Towel printing

[Denis Kolar]

I got my first towel order.
I will be printing grommeted golf towels. White with black imprint.

My question is, how much reducer or soft hand to ad to the ink?
Do you prefer softhand or reducer for this print. All I can use is Plastisol, no capabilities for waterbased.

Thanks

[cbjamel]

Soft hand works great 20% I think is the recommended amount, depending on ink company.

Shane

[ScreenFoo]

I've done 25-50% softhand or balanced reducer and gotten good results--although how much you want to add depends on the consistency and opacity of your ink to start with.  You want it thin enough to push in.
Didn't seem to me that there was a huge difference between the two.  I'm probably missing something though. 

If you add a lot, make sure what you add is curable--bases and 'balanced' reducers should be.

[Denis Kolar]

The lowest mesh count I have is 110.

Will that work?

[ScreenFoo]

A 110 would work, but I'd go with a nice tight 156--you don't want a load of ink sitting on top of the towel, but you want to be able to push a decent amount of ink through the screen and into the towel.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I was gonna say 50% curable reducer being that it is black ink maybe more. And a 156-180 mesh.

[Colin]

Most of the ink companies have a "Soft Hand" black available.  It will be the same as the Chino/Softee/Fashion Soft bases.  They just added black pigment to it.

The only one I remember is the Softee Black from QCM (gee I wonder why  ).  Ask your distributor what he has.

These Black inks are deep black and will be as soft as plastisol will ever get.

Other wise pick up one of the above bases to add to your black.  You want the plastisol to penetrate into the towel like waterbase does.