Author Topic: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge  (Read 2467 times)

Offline XG Print

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Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« on: March 30, 2018, 06:07:07 PM »
Trying to get our water base and discharge choices narrowed down.  I think for the time being we are going to stick with the CCI T-Charge system for the water base and discharge colors because it is easy to use and the price seems fair and we have had pretty good results.  About to narrow our whites down and would like to find a good stand alone white for water base and whatever is the best discharge white out there.  Many people have said the CCI D-white is good but you need to mix with the D-base at an 80/20 ratio.  Going to be testing this next week hopefully but I want to know what you guys are using for your discharge white and for your water base white.  I know these will be 2 different products.  Also if you add fixer, binder, or anything else to your whites please include.  Learning this water base / discharge game after 10 years printing plastisol.  Almost like being a mad scientist LOL!  Many Thanks in advance!!


Offline brandon

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2018, 07:42:26 PM »
What type of dryer do you have is now in question.

Offline XG Print

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2018, 10:09:07 AM »
My dryer only has 6 ft of heat and is electric....Lawson Omega with Air circulation...I have run discharge and water base several times with no issues...Just have to slow it way down. 

Offline CBCB

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2018, 11:02:25 AM »
Not an expert here. It sounds like lots of people are happy with d-white straight from the bucket for White.

In my experience I found it way easier to use than Excalibur’s discharge system. I was testing on a manual press with a small dryer. I couldn’t get Excalibur to work at all, but the CCI was easy and looked great. Just too slow for us to make money on our old tiny dryer.

The 80/20 mix with d-base / d-white you may have seen mentioned is usually regarding underbase. The straight white doesn’t make a good base due to pigment load, and the straight base isn’t quite bright enough, which is where the 20% White comes in!

Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here. This is just my understanding from reading the boards!


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Offline brandon

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2018, 12:39:18 PM »
Well for the dyer be careful before taking on any large orders. You might run a 1,000 pieces or whatever and they might look "charged out" but you might have large parts of the order that actually are not. Just because discharge looks good does not mean it is properly cured. At least you understand you might have to run that dryer at a crawl. And for proper curing it should be at least two min to two and a half at 325 according to CCI and just about all water base / discharge inks. Yes there are additives but I am making a blanket statement. As Rick Roth would say you can make a cake really really fast but it's better to bake it correctly and slow with a longer "cook" or curing time in the tunnel. Very true.

For inks what can you actually get? CCI makes great discharge so if you can get it go for it. Permaset makes wonderful water base but not sure if you can get it. In my opinion and that is all it is pretty much all ink companies on the market make decent to great stuff. Otherwise they would not be in business and we have used all of them one way or another and we constantly get samples and we use them and so forth.

So go with what you can get. If you can get 2 or 3 different brands then test test test and document document document what you like. Then stick with it.

Offline Maff

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2018, 09:31:58 PM »
Brandon is right on and he prints some awesome discharge and waterbase.

We had a similar dryer for years and we always tried to push it to 3 min cure, it's painfully slow but it was reliable.

For white discharge we used Matsui Super 75 for years, recently we tried out CCI d-white for a few gallons, which also works great straight out of the bucket (and smells nicer).  But I think we're going to switch back to Matsui, I like the finished results just a bit better.

All our discharge inks we add Matsui fixer-N and also retarder.

We print less white waterbase and we've jumped around and still not totally set.  Most will have a really nice finished print, but like Brandon said , pick one and stick with it.

Offline RICK STEFANICK

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #6 on: May 08, 2018, 07:31:41 PM »
Lately I have been running d-white based back 30% with premium d- base and my resutt has been excellent using a ALL electric dryer. As crazy as it sounds SUPER WHITE with a super hand.
Specializing in shop assessment's, flow and efficiency

Offline brandon

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2018, 09:46:34 PM »
Lately I have been running d-white based back 30% with premium d- base and my resutt has been excellent using a ALL electric dryer. As crazy as it sounds SUPER WHITE with a super hand.

Hey, I am glad you started adding the base. In my opinion it makes a better print. We started doing that years and years ago I never understood the out of the bucket with discharge white. I have never met an out of the bucket white I have liked. In my opinion all the out of the bucket whites need some extra love. Of course depends on the shop though

Offline RICK STEFANICK

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2018, 10:06:39 AM »
also it has allowed me to bump up my mesh and at times run a softer squeegie to preserve the screens on longer runs
Specializing in shop assessment's, flow and efficiency

Offline Cole

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2018, 01:42:31 PM »
Whenever I add any of the premium D-Base to my D-White, it looses a lot of vibrancy. Maybe my percentage of activator is off? I tend to use 5% and add a 3% retarder and fixer. Not asking anyone to give away their secrets, but if someone wants to recommend a good starting point for activator percentage, it would be much appreciated!

On a side note, does anyone else experience a difficult time achieving vibrant white on Alstyle 1301 black tees? It always comes out almost cream colored for me. Even when I just use D-White straight out of the bucket. It's become such an annoyance that I try to drive people away from using Alstyle. I've been selling people on that new Gildan Hammer tee and I, as well as the customer, love the results.

Offline RICK STEFANICK

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2018, 03:04:28 PM »
i like the canvas 3001
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Offline kingscreen

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Re: Whats your Go-To White for Waterbase and Discharge
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2018, 06:39:42 PM »
We like 80/20 DWhite/DBase here.
Scott Garnett
King Screen