This happens - Right after - the flash.  The ink still needs to be hot enough to be pliable for this to work.  Your surface area will be MUCH smoother when done properly.

[alan802]

Ill say that with the G3 we have double stroked the base more the last month than we had the last 8 years combined but because I'm trying to print at 40"/sec and the G3 will still run at 750+/hr even double stroking. If I wasn't trying to push the limits with print speed we'd never double stroke or PFP a base unless the top color was a neon or flouro with opacity issues.

I've said it numerous times over the years that there seems to be this notion that the lower mesh counts are bad and put down too much ink yet the same shops will double stroke a 156 standard mesh and put down more ink than a single stroked 90/71.