Ink additive - Black

[garagewear]

I know QCM has an additive to make a "recycled" black. Does anyone else make anything like this or can the QCM be added to other plasitisols? I have a bunch of half quart WM HP2 mixed colors taking up space on the shelf and sure would like to use it as black if possible.

B

[Frog]

It's got to be just pigment, and therefore certainly should work with any plastisol, but you do have to watch your quantities.

I have done similarly in the past, and have also been known to add dark "leftovers" to black as well.

[tonypep]

One of my ex-suppliers used a Wilflex additive for recycled black and I tried it because of price (not following my own advice I guess). It was terrible. I have had it for two years and occaisonally use it for shading. Not sure of the QCM product. Perhaps Colin will comment.

[Frog]

Tony, is the problem just that it didn't make your leftovers black enough, or did it reduce "printability"?

[tonypep]

My guess they weren't doing it right. It was milky clear and a lot of blue must have been leftover. Almost like they hit it with a lot of clear to adjust for pigment load and make cheaper. I'm pretty sure the additive is not pure PC. Too much risk of over pigmenting. Fibrilated like crazy as well. Give me another year or two and I'll use it up. Some ink companies have formulas in their software for combing colors in order to make a different usable color but I do this by eye. We carry approximately 500 plastisol colors as well as stock supplied standards. I know not cost effective for some but necessary for us.

[Colin]

Any "additive" you purchase to recycle ink into black will be (should be) black pigment.  Hopefuly Tony's case was an isolated one.

A few things you will want to be aware of heading into recycling your ink:

1) If you have any leftover ink with white in it, you will not have a true black.  It WILL be a shade of grey.  How much white is in the recycled ink will determine the shade.

3) Depending on the colors being recycled, you may see a tint to your black.  Please be ready to accept that your ink, depending, may not look like a "true" black when printed.

2) Depending on how heavily pigmented the ink to be recycled is, you MAY end up over pigmenting the ink when you add the black pigment.  If this happens you will see the cured ink exhibiting heavy crocking and/or will not stretch/show obvious signs of not being cured.  As a result I have ALWAYS recomended testing your ink before production.  If the ink is not curable/crocks, add a clear ink of choice to balance out the ink.

[mk162]

the other thing you can do is then mix your recycled black with a higher quality black like Wilflex GNS or something like that. 

[garagewear]

This all helps a bunch. I have been trying to switch everything over to QCM but still have all of this WM ink just sitting here. If I have something I am printing that needs a color close to what I still have what is left of my mixing system as well and am able to tint it. It is just slow going and I have a lot of greens and browns. On my qcm I have individual buckets for my scrap white, red, blue, yellow and green then have a catch all for the darker stuff.

[ErinAllenLamb]

Hey Guys!! You knew I would chime in, it just took me a bit. I am on a road trip through the west coast and we just got to San Diego from the Grand Canyon!! That was AMAZING. Enough about me!  

We have customers that use our Equalizer Black to make a recycled black.  The Equalizer is a balanced colorant system, so you don't have to worry about adding too much to make it unbalanced. However, the more you add the more money you are adding and at a high percentage addition you start to effect your wash fastness and printability. Equalizers are designed to be mixed with a base.

Erin

[tonypep]

Hey Guys!! You knew I would chime in, it just took me a bit. I am on a road trip through the west coast and we just got to San Diego from the Grand Canyon!! That was AMAZING. Enough about me!  

We have customers that use our Equalizer Black to make a recycled black.  The Equalizer is a balanced colorant system, so you don't have to worry about adding too much to make it unbalanced. However, the more you add the more money you are adding and at a high percentage addition you start to effect your wash fastness and printability. Equalizers are designed to be mixed with a base.

Correct of course. In other words if you use a disproportionate amount of equalizer you can make a recycled black that is actually more expensive than the off the shelf product. Which can still make sense I suppose.
Erin since you've been world traveling I wonder if you missed a shout out I made to you about WB PC dispensers
Rather than hijack this thread pls feel free to P-mail me.
Erin