Disappearing Yellow

[BartJY]

Folks,

I'm a noob, so I am experiencing noob problems. One of them is the yellow water based ink disappears on dark fabric. Not happy. Is there a yellow water based ink that doesn't turn green and disappear on dark fabric? Would this happen if plastisol was used?

Thanks
Bart

[Dottonedan]

Hello and Welcome!
Waterbase, even though not plastisol, will need a base white under it on dark colors to support the intensity of the ink. The waterbase is very thin and soaks up into the shirt color, thus disappearing.  The wasterbase printeres here will have to chime in as to what you can do for waterbase printing that is not discharge. An easy option that many do, is to print a plastisol base white down first, flash it and then print the waterbase over top. There might be a waterbase (white) that can go down first, but I would assume you would need to semi flash that also. Just maybe not as much as plastisol. I donno about that one. I've never used a white waterbase.

If it's discharge waterbase, then it should be able to be bright yellow depending on the saturation into the shirt. You won't see this happen until you run it through the dryer (for a full length of time such as 1 min, and the temp the ink calls for. That's where the action happens. I hear the best dryers are gas dryers (hotter?) and I also hear that you need a long chamber for the ink to be curing for the proper length of time and temp.

I'm no expert, practically a noob myself at waterbase and discharge.

[brandon]

Yup, like Dan said. Are you using discharge, water base or HSA water base? If discharge most brands in 100 percent cotton yellow will work. If water base you will have to do an underbase as Dan mentioned and possibly hit the yellow / flash / yellow. With HSA and solvent based not all brands are the same so again depending on shirt brand and ink brand maybe just an underbase then flash and yellow. But some brands of ink out there will need two hits of white then yellow on top. If on a manual you can go the easy route with one low mesh screen and use Permaset Supercover series and do print flash print. No underbase. Starts at about $100 or so per gallon but the most opaque yellow put there in my opinion.

[Prince Art]

Would this happen if plastisol was used?

If you use an opaque plastisol, NO, this shouldn't happen. You might have to print/flash/print, but you can get a bright yellow with no white base. FYI: 50/50 shirts & higher poly content may be more of a challenge due to potential dye migration from the shirt. Bright coverage is easiest to achieve on 100% cotton.


EDIT: Just to be clear, in light of comments above & below, my input regards using plastisol instead of waterbased, not in conjunction with.

[RICK STEFANICK]

NO, You cannot print a PLASTISOL BASE  and then print with standard water base inks on top as stated above. Its the exact opposite you can run a discharge base mix and then plastisol over the top.

[brandon]

I think Dan meant to say you can print plastisol on top of a waterbase underbase. Not the other way around