White Not White

[SkylinePrints]

hi guys,

i've searched and read what i could find on discharge white not coming out white but i couldnt find any clear cut answers.

as y'all know, i've been easing into this process and finally felt pretty good about it till this last job which went awful.

the white is Sericol HO white.  I mixed 6% activator by weight and the white came out offwhite to start then faded into more an eggshell / builder white / cream color / burnt white / whatever you want to call it.  it's not bright white.

Anvil 779 black shirts, (also tried gildan 5000 black), one hit and tried two hits, 70 duro,

thoughts? tips?

[tonypep]

This is one of the trade offs with discharge printing. At this moment there is no "titanium" white product available although you can get pretty close with the right combination of ink and dye substrate. Straight discharge whites, when printed without softeners or water, will have a chalky finish. As you soften the ink the brightness will diminish.
For the softest, brightest white try a discharge base/white UB and a thinned out plastisol overprint on a 230 mesh or thereabouts.
tp

[Prosperi-Tees]

it will change. I have printed on gildans one week and they come out nice and bright and other weeks not so bright. I tried FOL Ts and they really sucked as far as brightness. Jerzees and Anvil are ok. Gildan is still my go to shirt for discharge.

[jasonl]

imo, from my research, straight out of the bucket whites NEVER are as bright as ones made with a formula.  My brightest white to date is with Wilflex Oasis inks.  Everyone will have there own opinion, but none are ever gonna be as bright as plastisol.  Not yet anyway. 

[brandon]

Well, in my opinion your brand of shirt has problems with discharge. Nothing against Anvil as they make great garments but they are on our "do not discharge" list. Gildans and American Apparel work way better. You can always discharge and then print white water base on top. And on a side note we drop one tiny drop of black pigment in our white discharge per three hundred grams to help remove any yellow tint or whatever you want to call it. Just enough not to turn the ink gray but helps remove that eggshell or cream or whatever color you want to call it.

[Dottonedan]

I have been working with many discharge printers now days. They are asking me to always include a top white (even in plastisol)  that will overprint the brightest areas even tho they use a discharge white. Many love the results of using a 60% solid coverage of halftone over the top rather than a solid (when using plastisol) if they are trying to achieve that very soft hand. This is for those who do not print waterbase. It seems to make the whites WHITE without the hand. Solid coverage of a 305 is not that heavy to begin with in my opinion but some want less hand.

D

[SkylinePrints]

thought i'd follow-up on this one and let everyone know where we ended.

after much testing, the following caused the failure of our first prints.

too much heat / time in oven
too much activator

These shirts were printed through 230 mesh so, I didnt even take into consideration there was not as much ink being put down.  therefore, there is not as much water to evaporate so didnt need as much time in the dryer as the ones printed with a 110 or 156 mesh.  Duh!   

Second, white does not need to be a "hot" as some of the colors.  4% activator worked great instead of the 6% that was recommended to me. 

I have tested both of the above on Anvil shirts and using Sericol HU white and CCI white.  The results were able to be duplicated an therefore, have been put in my log books for next time.

[Prosperi-Tees]

So what are your temp,belt settings for each mesh count?

[SkylinePrints]

for the 230, it was 400 degrees for 1:20 in a forced air dryer.  temp same for lower mesh counts but slow the belt down to 1:45 - 2:00.  I'm keeping a log so I continue to dial it in, I want to make sure its repeatable.