How is your DC washing?

[ZooCity]

Specifically, how is yours washing on a carded, open end yarn cotton T, like the 2000, 5250, etc., etc.? 

Wash tests have been mostly excellent on ringspun but have a look at this pic attached.  We've been aware of this as the final issue to tackle with DC/WB- getting the ink to encapsulate those fine fiber tips and avoid the fibrillated/frosted look -but the quest to overcome it has been more of an urge to go over the top and make our prints closer to perfect rather than a major issue that needed a remedy...on most ringspun that is.  On the G2000/5250 type of T it appears to be a deal breaker to me, unacceptable.  These Navy Ts are fibrilating on their own, making a grey fuzz even though the yarn is navy.  Nearly identical results across brands.

This is 5 complete wash/dry cycles, just like a client might do with their laundry regularly- warm wash, cold rinse, medium/hot tumble dry.

CCI D-Base Premium loaded to around 25% on average.  I think 3.5% activator load for this particular color.

Curing parameters are as they have always been and while not ideal for sure, are more than adequate.  (will be ideal when we finally install our Sprint)

Penetration is good, heck, everything seems great on press and out the dryer but then this after just 5 wash cycles....the loss of vibrancy and the fibrilation is just over the top to me.  Are we setting too high a standard here?

[mimosatexas]

I have to be honest, that does not look good and is not what I see using Matsui.  I have G5000's that have been washed dozens of times where the red is basically as bright as the day it was printed.  I'll post pics in a minute if I can find the one I wear to print in all the time...

updated with photo.  this shirt has been washed easily a few dozen times over the last 2 years.  The white is more haggard than the red or green in the design, and the actual black is looking pretty fuzzy these days, but the red and green both look great and if you blow up the photo the little fibers are all the same red as the shirt still.  I may still have an unwashed sample of this shirt in the shop and will take a side by side tomorrow when I get there if possible.

[Colin]

The one, single,  time I printed with ICC discharge inks... that image right there was my wash results.... But I saw that on my second wash... and it got worse from there.  This was on Tultex garments.  Thankfully it was a sample before production.

Used Rutland for the print run.  20k prints.  Wash tests were beautiful.

We have done wash tests on Hanes, PC61, G2000, etc and no issues as long as we did not over add on water.  Now, I do not add water period.

A long time ago, I would look at that and say you need to add penetrant to your inks to make sure you get as deep into the fibers as possible.... But I was told by ICC that you do not need to do that... so....

[gtmfg]

Zoo that pic is about exactly what I have experienced while testing discharge. We tried CCI and Union products, since then I put the whole idea on hold.

[tonypep]

My hybrid system doesn't require it but we keep a penetrant around for reverse printing. Simple fix.

[ZooCity]

we do have 3% penetrant ( retarder) in that mix, and the penetration looks correct for that type of shirt. the samples were two passes through 135/48 with a 55 9055 blade.

what's weird is that we don't see this typically, side by side with a ring spun garment we won't see the same results the ring spun will typically be acceptable to excellent.

Colin are you using Rutland pigments and Rutland DC base?

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

[Colin]

We use Rutlands penetrant up to 5%.  I use that much sincew I have run into some crap nasty fabrics out here....  It is not a retarder.  Their retarder is labeled Lubricant.  Which we only need to use when we go through 225 or anything with super fine lines or a dot size of 150 dpi or smaller.

We are running all Rutland waterbase products here.  Just started using the HSA this week.

As long as I mix everything properly, and in the proper order.  I have not had a single issue with the waterbase inks washing fantastically.  It should also be noted that we have a Sprint 2000HO (High Output)  Basically it turns the air over quicker than a regular Sprint.

When we first started to market Jantex inks while working at QCM (yes, we were repackaging Jantex WB as a QCM product) I had the same, but much much worse, issues you are seeing in the above pic.  I was told to add penetrant to the ink since there is some nasty fabric out there.  I learned my lesson that day.  It is now one of the first questions I always ask...

How did your discharge base test go today?

[ZooCity]

Going through the wash/dry cycles today.  Tested a quick red mix that I winged at 15% WB-99 pigs into the Rutland DC base at 3% activator as well as 3% Rutland Penetrant on a wide variety of fabrics, including the "troubled" G2000 and Hanes 5250 Navy Ts.  We'll see how it stands up.

I couldn't mix the same color as in the picture I posted since we are somehow locked out of logging into the OMX. Does Rutland have a desktop version you can install?  Web stuff is cool and all until you can't get to it.   The posted color was also a 3% activated one for the rich, burnt orange so testing should be close enough for a proper comparison.

[Colin]

They do have a desktop version. 

When PJ came through on one of his visits he installed it.  It has been a "work in progress" for some time.

I do not know if you can download it from their website or not.  I have not looked.

I just rechecked the shirt I was talking about above, the one that fiberlated really bad.  Looking at the inside of the shirt, the ink penetrated the garment enough to almost pass as a reverse print, you can see that much of the print through the inside of the shirt.  Lot's of "natural cotton" colored fibres flapping around in the print area however...

[ZooCity]

Here's what happened with Rutland DC after 5 hard wash/dry cycles.  It's better than the CCI on the G2000 and the Hanes 5250, not spectacular but better.  As you can see from the 3rd pic, penetration was eliminated as a factor, this may even have been over penetration. 

The red test ink here was a quick/random mix from the Rutland WB99 system, loaded at 15% pigment and activated to 3%.  Printed through a 135/48 with multiple strokes.  I unfortunately didn't have access to the formulae to mix the same color as the original tests so another, rich, 3% activated color will have to suffice.

What I'm concluding:

• cheaper fabric = more of this griege/fuzz/fibrilation/frosting  I had other fabrics in these tests and the cheaper of all of them exhibited this the most.
• Ringspun is superior.  It will still frost up as the shirt itself does but will look good, much better than coe cotton fabric.  The super macro here of the brown/orange if from the first test run that I posted a pic of.  It's an LAT 6901.  Up close like this you can see the problem occurring but the print looks very nice at a normal viewing distance and miles better than the coe cotton Ts when side by side.

I would say to keep in mind that these wash tests were fairly brutal and would not represent how a screen printer washes their clothes. They represent how our clients might wash 'em.  I've had and still have many shirts with fine looking prints that I washed inside out in cold water and dried moderately for years with very little loss of vibrancy to both the shirt and the print colors.

Mimosa, your print is blurry (not like mine are much better!) so it's hard to see but I'm curious what those top fibers are looking like.  Are they tinted/dyed to the DC color?  This is the solution to this problem, getting the WB or DC ink to encapsulate the fiber ends.  We can't seem to make that happen 100% with any ink system.  You can see from the pics that these inks are re-dyeing the fabric well into the weave, it's just the top fuzzies that aren't cooperating. 

I'm not sure what other trees to bark up at this point.  I defer to my client's preference on this and it looks like it's going to be HSA from here on out, though I feel comfortable with the G2000 to some degree.  The 5250 is pretty much going to be a no-go for DC or reserved for 6% activated, lighter or white heavy colors only.  Out of the bunch it really was the worst.   We do talk to all clientele about how DC/WB wear s with the shirt- it's not a coating like plasti or HSA -and many actually like this.  There is, however, a line that needs drawn somewhere.   

My last variables to check here are if the cure of our incoming Sprint HO will affect this (I do not believe it significantly will benefit long term washing, I think it will just up production) and....well that's all I got.  If we just only printed on ringspun, which we typically only do, there would be no issues.  All the ringspuns passed the test.  Anyone have any thoughts or something else I could add to this testing?

[ZooCity]

Quick note on the super macro pics- I did up the exposure compensation on the camera a touch to bring the fibers out more.  It's not 100% accurate to real life, looks a touch worse.