Rutland WB-99 Review

[ZooCity]

Pretty good stuff.  We had RC Screen Shop mix us a gallon for a 700pc job that ran yesterday (thanks brandon!).  Ps, check out RC for WB gallons on PMS colors, reasonably priced (unlike another close-by supplier) and very nice folks to boot. 

The WB-99 was mixed with Quick Cure base and is the creamiest WB ink that's been in the shop even with significant thinning with water.  It took two hard prints with a 70 duro blade through a 110/71 to get that nice, halfway through, penetration.  Printing was done on contact with a push stroke.

Smells kinda like high-quality, voc free house paint. 

The Rutland buckets are nice, good seal to them. 

Prints looked fantastic. 

All and all I give it a 7/10 though. 

Why?  Because we had a chunk of dried yellow pigment clog the screen 2/3 of the way through.  We were able to clean it out with some TW S-034 cleaner and continue but this is lame.  I can see why eb is selling the pigment set he has if this happens frequently. We have never seen this occur with any ink system.  No biggie for manual printers who can stop and clean before dozens of shirts are trashed but an easy deal breaker for autos I would imagine.  This might even damage finer mesh counts.  The gallon was properly mixed by RC for sure and then I mixed the living hell out of it with my drill on high speed and paint mixer for about 20 minutes as I thinned it and added some Matsui black to darken the color a touch, why there would be a dry chunk in there after that is beyond me.   

[mk162]

wouldn't it be a good idea to strain your inks before using them?  Use an auto body shop type paint strainer?  Or a reusable metal strainer?  Just an idea.

[ebscreen]

Try a 60 duro squeegee and a higher mesh, 150-180 or so for manual.



Giving Sericol a whirl today, 500 pieces. If I don't get any clogs due to dried ink I'm totally switching immediately.
Nothing. More. Frustrating.

[ZooCity]

I see zero need to strain inks and it would be damn near impossible to get some of the creamier ones strained anywho. 

You'll probably like that Texcharge eb, I've been flat out impressed so far. 

Why higher on the mesh?  We could bump up to 135/48 or 150/48 and I could rock a 60/90/60 (need some backbone for push strokes) but I figured the most open area you can get to hold the image was the way to go.   It is trickier to hand print this way though as your blade control needs to be very tight and the pressure cranked, my new printer struggles with it a little.  We use 14" blades on everything, even if smaller to gain a little more control. 

[brandon]

Pretty good stuff.  We had RC Screen Shop mix us a gallon for a 700pc job that ran yesterday (thanks brandon!).  Ps, check out RC for WB gallons on PMS colors, reasonably priced (unlike another close-by supplier) and very nice folks to boot. 

The WB-99 was mixed with Quick Cure base and is the creamiest WB ink that's been in the shop even with significant thinning with water.  It took two hard prints with a 70 duro blade through a 110/71 to get that nice, halfway through, penetration.  Printing was done on contact with a push stroke.

Smells kinda like high-quality, voc free house paint. 

The Rutland buckets are nice, good seal to them. 

Prints looked fantastic. 

All and all I give it a 7/10 though. 

Why?  Because we had a chunk of dried yellow pigment clog the screen 2/3 of the way through.  We were able to clean it out with some TW S-034 cleaner and continue but this is lame.  I can see why eb is selling the pigment set he has if this happens frequently. We have never seen this occur with any ink system.  No biggie for manual printers who can stop and clean before dozens of shirts are trashed but an easy deal breaker for autos I would imagine.  This might even damage finer mesh counts.  The gallon was properly mixed by RC for sure and then I mixed the living hell out of it with my drill on high speed and paint mixer for about 20 minutes as I thinned it and added some Matsui black to darken the color a touch, why there would be a dry chunk in there after that is beyond me.   

Hey Chris,
Glad you got in touch with RC. Great people over there that are actual screen printers that have worked at real high volume shops. I believe in the next year or two they will be a great supplier in our part of the country. Sorry about your experience - did you contact them? They should be able to help you out. I don't see them not having an answer for you.

[ZooCity]

No didn't contact them, I dont see it as their problem and for us, a minor one, endemic to the ink system apparently.

I have not seen this with the other five wb makes I've used is the only reason for commenting.   RC gets a ten out of ten! 

Do you get the dried pigment chunks  with rutland brandon?

[brandon]

Hey Chris,
I won't lie. We do have samples here and I have done some printing but not enough. No complaints so far. I do have another friend's shop in the Bay Area that has used it for years without fail. And they do stellar work. Auto and manual printing. But for all of our production we use Matsui pigments with CCI base or white discharge. But we also have our own formulas that work over and over for us. Years and a lot of cash and time to figure it out. Almost to the point of where we have our own pantone mixing system for it. I know it sounds crazy but it's true. We have tried Rutland, Matsui, Sericol, CCI, QCM (they still make water base?), that company from Australia I can't remember, some Wilflex and none have ever been 100% true in my opinion. That's just my opinion. Doesn't mean anything to another shop as we all mix different and have different printing environments. But we are very pleased with our results. Our clients are always happy so that is what matters. And lately our CCI white smells like bubblegum! Weird!

[IntegrityShirts]

This is gonna hurt to say, but have you tried going back to a pull stroke with more angle?  I've found when printing on the manual with wb that pushing doesn't get as much ink IN as it does ON, which works great for plastisol but wb just doesn't shear.  I have a few gallons of rutland wb and I like them over all.

When I switched to a push on the manual I said I'd never go back.  Then I realized there are times when it's necessary 

[ebscreen]

Yep, back to pullin' on manual waterbased printing. While you do need more pressure
than plastisol printing, it's not so much just the direct pressure, but a combination of pressure
and blade angle, created by a softer squeegee. With a 60 duro and 180 mesh we can actually
get too much penetration with one hit.

And after the way the Sericol ran yesterday, I'm sold. We're switchin. If anyone wants a stellar
deal on the Rutland Pigments hit me up.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yep, back to pullin' on manual waterbased printing. While you do need more pressure
than plastisol printing, it's not so much just the direct pressure, but a combination of pressure
and blade angle, created by a softer squeegee. With a 60 duro and 180 mesh we can actually
get too much penetration with one hit.

And after the way the Sericol ran yesterday, I'm sold. We're switchin. If anyone wants a stellar
deal on the Rutland Pigments hit me up.

Do you think those pigments would work in a CCI clear base? I got to many gallons of clear base and discharge printing has kinda fizzled for me here lately but I would like to use it up making colors.

[ebscreen]

That's all we sued for the last year or so. CCI Base/Rutland pigments.

Did you guys ever have pigment issues when you worked in coatings Gerry?

[Prosperi-Tees]

No real issues. Every blue moon you would get a batch of pigment that would not disperse properly but as far as dried pigment it happens but definitely not as crucial as the coating is getting slapped on the side of a building and not being pushed thru fine mesh.

[ebscreen]

I just get the feeling that concentrated pigments are a heck of a lot more likely to have issues than
pigments dispersed in a carrier already.

[Prosperi-Tees]

It really depends on how well the pigment is ground and being water based that is a huge hurdle that I doubt anyone can fix soon.

[ZooCity]

Damn, I guess I need to consider to pull stroke. Thx for the advice guys.  I sold off all our 60 duro blades long ago.

How about blade sharpening with WB?  We don't sharpen but rather rotate right now for lack of a sharpener but they are quite sharp on most of our squeegees for plastisol and will easily tear up a plastisol stencil over a run when push stroking the way we do.  Maybe WB could use a slightly duller edge to keep from tearing up the stencil?  I haven't had the issue yet and have been using duller 70 duro with rounded corners.

If pigment grind is causing it Rutland could well solve their dried pigment chunks issue once they are using the equipment they picked up from QCM to grind the WB-99 pigments.  QCM apparently had a very nice mill (probably wrong terms, pardon the ignorance) or roller for getting a very fine pigment grind, one that I hear tell is not available anymore, perhaps one of the last of it's kind.  Maybe they made the acquisition primarily to solve this problem.