WOW Printing

[brandon]

Just ran a thousand 2 color, black and red and didn't need a single wipe down.  You know what I think the key is aside from good screens, stencils, off contact, etc? 

Use any decent wow ink and don't modify it at all.

I know it's been said but seriously, bears repeating,  best results I've seen.  Could have ran another k, maybe more easily.  I threw down black first and the back of the red screen looked like a train wreck but the prints were perfect and this was butt reg with solid areas right against each other.  Wfx epic matte black and a book recipe mix of 186 c, nothing special needed.

Yup, once you have your variables under control a good ink makes a huuuuge difference. Been saying this for years especially with QCM's wow ink series. Straight out of the bucket. Just stir and you are ready to go. Do not use their Low Bleeds or whatever and add softee base or whatever people tell you. I am serious. Just ask Colin!

Haha! Brandon YOU are the one that told me to use softee base!

Lies Sir! I remember you calling and us having the conversation. I said the QCM Halftone base! Not to be mixed up with the WOW base by QCM. This was around a year and a half ago. Maybe longer. And if you ask QCM they will now tell you they are the same thing. But at the time they would say the halftone base and the wow base were different. Nothing to do with the softee base! I also remember someone else calling about it beginning with N in his name that could verify. Uh huh

[inkbrigade]

Just ran a thousand 2 color, black and red and didn't need a single wipe down.  You know what I think the key is aside from good screens, stencils, off contact, etc? 

Use any decent wow ink and don't modify it at all.

I know it's been said but seriously, bears repeating,  best results I've seen.  Could have ran another k, maybe more easily.  I threw down black first and the back of the red screen looked like a train wreck but the prints were perfect and this was butt reg with solid areas right against each other.  Wfx epic matte black and a book recipe mix of 186 c, nothing special needed.

Yup, once you have your variables under control a good ink makes a huuuuge difference. Been saying this for years especially with QCM's wow ink series. Straight out of the bucket. Just stir and you are ready to go. Do not use their Low Bleeds or whatever and add softee base or whatever people tell you. I am serious. Just ask Colin!

Haha! Brandon YOU are the one that told me to use softee base!

Lies Sir! I remember you calling and us having the conversation. I said the QCM Halftone base! Not to be mixed up with the WOW base by QCM. This was around a year and a half ago. Maybe longer. And if you ask QCM they will now tell you they are the same thing. But at the time they would say the halftone base and the wow base were different. Nothing to do with the softee base! I also remember someone else calling about it beginning with N in his name that could verify. Uh huh

Haha ok, maybe I mixed things up. Brandon, you've always been helpful to us and I appreciate it!

[Prosperi-Tees]

Speaking of WOW printing , how would you pros put this print order?

[Gilligan]

Red, Yellow, Black (assuming white shirt).

Oh wait... you said pros.  oops.

[Screened Gear]

Speaking of WOW printing , how would you pros put this print order?

I would not call me a pro but I would print this yellow red black.

to be honest you can print things just about anyway and get them to work so everyone has a opinion. some ways print a little better but it can be done in alot of ways.

A few rules I go by:

1) Dark shirts = darkest ink to lightest
2) Light shirts = light ink to dark
3) smallest print area to largest print area (this over rides rule 1 &2)
4) I always print outlines after the fills

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yeah my real question should have been red then yellow, or yellow then red? Thats what im undecided on. Yellow from what I hear tends to be sticky but I just adjusted some IC yellow with some soft hand and reducer so I should be good with putting yellow first.

[Gilligan]

Speaking of WOW printing , how would you pros put this print order?

I would not call me a pro but I would print this yellow red black.

to be honest you can print things just about anyway and get them to work so everyone has a opinion. some ways print a little better but it can be done in alot of ways.

A few rules I go by:

1) Dark shirts = darkest ink to lightest
2) Light shirts = light ink to dark
3) smallest print area to largest print area (this over rides rule 1 &2)
4) I always print outlines after the fills

I just learned rule 4... luckily the easy way.  I actually told my printer to do it the wrong way, luckily he "messed up" and fixed my problem.

When I saw him printing it I noticed my fill would have stepped on my outline and I would have lost definition.  The outline brought back all the pop in the design.  I'm glad I got off easy.   In fact I used it on the very next job on deciding how to print the next one for that exact reason!

[Screened Gear]

I just adjusted some IC yellow with some soft hand and reducer

Curable reducer is bad:

Curable reducer will slow flash times
Curable reducer will make prints more tacky after flash
Curable reducer will make shirt not cure as fast in your dryer
Curable reducer will make die migration happen easier
Curable reducer will make inks cross link in your bucket when left for long times (get thick)
Curable reducer will sleep with your wife or girl friend while your at the shop working all night.

I am testing a product from union that does non of this and makes inks print better with less pressure with out reducing opacity. I will post on it as soon as I can.

[Gilligan]

Do you have proof it isn't sleeping with your wife or girl friend?

[ScreenFoo]

I just adjusted some IC yellow with some soft hand and reducer

Curable reducer is bad:

Curable reducer will slow flash times
Curable reducer will make prints more tacky after flash
Curable reducer will make shirt not cure as fast in your dryer
Curable reducer will make die migration happen easier
Curable reducer will make inks cross link in your bucket when left for long times (get thick)
Curable reducer will sleep with your wife or girl friend while your at the shop working all night.

I am testing a product from union that does non of this and makes inks print better with less pressure with out reducing opacity. I will post on it as soon as I can.

Flow additive?

Agree though, if you want to put yellow first, get ink that's made to be stepped on.

[Screened Gear]

I just adjusted some IC yellow with some soft hand and reducer

Curable reducer is bad:

Curable reducer will slow flash times
Curable reducer will make prints more tacky after flash
Curable reducer will make shirt not cure as fast in your dryer
Curable reducer will make die migration happen easier
Curable reducer will make inks cross link in your bucket when left for long times (get thick)
Curable reducer will sleep with your wife or girl friend while your at the shop working all night.

I am testing a product from union that does non of this and makes inks print better with less pressure with out reducing opacity. I will post on it as soon as I can.

Flow additive?

Agree though, if you want to put yellow first, get ink that's made to be stepped on.

I guess you could call it a flow additive. They don't have a final name for it yet. One reason I can't post anything on it. It works good for me. Its not a fix all base or anything it just does what I was looking for.

[ZooCity]

Red - Black - Yellow would be my order.   Effing Yellow always gets those little peaks in it like icing or something, pisses me off....and I don't know why anyone has pickup issues with Black.  I've used QCM LFP and 911 Black and now WFX Epic Matte Black and no problems. 

It matter little with the "key color" needing to go down last.  We butt reg and next time I might even drop the "gutters" in that Inkman has suggested.  No doubt that certain jobs are just a pita and require a certain printer order though, whether you like it or not so I'm not disagreeing with the other comments necessarily, it can be situational.

The run that inspired this post had a change up toward the last 1000 back prints (it was actually 2k 2co Heart, 2co Full Back).  Our 180 for the Black popped right in the middle.  Never had it happen before and obviously there was some foreign particle in the ink that abraded it but....

...a printer I had pulled in to help with this run wound up having one of my reg printers put a 150/48 up for Black, which was going down first as the 225/40 "wasn't working", which I chided everyone for (no wonder WOW didn't work that way you dingus') but it was still on press.  What the hell? I thought and I ran the Red (larger image area) first through a 180/48 and dropped the Black on top WOW through the 150.  Worked perfectly, not a single wipe down needed for the whole thou remaining.   I'll post a pic if I can remember when I go back to the shop tomorrow.

What I did learn though is that there's a lot on the printer or perhaps the auto press in this scenario, your technique needs to be on lock. 

[ZooCity]

Screened Gear I think you might be referring to what, for Wilflex users, is called QEC Viscosity Buster.  You add it in very small qty, 1-3% and it breaks up the viscosity as you might've guessed from the name.  We use it with certain Epic Performance inks only, oh, and if we need a certain distressed/soft hand plastisol effect it can be used to a degree for that.  They need it sometimes but none of their other inks come close to requiring the use of it. 

My guess is the "flow additive" from Union is similar in approach? 

[Frog]

With butt registration or even a tiny choke that fills as the screen offset builds up a bit, sometimes a black outline can be printed first.
As someone pointed out, there are no hard and fast rules.

[Colin]

I just adjusted some IC yellow with some soft hand and reducer

Curable reducer is bad:

Curable reducer will slow flash times
Curable reducer will make prints more tacky after flash
Curable reducer will make shirt not cure as fast in your dryer
Curable reducer will make die migration happen easier
Curable reducer will make inks cross link in your bucket when left for long times (get thick)
Curable reducer will sleep with your wife or girl friend while your at the shop working all night.

I am testing a product from union that does non of this and makes inks print better with less pressure with out reducing opacity. I will post on it as soon as I can.

You need to add a high amount of curable reducer to increase flash times, even more to increase cures times (even then it's not much), you need to add around 10% by weight for dye migration to become an issue (that's because the plastciser in curable reducer is not low bleed. Ink companies can make a low bleed curable reducer though), if you are having your inks thicken up in your bucket after adding curable reducer... then something else is wrong.  Bad chemistry has to be happening...

The Union product could be a plastciser which is what Zoo referenced, the QEC Viscocity Buster.  If what you have is a similar product be careful with how much you add because you will have greater issues than with curable reducer!

It could also be a blend of additives that assist ink flow.  I made one while at QCM a few months before Rutland bought us.  Worked like a charm.  Had a lower amount of plastisizer so you could add 10% and not have flash or cure issues.  Gave it to some customers who had some super thick inks, ours and some other companies, ink printed like new afterwards.