Author Topic: Expired Discharge ink = regular water base ink?  (Read 1031 times)

Offline Gilligan

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Expired Discharge ink = regular water base ink?
« on: July 20, 2015, 12:34:25 PM »
We finally did a DC job on some towels, came out pretty good (still have no idea of dryer settings, we just kept running them through :) ).

Afterwards as we were cleaning up the ink (Red)... I wondered, why are we throwing this out?  Is this not just normal WB ink now?

This also brings up another similar question: "What is the difference between CCI D-Base and W-Base?"


Offline mimosatexas

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Re: Expired Discharge ink = regular water base ink?
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2015, 12:51:08 PM »
Unactivated D base will still lighten a tiny bit.  I actually use unactivated dbase with nothing in it (or <5% white) to do tone on tone stuff sometimes.  It will lighten noticeably in the dryer without any activator at all.  Discharge inks are typically a bit less opaque than straight waterbased inks since they are not designed to cover the shirt color, so it will not print the same on dark shirts.  I have used old discharge inks on light/white shirts without issues, but the colors do not come out identical to how they were originally mixed.  Typically you will see some color shift as the pigments sit in the base for a long time, like reds become kind of orange/rusty looking.  You also won't be able to control exactly how much they lighten due to the residual DC chems in the base/activator.