Hello again, brave courageous mighty warriors of the print realm.
I appreciate all of your insight, concern, and guidance in our struggle against the darkness which pervades our precious realm. After a lengthy, mighty battle which spanned weeks and challenged our collective sanity, today we finally achieved a glorious discharge red on Bella Canvas 3001. We tested Sericol, CCI Fox Red, and CCI RFU Red 032. Sericol reigns supreme. We concocted a secret formula of mystery, magic and wonder, and stumbled across a perfect vibrant red using Sericol inks. I had my money on CCI Fox Red, but found it was very much in rubine territory - in other words, not suitable for mixing a nice warm red. The Fox Red also cured with a heavy hand, which I was not expecting, and our team found quite unsatisfactory.
Believe it or not, the shirt was not a mislabeled 50 / 50 shirt. It is definitely 100% cotton. We got a super vibrant red on the same exact Bella Canvas shirt that I posted above with the dull red on it. We also printed activated D-BASE on the shirt in question, and the print came out bright and slightly off white, which rules out the theory that the shirt was a re-dyed garment. All three of the above mentioned inks gave us much better results than the CCI Red 032 formula we were mixing. For whatever reason, doing the CCI color mixing system (CMS) pantone mix using Red 032 just does not work well with Bella Canvas 3001. It seems to be the Red 032 pigment in particular that clashes with the Bella Canvas black shirt. To answer an above question, yes, this has been an ongoing problem in our shop. To reiterate the initial problem, Red 032 was giving us inconsistent results within an order of shirts, where it was a total roll of the dice as to whether the shirt would cure brightly or not - in a run of 50 shirts, 20 would cure correctly, 15 would be dull but arguably red, and 15 would be dull enough to the point of requiring replacement. Our goal has been to find a discharge red which works consistently across a run of shirts, specifically black Bella Canvas. We do not experience this issue with any of the other CCI pigments on black Bella Canvas. What is interesting, is just last week we printed #Warm Red discharge on Black Bella Canvas 3001, using the CCI CMS, and it cured a brilliant, vibrant orange red, which was consistent across the entire run of shirts. The problems we have been experiencing seem to be attributed solely to the CCI Red 032 pigment in combination with black Bella Canvas 3001.
So again, not sure why the CCI Red 032 pigment has been giving us issues on black Bella Canvas, but we have reached the end of our arduous journey. Tonight, we rest easy, knowing the darkness of muted reds are behind us, and harness our energy in preparation for the next battle of print glory. With discharge, we shall prevail. May the print Gods shine brightly upon you all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-OzvIL4d2w
