screen printing > Ink and Chemicals

How accurate are your colors?

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Atownsend:
We're on the verge of changing mixing systems, looking at moving to a PC system. Likely Wilflex Epic PC. Rutland M3s are just not capable hitting the colors that we need it to under our specific print conditions. We've tried creating custom formulas but we end up getting stuck in a color loop since we cant adjust the pigment load directly. I've tried talking to the folks at the Rutland color lab... they'll help develop custom formulas for an underbase, but to be honest it feels like my IQ drops 10 points every time I try to talk to them. Apparently they only match by eye under CWF lighting. We use a D50 standard in our light booth since that's what pantone / X-Rite suggests for viewing. We have a calibrated benchtop spectro and are running Color I Control from xrite, but they aren't interested in any of the data. I feel like our ink systems should be working for us, not the other way around. I would have thought that an ink company would be pumped for a shop to come with real world data in a production environment so they could improve their product but sad to say its not the case. Not trying to flame them, but I've exhausted my options over there it seems.

At the end of the day color is scientific, it is measurable. I'm not asking for extreme tolerances i just want to get close... Like 5 or 6 deltas. We have about 30 -35 colors on our standard ink list that i need to match on both a white / black shirt with an underbase. I expect to need different formulas in that scenario, thats fine.. but im not going to replicate their lab conditions of a 150 mesh screen on a white shirt in the real world. We're running thin thread so our bases are opaque. Since we print wet on wet we run high mesh (305) for the top colors resulting in a very thin ink layer. Sure if we p/f/p the top colors with an adjusted formula its better, but not really there. If we ran a 155 screen for the top color and replicated their lab conditions im sure it would be there... but then who wants a bulletproof print? 

Am I the a-hole here? Ink is not cheap, I don't really feel like I should be doing their R&D at my expense. I get were a small time contract printer, but we have been using their ink for almost 10 years a this point. If were going to work that hard in the ink room we might as well switch to WB and say bye bye to the Avient fam all together.

What's everyone's experience with the Wilflex Epic / PC system been? How is out of the box color accuracy with IMS?

We've never used them as east coast suppliers are a little more scarce for Wilflex than Rutland.

tonypep:
So I have never found a mixing system, RFU or PC based, that is accurate across the board. Especially when we get to tertiary colors. The ink mfrs will tell you that there are simply too many variables in any given shop to get it perfect for everyone and I don't disagree. PC systems are great if you are mixing in 1 gal plus batches but very not so much in quarts. An eyedrop off will throw you off!
I did switch to Wilflex Rio right before left to run The Print Shop and, while a bit more expensive, I was liking the accuracy and hue better. This system simply uses better, cleaner pigments. Not much help sorry

blue moon:
We went through the same thing with Union ink about 10 years ago. Got nowhere. Stuck with Unimatch as it was still the best system out there and then they discontinued it.
With the nature of the pigments being nature sourced (rather than synthesized where you can control the concentrations) every batch is going to be different.
I’ve had conversations with ink manufacturers and had to explain the same things you mention, had to tell them that they are using the wrong equipment to measure viscosity and so on.
In the end we just gave up and let the quality drop a notch. It was not worth the headache…
Pj

Zelko-4-EVA:
we have been on the PC system for a long time...   the pigments have to be stirred nearly every day so the solids dont settle - mainly the fluorescent pigments.  if you dont stir, the color will shift, and you will be left with a ton of solids in the bottom of the bucket. 

we print a ton of repeat prints, some for years...  IMS 3 works okay for matching, sometimes they update the formula so instead of using the formula that was used 3 years ago when the ink was first mixed, its now a different color and we have to "fix" it a bit - its not terribly common but its happened to us.

we use the 15000 base for everyday inks, they mostly come out okay. cure temp is 320 deg F.  i like the amazing base with the cure temp of 300 deg F (dont quote me on that temp though), and colors seem to be a bit better.  its not fun to stir in the winter.

99 percent of our work is wet on wet, typically one flash. we rarely use 300 mesh unless its needed. 

Atownsend:
Thanks for the insights ya'll! I really just want our ink on our stock / standard list colors to meet a measurable tolerance at the end of the day. We need accurate colors across different garment colors with and without a base. It really shouldn't be that hard.

Going to make to move to Epic PC system. No system is going to be perfect, but at least in their marketing material they say they are "pantone approved". I haven't seen that with any of the others, and it seems like the system has been around for forever so its probably the one that's the most dialed in. Rio is likely better than M3, but I'm not convinced that any finished ink system is going to be flexible enough if we're tweaking things and creating our own formulas. Gallons are what we like to mix for our house colors, but we will have the odd quart here and there for one off colors.

Pierre, what system did you move to now? Makes sense about the natural pigments. I briefly thought about just trying to order our own pigments directly from Heubach. But that really isn't a can of worms I want to open. If someone here wants to start and ink company we'll do the R&D and send you the Spectro data haha. I miss the synergy whites, if anyone could have done it right it was Joe C. Too bad that didn't get to take off more.


--- Quote from: Zelko-4-EVA on January 29, 2025, 09:29:23 AM ---we have been on the PC system for a long time...   the pigments have to be stirred nearly every day so the solids dont settle - mainly the fluorescent pigments.  if you dont stir, the color will shift, and you will be left with a ton of solids in the bottom of the bucket. 

we print a ton of repeat prints, some for years...  IMS 3 works okay for matching, sometimes they update the formula so instead of using the formula that was used 3 years ago when the ink was first mixed, its now a different color and we have to "fix" it a bit - its not terribly common but its happened to us.

we use the 15000 base for everyday inks, they mostly come out okay. cure temp is 320 deg F.  i like the amazing base with the cure temp of 300 deg F (dont quote me on that temp though), and colors seem to be a bit better.  its not fun to stir in the winter.

99 percent of our work is wet on wet, typically one flash. we rarely use 300 mesh unless its needed. 

--- End quote ---

This is good stuff!! We also have the same issue with M3's being updated in ims.. . we will print the labels with an old zebra printer and attach to the containers. Really not sure why they change the formulas like that, some end of totally off in nonsensical ways. How do you stir the pigments? Manually with an ink knife? I'm assuming they're too viscous for anything else. Are you able to use an ink pump with the bases? If we're stirring pigments I'd want to try to save time somewhere else.

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