Bleeding white........

[JBLUE]

Your having trouble across the board I would be looking at two things. Dryer temps and ink. I am leaning more towards the ink. Like I said we run Wilflex QW and we also use their Poly White with no issues yet that we have seen. Get yourself a sample of someones low bleed and start isolating. I have gotten a few samples of ink from One Stroke and I cant say I am a fan.

[Screened Gear]

Jason, love your Ben Franklin quote.

[JBLUE]

Ok so what your basically saying is that if we keep our ink cure temps just below 340* we have a better chance of not having "bleeding" issues.....

Nick

If your dryer is way too hot you will have issues like your talking about with almost any white ink. I would guess your way over heating the shirts. If your ink has puff in it the white will also puff up like crazy if your too hot. Is your white puffing up?

It is on the blueish side if you hold it up to the others. Its a very light tint if that. Small amount of blue makes it optically brighter to the eye. The same effect is done on Corvettes with their white paint.

LOL I saw that quote and it going to go in the lobby...

[ZooCity]

Temp is first as it's what causes the migration of the dye out of the poly.  So after triple checking that your temp is as low as possible and consistent... (it could be that those few pcs with issues got over flashed or over cured just a touch)

Next try a low cure temp, dye blocking ink.  Wfx Epic Performance is what we use for this.  I personally think the print and finish characteristics kinda suck but there has to be trade offs when you go for a dye-blocking ink, otherwise all but the cotton only inks would be dye-blocking right?

They also make a ub grey blocker in the Performance line that is a good barrier from dye migration but it's too dark for me and I cut Performance white into it for our UBs on 100% poly.  It is exceeding difficult to print unless you warm it up and maybe add few drops of QEC viscosity buster.

That said,  I see similar issues, even on black Ts using the low-cure, dye blocking inks above with that ub recipe and watching temps very closely.  The cheaper the garment the more issues it seems and yes, there is no rhyme or reason to it on our end, it's totally rando for all intents and purposes. 

In the end, you may have to settle for over ordering garments, printing the run, wash test a few, wait and QC on the way out after as many days as you can afford to wait to catch the worst ones.

[Rocfrog]

Ok so talking to one of my printers we think the white is "puffing" a little bit but not a lot. I'm not a huge fan of One Stoke inks as well but unfortunetly I'm not in control of who or where we purchase from I can only make suggestions and hope they listen.

As far as dryer temps go we think we might be a little on the high side but I'll check with the temp gun later when we are printing again. But our dryer is so old that it might not be able to keep a consistent temp and then it also depends on if w have the big door open or not.....

Nick

[Screened Gear]

With quick white I can tell I am too hot by checking if it puffed. You really should not be able to tell that it puffed on a low bleed white ink. (ok if your printing bullet proof prints you can...my prints are very thin and smooth) I will defiantly say your too hot and that is your main problem. Your other problems are your employees are opening "the big door" and not checking the dryer after doing it. Changing something like that will affect your dryer times. I also would look into a new dryer if it is that old. Just the power savings alone is worth it. Lastly stop buying white ink based on price. White ink is the only ink that you should buy on performance. Buy one low bleed white ink and stay with it.

[Rocfrog]

Ok so now this was today but now I'm kind of confused.....







Now this was not on a red garment, but this is our white (One Stroke Hybrid White) on 100% polyester. p/f/p/dryer......

Nick

[JBLUE]

 

With quick white I can tell I am too hot by checking if it puffed. You really should not be able to tell that it puffed on a low bleed white ink. (ok if your printing bullet proof prints you can...my prints are very thin and smooth) I will defiantly say your too hot and that is your main problem. Your other problems are your employees are opening "the big door" and not checking the dryer after doing it. Changing something like that will affect your dryer times. I also would look into a new dryer if it is that old. Just the power savings alone is worth it. Lastly stop buying white ink based on price. White ink is the only ink that you should buy on performance. Buy one low bleed white ink and stay with it.

Jon,
As far as I know QW does not have any blowing agent in it. However QW will blister easily and that might be what you are seeing.


Rocfrog stick your hand way in there to get a reading. You have to get up under that curtain and get the reading as close as possible.

[Screened Gear]

With quick white I can tell I am too hot by checking if it puffed. You really should not be able to tell that it puffed on a low bleed white ink. (ok if your printing bullet proof prints you can...my prints are very thin and smooth) I will defiantly say your too hot and that is your main problem. Your other problems are your employees are opening "the big door" and not checking the dryer after doing it. Changing something like that will affect your dryer times. I also would look into a new dryer if it is that old. Just the power savings alone is worth it. Lastly stop buying white ink based on price. White ink is the only ink that you should buy on performance. Buy one low bleed white ink and stay with it.

Jon,
As far as I know QW does not have any blowing agent in it. However QW will blister easily and that might be what you are seeing.


Rocfrog stick your hand way in there to get a reading. You have to get up under that curtain and get the reading as close as possible.

It has to have some puff in it. Blister not even sure what that looks like.

[Rocfrog]

Rocfrog stick your hand way in there to get a reading. You have to get up under that curtain and get the reading as close as possible.

Ok I can do that on Monday, wasn't sure so I just got it as it was coming out.

Nick

[jasonl]

quick white has ZERO puff agent, i did some beta testing on it years ago and thats one of my priorities.

[mjrprint]

What you need to watch for is that the print may look fine right out of the dryer but come the next day or two you will see the bleeding. That's what was happening to us before.

[Frog]

What you need to watch for is that the print may look fine right out of the dryer but come the next day or two you will see the bleeding. That's what was happening to us before.

It can actually take longer, way longer to rear its ugly head.
My worst experience with the 50/50 "pinkies" took more than a week.

[Rocfrog]

Ya we've had some change right away and then we've had some that the client brings back weeks later.

Nick

[alan802]

There are at least a half dozen really good poly whites out there right now and you need to find one and when you have a job with any poly in the garment you print with the poly white, it's that simple.  You can also try to dial in your dryer settings so that you keep the bleeding to a minimum but with some of the poly whites available, you don't really have to mess with the dryer.  I'd recommend Sonny's Xenon white for 50/50's but I never tried it on 100% poly garments but I tried like hell to make it bleed and it passed the red 50/50's with great results.  Another poly ink we use right now is Rutland's Poly White.  And someone mentioned above the ultimate in bleed blocker is the Wilflex Underbase Grey.  By itself it is impossible to get bleeding and we have always cut it in half with another low bleed white like QCM 158 or 159 so you can actually print it and have never had any bleeding issues.  The UB Grey is very difficult to print with by itself so that's why I recommend mixing in another creamy, easy to print low bleed white ink.  I think another great mixture would be the Wilflex UB Grey mixed 50/50 with Xenon white.  The UB Grey is very expensive but if used/cut correctly it will last a long time and be worth the money.