Glow inks from previous shop WOW, gotta see.

[Dottonedan]

I got this order is to produce a Glow tee. Simple stuff, but wow, this last shop did this order for the customer (3 times) and the 3rd is still not what would be considered a (good print).


1st try, (apparently) he used a very low mesh with just the glow ink only. wow. Looks like gray ink...(but amazingly enough tho, it does glow. He must have put it thu a 60 mesh and hit it a few times. LOL.


2nd try is with a white underbase...and random opacity at best on consistency. It's just not an even coverage of ink. Maybe used warped wooded screens er something.


3rd try is much whiter/brighter and more consistent, but still left some areas where you look at it and say...something isn't right here. Still blotchy in some areas.


All three are actual orders that the customer paid for. I don't know if he got a discount or not but DANG.  That first one...I woulda re done that for free...or actually, I woulda not even shown them to the customer and just did it till we got it right.. The guy must a been very new and took on the order not knowing what he was getting into.


So, on this 3rd one (the whitest), what could make this inconsistent like this?

[ScreenFoo]

Kind of a stab in the dark, but they aren't 50/50's, are they? 

Looks like it was maybe wrinkled a little on the belt and got a little cooked to me, but it might be just cause I'm used to matte whites.
Bad platen has done this to me too--I have one I can predict the two areas of localized dot gain--but it will reduce opacity on a white print, because you're effectively putting more pressure on that part of the print.

[beanie357]

How many tries do you get to charge for?


Hee Hee Hee

We would not have sent any of these out. Has the other shop heard of trying stuff to learn before shipping? Hope he is a competitor. Your life gets brighter.

[ericheartsu]

we have had really good luck mixing a little bit of glow ink, into white ink. It's white, and when charged properly really glows.

[ebscreen]

We underbase/flash/blacklight green/flash/GID.

This is for a customer that wanted the GID to appear glowy green in daylight.

Otherwise you really almost need to print an underbase and top white then your GID on top.

How long it glows is also of concern, not just if it does glow.

[Dottonedan]

Screenfoo, your on it baby. I think that's a key layer there. Yes,  first and 2nd are on Gildan 50/50
Last and brightest is on a Port. Still, the last had inconsistencies. I think the other guy nailed that with the platten issues.

When ever sepping for glow, I've always used base white, flash....top white...flash...GID.

I prefer to lay down a heavy deposit of glow. Last longer.  Yrs ago, Wilflex's had the best. No clue who's is best now. Hopping Pierre has figured that out for me. These need to radiate heat when glowing.

[Evo]

Yep, they needed some poly white on there. UB, top white, GID.

Some GID ink tends to sublimate extra bad on poly, especially royal.

A pre-print shop I worked at years ago printed 100's of thousands of shirts with different GID designs. Mainly kid's shirts for museum gift shops, so lots of space stuff, nocturnal animals (glowing eyes) and glowing dinosaur bones.

We had a "glow white" that was a custom mix of poly white and about 16 oz of glow pigment per gallon of ink. We used this as an underbase and top white for printing things like stars and planets, then different mixes of translucent colors with a bit of glow pigment added on top of that, plus straight GID inks. The shirts would glow in a dimly lit room.