My review of Synergy Gen one white cotton white
This is my honest review of this ink. I am not trying to sell it or make people hate it. I may say something’s that sounds bad but this is me being honest with what I have seen so far. Joe and others may also not agree with my opinion on this ink.
First observations:
It comes in the smaller 5 gallon bucket so the ink is all the way to the top. Not a fan of this because the ink is covering the lid and you have to clean that off and then mixing the ink is harder without the extra space the bigger buckets have. The bucket is black and this is a good thing. This makes keeping the bucket clean easy and you know when there is ink on the edge, side etc. The clearish and white buckets are much harder to know. (my shop is very clean}
First thing I do when getting an ink is take a goop scoop and mix it up a little. Then I take a big scoop and see how it falls off. I am checking to see how the ink mixes and acts. This ink mixed really well. It is super creamy but had a density to it that kept the ink together. You can tell there is alot of pigment but it is still easy to mix. Then I smell the ink. Not sure what this does for rating an ink but I do it. It has no bad smell. It really has less smell them most.
Manual printing:
The first few jobs I printed with the ink was manually. I do this with all my new inks. I get a better feel of the ink and what it needs on a manual press. I used the ink straight out of the bucket with no mixing. The ink was thick but flooded and printed rather easy for a white ink. It was hard to push stroke the ink so the ink would clean off the screen. Slow hard or fast hard print would leave a light film of ink on the screen. Adjusting angle helped some. This is not in the stencil but on the emulsion itself. This made printing the ink harder. I stuck with it and after the ink was worked up some it got better. The print was really good. I was surprised at how the print covered even with the ink film issues. The print flashed very fast. I would say close to if not the fastest I have ever used. The only issue with the print was the edge detail. The edges have a rough effect to them. I am very picky about this. I like my prints thin and smooth with sharp edges. The print was smooth but the edges looked almost like it was torn from the stencil. This left a rough edge with small flakes of pigment around the edge. I have seen this before with a few inks and I know a little reducer or soft hand can fix it. I added some Rutland primer clear. Not alot because I wanted to give the ink its chance but some. It helped a ton. The edge detail was clean and smooth now. It also helped with the ink film on the emulsion. Now the ink was working well. The flooding was still harder then I like since this ink likes to stick. So much that the ink would build up on the squeegee. I had to knock it off by bumping the squeegee down on the screen and pallet. This was the first few jobs on the manual. Still the end result of the printed shirt was a very good product. It’s just a little hard to work with manually printing. I am guessing you can reduce this ink up to 20 percent and still get great coverage. This would solve the issues I saw printing manually.
On the Auto:
I feared this. I bought 5 gallons of this stuff. I have to get it to work on the auto. But with the climbing and sticking on the manual I knew I was in for some frustrations. I was running a white underbase with gold shimmer on top. Hate doing this job. The shimmer is always problems. I used the slightly modified ink with primer clear. This was maybe 5 percent or even less. I mixed it up but not too much. The ink at first didn't flood well. I was flooding at 5 and printing at 4 to start. The printing was fine but I was getting a choppy flood. It was not the nice full coverage flood I like. I like a thick soft flood. I like the flooded ink to be at least a 16th or more. I also run my flood at a fast speed on most jobs to keep the ink flowing. This ink was still printing fine. After about 20-30 shirts the ink started flooding good so I turned the flood up. The print was really good even with the choppy flood. It was very smooth, flat and matte finish. I got great coverage, 2 strokes would lay down more than enough to cover the royal blue and sports grey shirts. I have to say the ink prints much better on the auto. It needed some force at first to get it going. I didn’t get any climbing after the first 30 shirts. The ink would roll when printed and I was using a winged flood bar with no angle. The ink would come around the wings but what ink doesn’t. I never adjusted the print. It looked perfect from the beginning to the end. I usually do some fine tuning during a run but I didn’t have to. I know I could have used less pressure but I just left it. The shimmer was also not a problem. It stuck perfectly to the white and looked great, the whole run.
Dryer. This ink dry’s fast. This does bring up a little problem. I noticed puffing. I know this ink has no puff additive but it does expand. I turned my dryer belt up and it got better. So I was over cooking it and it was blistering or whatever you call it. It didn’t affect the top colors. Not a big deal ounce you figure it out and dial in the dryer.
I have a lot more playing around to do with this ink. I am guessing if it is performing this well with just a few jobs printed it will only get better. One big thing about this ink is the problems were just on the printing side. The final product always looked great. I have to say that is the most impressive part. Most of the time I am fighting to get better coverage. This ink has great opacity and is a nice matte finish print.
