waterbased vs plastisol which is more durable

[Rockers]

Me and my wife have been arguing about this recently. A client want to get a black print on white tees but want it too last as long as possible without any fading of the ink over several washes. My suggestion was to go for waterbased as this will penetrate the garment fiber and if cured proper the print should look great for a very long time. Anyone taking the side of the plastisol camp?

[ebscreen]

WB all day long.

[JBLUE]

Plastisol if they want it bright as all get out. Its all how you sell it to the customer. WB is the way to go if they will bite and not confuse the soft hand with coming off. Or WB with Plastisol on top. It is all in how you educate the customer really.

[ebscreen]

You're either going to go soft with plastisol, as in highish mesh, softish inks, etc. It will feel nice but fibrillation will be an issue. We've put
clear bases under/over 4CP to combat this somewhat.

Or you can go old school and use a 110 and lay a slab on top of the fabric. Fibrillation won't be an issue, but it will eventually crack
like any thick deposit of plastisol. I'd assume that as pthalates go away this will become more of an issue. They're where the flex comes from.

I've got discharge white shirts that have been washed a zillion times and look awesome. I've got WB black shirts that are the same.
It really is the jam.

[Admiral]

You can do what they want with plastisol it will just have some a decent feel to it.

One customer wanted navy ink to be real thick and not pull apart and reveal any shirt so we did 2 strokes through a 110 for it.  A bit over kill though, I like doing 150s mesh for good coverage of a dark ink on light color shirts.

[ZooCity]

I've been wondering about this and need to do some side by sides. 

Apples to apples, soft hand/softee/fashion base plastisol to wb, wb wins by miles.   The soft hand plastisols are horrible fibrilators, especially on ringspun.  The ink just sinks right down past all the little fibers, allowing them to break free after a wash or two.

But if hand is not an issue, which is more durable....that's tougher.  If you bridge the print completely, achieve complete matt down of the fibers, cure properly and use a good ink you should wind up with a somewhat soft, rubbery plastisol print that will take quite a few years to crack and will look the way it did from day one until it does finally degrade. 

The achilles heel I'm seeing with WB/DC is that, as you go through washings and wearings, it dulls in accord with the shirt fabric itself whereas plastisol never really dulls, it just loses it's elasticity over time.  They both can take a hit from UV but that's a pigment thing.

We print ring spun all day long here so I think about this often.