hoodie job coming back because of colors bleeding into eachother...

[Shawn (EIP)]

I have a  $1,000  hoodie order being shipped back  2 color front 1 color hood  Hanes Ultimate Cotton 80% cotton 20% poly. 

Ink used was 50/50 white and poly bleed resistant red cured at 360 , passed the stretch test and looked great.

Customer says the print on the hoods are washing off , the red on the front is bleeding into the white print they had to refund peoples money @ 40.00 a pop.

I printed the red pfp and white pfp. This has never happened before so I'm pretty effin' pissed and shocked.

They prewashed the the unsold amount and the prints stuck together in the dryer, no they did not wash them inside out.

They had a rather large order pending that I hope isnt not going someone else after this ordeal... 

I have no idea WTF happened.  It was a  15 x15 print so I assume when dried these people are not flipping them inside out, the heat is causing the ink to get sticky and they are pinching tranfering colors. As for the hood prints washing off I have no clue what happened there.

My dryer is new-ish and is working just fine.

[Frog]

red "bleeding into" the white or rubbing off onto it?

The latter is due to something called crocking, and I think it;'s just too much pigment load in that batch of red ink. Maybe one of oiur ink experts can address it.

[alan802]

If you are laying them on top of one another right after the dryer, that red ink can bleed into the white due to the high heat they are under.

[jsheridan]

And people ask me why I don't want to print sweatshirts.

You can't charge enough to cover damages and something always goes wrong with them.

[Shawn (EIP)]

If you are laying them on top of one another right after the dryer, that red ink can bleed into the white due to the high heat they are under.

True but in this case I didnt use an under base I printed the white pfp with a 1% trap and then red pfp  , the red portion is a big ass square the white is text in the middle. I have used this ink combo before many of times without issues. Typically though I always print on 50/50 hoodies these were cotton so perhaps my dwell time wasnt long enough?

[Ripcord]

It isn't fabric bleeding because if it was the ink would take on the color of the material, not the red from the ink. Also 20% polyester has a very low chance of bleeding when you use low bleed ink.
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I'm curious, is the problem tending to occur more near the edges of the print? 15" square is a very large print, and it could be that the center of the print is reaching cure temp while the edges are not. If this is the case, you can at least fix the ones they haven't washed yet...
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Also, did you flash the white a final time before printing the red?

[Socalfmf]

did they send you a pic of the bleeding before shipping them back?

sam

[jsheridan]

the thick cotton hoodies like to retain moisture so it helps to run them in batches down the dryer first before printing or give them a flash before you apply the inks. This is especially important if it's rained in the last 3 days or humidity is high in the area.

[Shanarchy]

I had a very similar situation occur and was going to post the same question. It was a small run of hoodies. Two colors, red and white on black Gildan 80/20 hoodies. I ran them on the manual and p-f-p-f the white than p-f-p the red. Both QCM XOLB colors. Everything looked great. I saw a couple of the people from the organization the other night and they were very happy with them, but mentioned the some red got on the white making it look pink. They were not looking for a refund or reprint. Just casually mentioned it and asked if there was something they could do to clean it or if they should bleach it, etc. I am probably going to print them a few new ones to do the right thing.

My main question is, "What happened?" I really don't think they were undercured. These came out of the dryer piping hot. I was actually checking for scorch marks because they got so hot. Could an over cured underbase (p-f-p) have caused the top coat to not fully adhere? Everything was great up until they were washed.

Thoughts?

[Shawn (EIP)]

He sent me cell phone pics , even though the hoodie is black and I didnt print white on top of red the white text turned pink.  BTW they washed them all so theres no fixing any of them now... a reprint would be cheaper than a refund but I have to be honest this is making me want to pack up shop and say screw this crap! That feeling will pass though... 

[Shawn (EIP)]

I had a very similar situation occur and was going to post the same question. It was a small run of hoodies. Two colors, red and white on black Gildan 80/20 hoodies. I ran them on the manual and p-f-p-f the white than p-f-p the red. Both QCM XOLB colors. Everything looked great. I saw a couple of the people from the organization the other night and they were very happy with them, but mentioned the some red got on the white making it look pink. They were not looking for a refund or reprint. Just casually mentioned it and asked if there was something they could do to clean it or if they should bleach it, etc. I am probably going to print them a few new ones to do the right thing.

My main question is, "What happened?" I really don't think they were undercured. These came out of the dryer piping hot. I was actually checking for scorch marks because they got so hot. Could an over cured underbase (p-f-p) have caused the top coat to not fully adhere? Everything was great up until they were washed.

Thoughts?

Wow man exact same effin' thing!  I'm really thinking about sticking to 50/50 hoodies , been printed them for awhile with the same inks with no issues. Theres gotta be something about the cotton and the thickness that's not curing the ink 100%  even though it passes the stretch test.

[JBLUE]

He sent me cell phone pics , even though the hoodie is black and I didnt print white on top of red the white text turned pink.  BTW they washed them all so theres no fixing any of them now... a reprint would be cheaper than a refund but I have to be honest this is making me want to pack up shop and say screw this crap! That feeling will pass though...

Your white turned pink? Post that pic. Something aint jiving here.

[Shawn (EIP)]

Keep in mind the white and red were trapped not printed over eachother and the hoodie is black.

[mk162]

did you print the red first and then the white?  Is it possible your white ink turned in the screen and you didn't catch it because your retinas were burned out from looking and red and white during the run?

The other reason could be too much heat.

Sweats suck.  I ran over 300 pcs of a $20 hoodie and the royal sweat bled into the white.  I had to rerun about 50 of them.  Lost most of my profit right there.

To prevent things like that I like to use a GOOD 50/50 ink.  Not an OK or good ink, but a GOOD ink.  I will even mix a little poly ink into a 50/50 ink to increase the bleed resistance.

[Homer]

110's ? did you mix your inks well enough before the run, what was the ambient temp? rainy day?

dude that BLOWS.....I'd puke.