How I feel trying to use dischage and understand it

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Does Ryonet's cure time take the type of dryer into consideration? All infra-red isn't the most efficient way to dry these, a gas dryer, with convection is much better, imho...

Steve

I have no idea about Ryonet's recommendations, but they need to be considered just rough guidelines, and FAR inferior to wash testing. One of the best things I did was buying a washer and dryer and installing them in our back-shop. (Craigslist, about $300.00)  Do some experimenting.

If waterbased and discharged fades out after test washing more than say..... 1-2%, your shirt is undercured.  And yes, I have an infrared and I continually am walking a tight rope, between undercuring and scorching--since my chamber is only 6' of  heat. I'm a manual shop, so I get by. With an auto, my dryer would just be waaaaaay too short. An infra-red conveyor oven that had 16 feet of heat might be a OK, I dunno. Gas seems to be the preferred dryer for discharge.

[mk162]

gas is the preferred dryer period...it's made a HUGE difference here.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

What about length? Like how big a drier do YOU have and will it keep up with an auto at full tilt on a discharge job?

It's all about airflow, I've been told. And gas affords that, but I'm not sure how really.

[mk162]

our drier will not keep up on the auto running at 100%, we could move the shirts around a bit and run it faster, but right now we run at 80% on the auto with discharge.  We have a 12 foot heat chamber on the dryer.

[Screened Gear]

I have a workhorse 5217 dryer. It has 7 feet of heat and a 52 inch belt. I have printed about 400 shirts an hour discharge on it. With the wider belt I can do 2 rows of shirts. My dwell time is 105 seconds. I have done discharge underbases and straight discharge with this set up. I have wash tested about 5 jobs and they look exactly the same after the first and second washes. The dryer is not really force air but it does have a fan inside than moves the air. I know its not the ideal set up but it does work. I am looking in to a gas dryer but not for a year or so.

I have to agree that gas is the way to go the air movement is insane inside one of those. 

[tonypep]

Its all about the efficiency of the dryer. Mainly the baffling system. One of my dryers has 20' of heat and can handle two autos wide open with WB. The other three have 12'of heat. In most cases 12 is fine

[Sbrem]

Air movement is key to getting the water out; we run 2 Advance TexAir dryers (which might be older than some of our members). Infra red in, gas convection in the middle, and infra red boot in the ass on the way out. They will dry or cure just about anything.

Steve

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Steve, do you have to jack around with dryer settings, for your different inks? 

I sure do, and it wears me out. With my infrared only, (6' of heat) I'm continulally fiddling to get waterbased to cure and not scorch---and to run them at a reasonable speed.  I yearn to run a dryer with a more forgiving nature.

I know with my discharge, I'm sort of "breaking all the rules" but we all do what we have to do.

[GraphicDisorder]

Well we finally got around to playing with this more.  Still not right IMO. 

Here is what our test looked like, its not white enough for sure flash is fooling you some here.  This is 70 Base/30 White / 5% activator.  Then tried adding more activator which did bring it a bit brighter.  This is all nearly totally eyeballing it since we have no gram scale yet.  Clearly doing something wrong.

[Parker 1]

Well we finally got around to playing with this more.  Still not right IMO. 

Here is what our test looked like, its not white enough for sure flash is fooling you some here.  This is 70 Base/30 White / 5% activator.  Then tried adding more activator which did bring it a bit brighter.  This is all nearly totally eyeballing it since we have no gram scale yet.  Clearly doing something wrong.

Try 90white/ 10 base.  Go get a scale 39 bucks at office depot to get you started. 

[Parker 1]

This is a job we ran today.  3 color DC, 2 blues and a White.  On Port PC61 Ts. 

Sorry for the horrible phone pic, no flash. 

[GraphicDisorder]

Well we finally got around to playing with this more.  Still not right IMO. 

Here is what our test looked like, its not white enough for sure flash is fooling you some here.  This is 70 Base/30 White / 5% activator.  Then tried adding more activator which did bring it a bit brighter.  This is all nearly totally eyeballing it since we have no gram scale yet.  Clearly doing something wrong.

Try 90white/ 10 base.  Go get a scale 39 bucks at office depot to get you started.

So less white?  It's not white enough, wouldn't that make it worse? (keep in mind im a infant with this discharge stuff)

[shellyky]

(he said 90 white, we used 30 white.)

Also, are these supposed to feel.."dry"...thats the only way i can describe it. its not exactly cracking and brittle but its just dryish texture.

Also #2, is there any problem with stacking these up fresh out the dryer? would the product do anything to the back of the next shirt on top of it? 

Also #3, if this isn't fully "cured" this isn't going to bleach anything else in the customer's washing machine is it?  No risk because it stops working after 8 hours?

[alan802]

Are you using the CCI D-white, or Ryonet's version of it?  If not, what product are you using? 

[Nick Bane]

1. yes, they will feel dry and stiff but once washed will feel like an unprinted shirt.
2. as long as they are curing in the dryer, shouldnt be any problem with them piling up in the basket.
3. even not fully cured, it wont bleach anything else in anyones machine, just doesnt work like that.

and yeah 30 white/ 70 base will give a tannish white color, more white 80-90 white to 10-20 base will get a brighter white.

still wont be bright bright white like a plastisol but close and much softer once washed.