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screen printing => Waterbase and Discharge => Topic started by: Rockers on November 18, 2014, 05:51:18 PM
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When printing plastisol onto a discharge underbase do you flash the base first our do you print it all wet on wet?
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I do, but I'm on a manual. Never had good luck printing on to a wet dc base.
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I do a quick flash, about 2 seconds. I've done it with and without and things work just fine without flashing but I feel like there is some buildup and mixing of the plastisol and DC ink that can be avoided by a short flash.
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Yes.
Like Al said, just enough to dry it out a bit typically. You aren't printing a DC UB like you would regular DC, it's not about saturating and fully penetrating the fabric, that's not needed, just need to bleach out the top of the garment so the plasti hilite colors pop. So it's a lot less ink all around and doesn't take much to flash out enough moisture to prevent issues down press. Still, be careful with ventilation here it can get a lot of nasty in the air at higher production speeds if you don't watch it. Depending on the temp/humidity in the shop and the fabric, etc. I like to see the image just barely start to discharge before the quartz kicks off.
We've ran without flash and it looks fine too...until the wet DC starts clogging your 330/30 CMYK screens and you can't see that the skin tone went from tan to sunburnt for 30 shirts as the Y clogged and then from sunburnt to pallid as the M starts gumming up. After that experience we just flash all DC UBs, makes life a lot better and you can see what's going on more clearly before pulling the garments. I've also seen a slight opacity boost doing this v. not flashing.
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Every time I see a post like zoo's I think I'm gonna start saying, "Dont have this problem with plastisol." I'll equally sound like a broken record in no time ;-).
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I recently tried not flashing a DC UB with a flou. Orange top colour and we had significant drop-out of brightness in the finished product. A quick flash fixed it
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Every time I see a post like zoo's I think I'm gonna start saying, "Dont have this problem with plastisol." I'll equally sound like a broken record in no time ;-).
Ha! You sound like me and my production manager when we're down on wb printing. But man, plasti over DC base v. over plasti base?...no comparison imho, so much softer, smoother, better blends. I think it's worth it.
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I would really like to hear from someone who doesn't flash the base, it's something I really, really want to get away with but it has not been production friendly enough and the finished product with a flash looks better. If you don't flash DC bases, I want to know your secrets.
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How are cure times affected using a dc ub?
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We flash. When I stop and think of it, it is usually more out of habit than anything I think. Like other said it is like a 3 sec flash, somewhere in my head I've told myself it looks better.
Pretty sure Tony said they don't usually flash.
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How are cure times affected using a dc ub?
Our dryer is 16' of high output/high airflow so DC UB runs at 320˚, same as an all plasti print. However, we would not run super fast as we could do with all plasti, there's a retention time needed to get the DC UB to do it's thing.
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last job we did like this we had to flash longer than i wanted to, it was on gildan 18000 blacks. But without that added flash time, it really looked gross.
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I'd like to get into doing dc's but 6ft of infrared is not gonna cut it.
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Permaset makes a "first down white" underbase non discharge. Flash all you want nothing bad in the ink. Print water base or plastisol on top
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Permaset makes a "first down white" underbase non discharge. Flash all you want nothing bad in the ink. Print water base or plastisol on top
Have you used any Permaset stuff with success? The samples they sent us blew ballz!!!
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Yes, the super covers are nice. Testing a lot more. Expensive though. But they give nice results almost like Rutland HSA inks.
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We tried their First Down poly blocker and were severely disappointed. Nothing like was advertised from the sales person at the trade show.
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Ah, haven't tried that one yet. Will take note.
Sorry to hijack the thread!
Heating the platens first and then drop down to like a second depending on image size. Goal is just to help evaporate the moisture not see the discharge print
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Of course depending on the ventilation we are all poisoning ourselves ::) just like sitting in a new car
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Flash sometimes, others not.
One trick if trying not to flash is to print directly after the ub screen. Giving a thin layer of dc base time to air dry/ tack up before getting printed on can lead to problems. IE dont set it up like a plastisol base.
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Permaset makes a "first down white" underbase non discharge. Flash all you want nothing bad in the ink. Print water base or plastisol on top
We used the first down white from Permaset back in 2008 , they shipped us a whole sample set back then from Australia. That is indeed a great white, same for the supercover white. As a matter of fact they work better then Matsui products if you ask me. Never tried using it as an underbase for plastisol though.
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Everyone seems to be improving their inks which is great. However, sometimes the higher prices can't be met especially if you are a small shop like us and your clients already love your product.
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To continue with the thread jack, you guys that WERE having good results with the Permaset, what mesh were you using? You have me double guessing what we did!
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To continue with the thread jack, you guys that WERE having good results with the Permaset, what mesh were you using? You have me double guessing what we did!
225s and 150s at around 24 / 25. Of course we stir the crap out of the samples and add water. Not just straight out of the bucket. However, I have only done the super covers so far. Not enough time for the other stuff till after the Thanksgiving rush.
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If you have a smaller conveyor dryer could you flash the DC UB longer to cure it, then print the plastisol on top? Or does that cause adhesion problems like over flashing plastisol underbase ?
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That will depend on the base to white ratio in the DC/UB. We make a few different ones
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Is that ratio affected by temp, humidity, and air flow so each time is a s.w.a.g. or is there a proven standard ratio that could be used everytime.
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Tonypep, You say you make a few different ones, which manufacturer are you with?
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None I am the Ops Manager for a print shop.
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When printing plastisol onto a discharge underbase do you flash the base first our do you print it all wet on wet?
Hey Rockers,
When using a discharge underbase ? Do you 50% white plasti / 50% dc base and 4% activator ? Thinking of doing a run like this for a 6 color plasti job.
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We use CCI's DC UB product with great success. We sometimes do a quick flash, but often we run it all WOW. It depends on the art.
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When printing plastisol onto a discharge underbase do you flash the base first our do you print it all wet on wet?
Hey Rockers,
When using a discharge underbase ? Do you 50% white plasti / 50% dc base and 4% activator ? Thinking of doing a run like this for a 6 color plasti job.
I've suggested to INKed that this may not be the best thread for his question and to start a new thread, but, let me weigh in on this as I interpret his question as a recipe for disaster.
INKed, are you actually thinking of mixing these ingredients together? Except for some hybrid systems which use a special discharge base, these inks will not mix. Waterbased inks and plastisol don't play well together. As some of the answers in this thread tell you, even used separately, the results are better when the dc base is at least partially cured before inviting plastisol to the party.