Black ink questions...

[Colin]

Ok, I am not holding my breath on this but here goes:

Is there a Black Plastisol Ink on the market that does:

1) Wet on wet printing

2) Can be a first down black

Here's the kicker

3) Won't scorch/smoke up/turn polyester threads to goo under 2 or more flashes?

We currently use the Red Chili with Quartz bulbs which aggravates this issue.

Thanks in advance to all who look and ponder!

[DannyGruninger]

We found the rutland black to be the best for this...... Have you ran that?

[kingscreen]

WM Spec Black is designed for exactly what you described.

[Colin]

We found the rutland black to be the best for this...... Have you ran that?

Which Rutland Black?

We have the QCM black in house, its been sitting around for a few years.  I have been making a custom black for the last 4 years or so.

Danny: You can print a largish patch of black, then the white base, flash with a normal quartz flash setting, the white will flash fine and the black wont smoke (much) on 50/50 blends and tri-blends?  Works well for a 2 or 3 flash job, no issues with poly melting?

My issues always come back to poly and synthetic fabrics...

[Frog]

Let's cross some off of the list. Which blacks failed for you?

[Biverson]

Union Ultrasoft Black was a no go for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ZooCity]

Honestly I don't know it's possible with that Chili.  Even with the intensity adjustment that flash just plain lights up some fabrics.  The wavelength of the bulbs seems slightly wrong for this and the way it fires on is super punchy.   Great for producing pallets of G5000 cottons but takes endless fiddling and a watchful eye on the blends.

We tried it many times with Wiflex matte black which has all the properties you are looking for save for the not burning the garment underneath one.   It would work sometimes.

That said, our fancy new smart flashes still can't pull this off with matte black.  They come close but not close enough for comfort so we don't print black first.  I'd love to be able to.

What about amending the black ink with something that made it less transmissive?  That would solve the issue with incinerating the shirt below the black imprint.   Next, add some type of insulator to the black ink so it flashes slower, more in line with that thicker layer of white ub flashing with it.  So you'd have to change the way the molecules in the black ink agitated when attacked by the flash so they stop passing heat to the fabric and also so they don't get hot way faster than the white ub.  Another issue is all the different wavelengths that I assume each brand/model of flash has.  If you were the ink co. you would need that wavelength to be in a range at the very least to mfg the black with these properties to combat it and still expect it to perform out there in the field.

I wonder if the black ink that had those properties would even be printable? 

[RICK STEFANICK]

 To accomplish what your trying to do you will need a black with 4-6 percent pigment load or even a process black/RFU black mix. As with most ink questions you will get many different answers from The best screen printers in the country on this board. What works for one may not work for you as mesh/tension , flash temps, platen temps, squeegee durometor/angle all play a role in getting your desired end result. I would use your talent , the advice given here and do some testing and then post your results here.

[Colin]

There ya go Chris   You know my pain well....

So, we had a run of 7k+ red cotton shirts.  The design had some tight detail spaces where the black had to drop in between walls of white.... this was a non starter as it would not print clean.  We did not have an M&R Hot Head to help with thinning out the design, although we have one coming now

For that job, I ended up creating a chromatic black and printed it first.  I tried out a few different Rutland bases with the C3 colorants.  I used equal parts C3 red/Green/Red shade Blue and only 2% C3 black.  It needed a little actual black to make it LOOK black.  I know there is a better color balance available, but I wasn't concerned at the time.... we needed to get back on press!

All the different bases reacted the same under the flash.  They all smoked up some.  I added 1% plasticiser to the custom mix and that helped a bit.  My biggest issue was, the best bases that created the least amount of smoke (it was actually almost non at that point) also built up on the back of the base screen more  

And just an fyi for everyone - the heavier your deposit of black ink - the longer it can stay under the flash and not smoke... which isn't always what you want from a print, but info is always good

We tried lowering the power on our flashes and had issues with the white not flashing....  We were using Rutland Street Fighter which flashed fast and that helped thankfully.

This week we have a string of designs (custom line of clothing) where there is detail black doing the same thing, so we need to print the black somewhere in the print order (or first).  So that brings me back to my main question of - a black that wont turn polyester thread into a pool of goo...

My custom black that I have been using for the last 4 years is fantastic for softness and fiber matte... but doesn't work well under more than one flash on poly blends.

If Danny doesn't chime back in with a few more details, I will give my rep a call tomorrow and see what he has.

The only other thing I can think of is a dye type of black pigment instead of carbon.... grrr, its been to long and I have begun to forget more than I remember

[Colin]

Thanks for the post RStefanick!

I was writing out my response when you posted so I didn't see your response until after.  I posted about my experience with low black pigment in there.

Like Chris said, its mostly on the quartz flashes.  The wavelength of those bulbs do not help and whats used for black pigment doesn't help either.

[DannyGruninger]

Both the solid black and matte(eh8099) have worked pretty good. Always a bit of fashion base if we do the rare black first. I rarely ever go black first or early in print orders but I’ve been in tons of amazingly successful places that do tons of black first so if it works for you go for it.

[Nation03]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but Joe Clarke's Synergy black is awesome. Works well WOW and as a first down black and it's a matte finish.

[Colin]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but Joe Clarke's Synergy black is awesome. Works well WOW and as a first down black and it's a matte finish.

Do you use quartz flashes?

There are a number of great wet on wet blacks out there

Its under quartz bulbs where they typically melt polyester threads

And I did think about the Synergy Black, but my hangup is still the aforementioned quartz flashes.

Danny:  Do you remember if those shops were running quartz or infrared flashes?

My next step is to call up Rutland and ask their tech guys.

[Nation03]

Ah, I see. I run a quartz flashback on the auto, but I don't recall flashing after the black print so I'm not much help there. I've used it as a first down black while manual printing but it was flashed with an infrared panel after the fact.

Either way, I'd still try out the synergy black. It was made for printing on autos so I would hope it holds up well against a powerful quartz flash.

[Colin]

Rutland says NPT TACK FREE ADDITIVE.  But I will still have issues with the quartz bulbs.