white ink "sticky"

[Sbrem]

Having been through 1000's of gallons of the stuff in the early days, I would say no, mostly for the health reasons. It was spectacular at cutting ink though and getting the screens clean, but had a small load factor, meaning that it got dirty and useless rather quickly, didn't let the solids settle to be scooped out, and the remaining fluid didn't work so well. However, I've heard stranger stuff, sometimes the thing you would never consider is just the ticket.

Steve

[Ripcord]

My shop gets kind of cold in the winter (I'm too cheap to run the heater for very long...) and there have been times when white ink was so stiff I could swear I wasn't going to be able to print without reducing it....But it's amazing how fast you can break down the false body with a few nice, slow squeegee strokes and a good hot flash between prints.

I'd be paranoid about laquer thinner. Reducer has plasticiser in it and shouldn't affect the cure, but laquer thinner doesn't. Would suck if the customer called a week later and said the prints washed off the shirts in the laundry.

[Shanarchy]

Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.

I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?

[alan802]

Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.

I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?

We were mixing qcm 159 into triangle phoenix, and there have been a few others from rutland that we mixed with the qcm 159.  It does work to do that if there is some particular attributes you look for in a white ink.  I don't like the short bodied, or the long bodied, so I mix one of each to "usually" get a more medium body.

[Shanarchy]

Surprisingly interesting (to me), probably not so much to Allan, so I had about 3/4 of a gallon left (with some curable reducer already mixed in it) and a bunch of black hoodies to print. I was pretty nervous about doing them when I had this much trouble with the tees. I mixed in about half of a quart of QCM xolb158. This mixture is the best white I have ever printed with. I am printing with no flash. Flood, print, followed by two dry strokes. It looks great. Not passable, but great.

I am really tempted to start doing an in-house mixture of this going forward. Alan, I know you do, or did, something like this. What were you mixing?

Alan, what type of ratio are you mixing? I originally thought it would be crazy to mix my own ink as opposed to just finding one that I like, but this stuff printed like a dream.

We were mixing qcm 159 into triangle phoenix, and there have been a few others from rutland that we mixed with the qcm 159.  It does work to do that if there is some particular attributes you look for in a white ink.  I don't like the short bodied, or the long bodied, so I mix one of each to "usually" get a more medium body.

[alan802]

With the 159 and phoenix it was 50/50.  We've done different ratios with other mixes though, so it's basically up to you on what you're trying to get.  If you have a super short bodied white and mix it with a fairly short bodied white then you'd only use maybe 10-15% of the shortest bodied but if you have a long body mixed with an average short bodied, then I'd start at 50/50 and then adjust from there.

Ideally this isn't something the super busy shops will want to do because it does take some time, but sometimes the results are so good that it makes sense to do it.  I loved the triangle/159 mix and I'd still be doing it if I hadn't found the Miami Superior and Smooth whites.  I've got some samples of Rutland coming in next week, I don't know what versions yet but I'll post info on it once I test them out.

[Gilligan]

Alan, for us manual guys trying to work with this Miami Smooth... would you recommend mixing something into it to get that same effect?  Reducer helps, but I want magic like Shane's getting.

[alan802]

I've never been a fan of additives so I'm not as knowledgeable on them as I'd like to be.  I typically stay away from reducer except in spot colors and I like the qcm wet on wet base and this new stuff I got from Rutland called shape, new to me, not new to the industry.  I like what it does but I have not added it to white ink yet.  The shape seems to be like a soft hand clear additive and will reduce opacity at a certain level, probably in the 5-10% range. If I were needing to get our white easier to print, I'd lean towards an additive that is effective at much smaller ratios than most of the reducers and soft hands out there.  I think there are things like viscosity busters that will do the job at 1% or less but I'd have to research it.  Reason I say that is no matter what sales people say, I've always lost some opacity when adding any base to an ink, even at low quantities.  That's why I stopped using soft hand clear, it was having a noticeable affect in our inks at less than 5% ratios.  The wet on wet base seems to not have as much of an effect as curable reducer and soft hand clear though and makes the ink easier to print with.

[Shanarchy]

Alan,

How does the wow base work? Can you add it to any ink and be able to print wow with it?

[Gilligan]

I've never been a fan of additives so I'm not as knowledgeable on them as I'd like to be.  I typically stay away from reducer except in spot colors and I like the qcm wet on wet base and this new stuff I got from Rutland called shape, new to me, not new to the industry.  I like what it does but I have not added it to white ink yet.  The shape seems to be like a soft hand clear additive and will reduce opacity at a certain level, probably in the 5-10% range. If I were needing to get our white easier to print, I'd lean towards an additive that is effective at much smaller ratios than most of the reducers and soft hands out there.  I think there are things like viscosity busters that will do the job at 1% or less but I'd have to research it.  Reason I say that is no matter what sales people say, I've always lost some opacity when adding any base to an ink, even at low quantities.  That's why I stopped using soft hand clear, it was having a noticeable affect in our inks at less than 5% ratios.  The wet on wet base seems to not have as much of an effect as curable reducer and soft hand clear though and makes the ink easier to print with.

What about mixing some inks together?  Think that might work?

[JBLUE]

Gilligan we use white ink straight out of the buckets for our base whites. Have for a long time. If we need to dick with additives and reducers to get it to print right it is not the right ink for us to begin with. It goes for the auto and the manual. On the manual your biggest issue is going to be screen choice, setup, and the biggest one of them all is print technique. 9 times out of 10 that third one fixes your problems. Basing out your ink does nothing for you if you have to hit it 3 times to get the same opacity you should have gotten on the first pull.

[Shanarchy]

Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.

[Gilligan]

Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.

I'll put some in my next order Shane.  Thanks!

Works good for everything (underbase, one hit white, hi-light)?

[Shanarchy]

Gilligan, if you're just printing manually try QCM xolb 158. It is great ink, a quick stir and ready to go. I have never had to add anything to it. The only problem I had with it was when I went to the auto. It climbs the squeegees pretty bad and I have to constantly stop and card. That is what put me on a search for a different white.

I'll put some in my next order Shane.  Thanks!

Works good for everything (underbase, one hit white, hi-light)?

It works great for everything in my opinion. I'm not exactly sold on the one hit white though. I think that is all in the opinion of the printer. I've printed a lot of designs on black with this ink and thought the one pass of white looked good and passable, but sending it around for a P-F-P always seemed to be the right way to go. It just gives it such nice extra pop. Give it a try and see how you like it. QCM pricing isn't that bad. Not as good as the Miami, but better than Epic.

[alan802]

Alan,

How does the wow base work? Can you add it to any ink and be able to print wow with it?

Not everything, but I've only found the really cheap inks that are full of plastisizer can't be helped.  Every common brand of ink has worked well with the wow base and it really does allow it to print better and with less buildup.  It really works when added to qcm's xolb series which are terrible at wow printing.

Gilligan, I'd much rather mix in a soft white to a thick white to get it to print easier than putting in an additive.  That's one of the reasons why we were mixing our white inks together.  And I second the advice on the qcm 158.  It's not as opaque as the 159 but it's still a good creamy ink.  It's easier to print and a much softer consistency than the 159.  We stopped using it because of the climbing on the auto.