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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: Tag1 on September 02, 2015, 09:27:45 PM
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I have an electric company wanting shirts but they say it has to be DGI or water based inks because Plastisol inks will burn if the worker comes into contact with electricity. Has anyone heard of this before? Is this true?
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We print for smokejumpers, wildland firefighters and the like and some can't wear blends under their gear if I recall. Same concern more or less- melting.
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I was a Wlidland Firefighter for years on a Hotshot crew and we wore plastisol on our crew shirts. We wore Flexfit cotton poly caps as well. Who know whether or not the thread was fire resistant. The Nomex that we wore was not to protect from heat but just to keep us from catching our clothes on fire. The cloth for the pants and shirts was thinner thinner than a 5oz tee. What did suck was when the print covered a large area and it was annoying having a patch on your back underneath your fire shirt and pack in 105 degree weather while on a fire.
We have printed for a local utility and had to use waterbase as well. Kind of silly really when your hit with that kind of voltage the last thing your worrying about is whether or not the ink is flammable or conductive.
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i've never heard of this either and I know the local power company uses plastisol, we've printed some for them.
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i've never heard of this either and I know the local power company uses plastisol, we've printed some for them.
Yeah, who's worried about the ink. I can understand not using poly shirts because if they melt, it's directly onto the skin. But the ink? Play it safe and go WB...
Steve
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Some years ago we did a lot of printing for the local Air National Guard unit and their direction to us regarding the mil spec was that if the guy/gal wore a 'bag' (a flight suit) all undergarments had to be 100% cotton with no 'plastic' heavy handed inks.
This also applied to some flight line crew depending on job responsibilities and all designated fire fighting personnel.
Therefore in order to make sure of compliance if the order was an official military PO we had to comply with those guidelines, However if a bunch of guys simply ordered some 'cool looking' shirts and paid for them outside of channels pretty much anything was allowed.
~Kitson
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i've never heard of this either and I know the local power company uses plastisol, we've printed some for them.
Yeah, who's worried about the ink. I can understand not using poly shirts because if they melt, it's directly onto the skin. But the ink? Play it safe and go WB...
Steve
Off topic a bit but this is interesting about the "melting" part. Do you know why children pajamas are 100% polyester -- because they pass the char test required for flammability of fabric for sleepwear. Basically you hold a flame to the material suspended vertically for a small period of time (3 seconds?); you then measure the length of time it takes to self extinguish as well as the char length. Polys meet the standards since the extinguish rather quickly, while cotton does not (burns longer).
So, I guess it is better to melt your baby then burn your baby!
ps inks for printing on these type of materials must FR as well - printed on fabric and same test performed.
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We have a couple of clients that are welders.
They only want 100% cotton shirts as any sparks that hit the shirt will burn through it instead of melting to the skin. There words, not mine.
They have had no concern about the ink just the fabric...go figure.
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I've told the story of how I was depositioned in a case where a young girl; wearing her fathers oversized shirt, reached over a candle and shirt caught on fire. The candle company got the major whack but we were held partly responsible although it was proven that the print was indeed water based.