Printing Poly/Spandex on darks is hard. It sure makes me LOVE cotton!!!

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Printing white on these Sport-Tek 95/5 Poly/Spandex shirts has beaten me.

One pass is not enough, but Low Bleed White is thick, so it lifts the shirts on the first pass of PFP.  I didn't try spray tack because these are so stretchy they would be even harder to load straight.
I use the CCI white liquid tack. (I forget the name.)  I have already reduced the viscosity of the Wilflex Epic Performance White with 3% viscosity buster, and warmed up the ink a bit, which helps a little.  But even when the ink is warm and platens are sort of holding the slippery, shifting pieces of stretchy crap (that I wouldn't wear) the ink deposit is pretty rough. It doesn't seem worth the trouble.



Has anybody got this really dialed in?

Stan

(More info if needed.  Manual printing, 5 different colors of Sport-Tek, Red, Black, ?-Gray, Royal, and ?-Orange. This is a 78 piece contract job, one color, with large blocks of spot. We actually are beginning to wish this custy would just go away. They are increasingly throwing us crumbs and jobs their other printers in town don't want to mess with.  I used 156 mesh, PFP. Actually more like PLC Print-Lift-Curse. In the bucket, this year old Epic White is like glue. 3% Viscosity Buster makes it only barely printable, but I hate to use any more and curable reducer might get sublimation especially on the reds.  Oh, and my dryer is electric.  That's all I can think of.)

[Printficient]

You should try the Mustang.

[Croft]

I've been using DOW  silicone ink and using a mist spray for tack Sprayway fast tack 384 , The mist spray is the only one that will hold some of the UA shirts/shorts that I do.
  I haven't ventured more than 1 colour usually white with the silicone ink but really like it and it will stretch more than the garment.

[blue moon]

we just about refuse to print those! We manage to get a good deposit, but due to the loft of the material print is always fuzzy (strands showing through the ink). Even silicone ink did not solve that.
We tell most customers that we will not print on those and if they push we'll print it with an explanation that it will look like crap and it is not something we like to see come out of our shop.

pierre

[JBLUE]

The only thing we get those to stick with is spray tack. I stopped using Wilflex Poly White and went over to Rutlands Poly. It is easier to print on this stuff with it. You have to keep your pallets pretty cool on these which is oposite thinking but it does help a lot. The hotter the pallets the less these like to stick.

[Frog]

I do mostly small runs, so when the design is conducive to it, I go with heat seal on that kind of shirt.

[inkman996]

We gave up on the Tri-Blends especially the district/sanmar ones. We simply cant get a smooth print on them, its always sand paperish, unless you heat press after the fact. It was so bad for a while we had Sanmar in our shop picking up samples that we printed to show them. At the end of the day these shirts really do not need ink on them, they are one level up from panty hose for gods sake.

[ScreenFoo]

Those are a serious PITA--I wouldn't say I have it dialed in, just have enough damage control to make a presentable product.  Lower than normal mesh for stretch underbase and overprints was the biggest change.

I think silicone would be great for these, from what I've seen of it.

[tonypep]

Silicone inks work well for these products howver we still struggle with that ink drying issue. DC UB works best in my opinion

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Silicone inks work well for these products howver we still struggle with that ink drying issue. DC UB works best in my opinion

DC UB on 95% poly you say.  Have I had a stroke?  You must know something I don't, or I dont understand your abbreviations.

Stan

[tonypep]

Don't have any tri-blends laying around but the ones mentioned have a significant more cotton content than 5%. Uually a blend of cotton, rayon (viscose) and poly. We have found that most colors discharge well enough for a base then plastisol on top.

[Doug B]

  I did some a couple of weeks ago. A mixture of Union poly white, QCM-158 (to kind of thin it out)
and QCM stretch additive. It was multi color so I just added a little stretch to the other colors. Worked
fine for me (yes, it was a manual print).

[inkman996]

The worse garment we have struggled with is not a tri-blend but 95% poly and 5% spandex. It just prints like crap, hard to dial the flash and slinky as hell on the palettes.

[ScreenFoo]

Should have quoted--I was talking about the 95/5 Sport Tek shirts in the OP.

I don't do tri-blends too often either, but they seem like a dream compared to those specific garments...

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

The worse garment we have struggled with is not a tri-blend but 95% poly and 5% spandex. It just prints like crap, hard to dial the flash and slinky as hell on the palettes.

You just paraphrased my sentiments, and pretty much condensed my original post. Bottom of the heap, aren't they.....

I'm at a Funeral down in OKC, and found out the contract custy in post #1 (with nose out if joint) has scheduled a combined office assault with herself and her end customer to examine the rejects, and pout that "well, you guys printed the job last yeeeear". (read that with pouty voice).

Yes, and they WERE red... and no they weren't rough, and no they didn't bleed. But they were cotton.

Think I am developing a cotton fetish.

Gotta go, funeral about to start.....