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screen printing => Waterbase and Discharge => Topic started by: DCSP John on February 04, 2015, 02:36:49 PM
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I have to print the following [attached] designs on cardinal red Next Level tees.
2 Color, white and navy blue. Discharge for the white, regular waterbase for the blue.
Any advise on how to sep the gradient section of this design? Are we doing solid white
with blue gradient over top? I sure we will figure it out, but was curious as to anyones input.
Thank.
John
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Discharge white doesn't like being stepped on.
Fade the white into the blue with a good amount of overlap between them, print blue first white last.
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Agreed.
You could bump flash the white and print the blue on top however. DC White usually has enough adhesion that getting some water out of the White shouldn't hurt the DC process in the dryer to a degree that it's noticeable. Watch out that you don't have the White beneath the darkest areas of the blue though, it might turn the blue pastel.
Sepping this in Illy you will have to stack/align two copies of the element with the two color grad in it. Set your gradients to the spot color, on both ends of the spectrum, going from 5-10% (or whatever your mesh will hold) to 100%. Next, set the top element to overprint. Last off, play with the gradient spectrum on each until you get some overlap going on. Finishing touch is to set the angle on one to be different than the other to avoid dot stacking out of the RIP.
Outputting the gradient right out of illustrator with blue on one end, white on the other will not work out well on press. It's a huge drag for me that you have to do this workaround but it's the sadly the most efficient way to do it if it's just a couple elements.
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anyway.. just a follow up.
Discharge white - 225 S
Hi Lite Dark Blue Plastisol - 225 S
Hi Lite Lighter Blue - 150 S
- John
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I'm curious why you used such a low mesh for the light blue? The final product is nice, but the fade is a bit muddled. White looks great though.
If you printed plastisol over white DC you might want to do some wash tests before delivery. The plastisol may end up coming off the shirt...
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great point. The fade actually looks better in real life. Not perfect, but good nonetheless.
Trying to hold those dots in the fade wasn't happening on anything less than a 225.
So, we had to go with a high mesh to keep the halftones.
The white discharge had a fair amount of penetrant, so the blue on top held well after wash.
Not to chalky, which usually presents wash issues..
Thanks for the feedback.
John