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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: Nation03 on September 25, 2012, 07:52:56 PM
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I'm in a pinch and I really don't want to spend $85 on an overnight for some ink. I don't have a pantone mixing system, but does anyone know if I can mix a turquoise ink with some standard colors I already have? I'm thinking royal blue and kelly green but I'm worried it will end up looking to muddy. Should I add some white to lighten it up? It will be printing directly onto white shirts. Image is attached. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
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might want to try a lighter blue and green , kelly green or even a bright neon green, Tourquoise is a tough one to mix.
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Start with spoonfuls of blue and green. Well not so much green. Green is really strong. So maybe a spoonful of blue to a quarter of green and adjust from there. Make sure you keep your formula and multiply from there. Mixing finished inks is tough to do at times. Also may have to throw in a touch of yellow depending on shade.
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Thanks guys. I'll give it a try tonight. Otherwise I guess I'll just half to eat the profit margin on this job and overnight the ink lol. My own fault for thinking I had it laying around.
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We mostly use the Wilflex MX system, but when in a hurry we -use the inside top of the white plastic container -with your index finger, rub on some of the main color you are using. Then next color and next guessed. It uses virtually no ink and can get closer and closer by adjusting the amount of the different colors. With a few different scant circles you can do pretty well!
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Don't trip Nation03. Start with whatever blue you like and add some yellow, white if you like or it needs it, and if you go slow and use clean colors it shouldn't get dirty. Add in some transparent base to taste and get to printin'. I agree green is strong, give the blue that green hue with yellow instead.
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Awesome, I'll give that a go. Thank you very much!
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I'm not sure Royal will get you there, as there's some red in it, at least I always thought so. Cyan and Pantone Green will get you started
Steve
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What a nightmare if you have to remix more in future....
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What ever blue you are using for the blue part of the logo would be best to to mix in a touch of green and yellow. It looks like brite blue?
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I mix this color all the time for a school and I use process blue and yellow. Union makes a "bright blue" which is very similar to process blue (cyan). By adding more or less of each color you can easily mix the color bluer or greener as you prefer.
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+1 to the base blue being in the cyan family. Good comments on that. I wouldn't use royal though you could probably make it happen on whites by extending it then adding the yellow.
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All good info. I ended up making a similar shade using royal and yellow with some white in there to lighten it up. The other blue in the logo is a brite blue or a columbia blue.. guess it depends on which ink manufacturer you use. I was tempted to use the lighter shade, but I had an old half quart of royal, so I ended up playing around with that. I might add a little more white before I print, but for the most part I think its close enough. For what they're paying, I'm sure they can't complain.
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+1 Zoo and Steve. If you use cyan or green shade blue and a lemon or process yellow it will be much easier to mix.
The purple hue in red shade blues will just kill the yellow and make that much more mud.
Good to hear it worked out for you.
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Yep, definitely cyan (Union bright blue) and lemon yellow. Put a smear of it on a piece of paper and run it through the dryer. File it away so if you need to reprint you'll have the color to refer to.
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Something I do a lot when mixing is to take the backside, not the receiving side, of old film positives or carrier sheet trimmings (a pc of glass would be good too) and use it like palette to test a few different combos are feel out how strong one color to the rest. Next put a little of the mix on the egde of a clean knife and scrape onto test material to see what it's going to do on your shirt color. Start there and then go to mix and jot down your %s in case you run out of ink mid-run and forgot what you did to mix that color. Prevents you from mixing a whole quart of ink that looks like baby poo.
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we like coated poster board for that, but we also like scrap coroplast, because you can clean it off and use it again...
Steve
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Just wanted to say thank you to everyone again. The mix came out a little darker than the requested color, but they just picked up the shirts and were more than happy.