Boosting old glow in the dark ink?

[Atownsend]

I have 10-15 gallons of Rutland glow in the dark ink. Age is an unknown, as I picked up a big lot from a printer that was going out of biz. It prints well enough, and it does glow to a somewhat acceptable level.... but I'd like to give it a boost.

Allureglow has a ton of glow powders for a variety of applications. For anyone using the powder concentrates, what particle size is right for screen use? Has anyone boosted old glow in the dark ink? If so, how much are you boosting it? I'm sure if I use too much, I can probably run into adhesion / cure issues. What is the threshold for adding too much? I'd hate to trash all of this glow ink, hoping I can give it a boost and avoid that!

Thanks in advance! Guidance here is appreciated.

[Colin]

Glow pigment will fade in intensity over time.  It depends on whether or not it was stored in light... or dark.

If stored in light, it has been taking a charge this entire time and wearing down.  If stored in a dark environment, it should be ok...

Max pigment loading is 1/3 by weight.

ALL GLOW PIGMENTS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.

I do not know what the pigment loading of the old ink is and it could be a weaker glow in general.  You can always call Rutland with the batch number and they pull the info on that batch of ink from their system.

Personally, if you want a stronger glow, create a glow ink that is to your personal standards.  Record what you did and make that your stock glow ink.

How this helps.

[Atownsend]

Thanks Colin!!

I just ordered up some pigment from allureglow! Searching through some of the threads here everyone has spoken very highly of them so I'm going to give their pigment a shot. They recommended a 20-45 micron pigment size for screen applications. Hoping to see a big gain! Might experiment with this stuff and add it to non glow inks since we'll have the powder / flexibility.

[Colin]

You are welcome!

When adding glow to any color.... be aware that pigments can cover up the glow particle.

Same concept as adding color to silver shimmers - to get colored shimmers.  You can only add so much before the shimmer/sparkle is gone.  Also adding white completely occludes the shimmer.  Black too, but to a slightly lesser degree.

Test test test!

[ScreenFoo]

Thanks Colin!!

I just ordered up some pigment from allureglow! Searching through some of the threads here everyone has spoken very highly of them so I'm going to give their pigment a shot. They recommended a 20-45 micron pigment size for screen applications. Hoping to see a big gain! Might experiment with this stuff and add it to non glow inks since we'll have the powder / flexibility.

Play around with it yet?
I was skeptical at first considering how much the 'good' stuff had cost me in the past, but testing proved me stupid.
Good product, especially for the money.

[Atownsend]

Yes!

The pigment powder definitely did what I wanted. It added quite a bit of punch to the old rutland glow ink. I used 20% by weight and it was noticeably brighter and faded much less quickly in the darkroom. Printed the 20-40 micron particle size through an 86 mesh screen. I could have probably gone up on the mesh count, but I wasn't really sure how the particles would clear and I wanted a nice glow. I am very impressed with this stuff so far, fantastic value. Have you used any of the colored pigments? Curious to how the aqua / red / orange / purple pigments pan out. I didn't know such things were possible. When I think about glow in the dark, I don't usually think about anything other than the typical green.

[ScreenFoo]

Have been busy, sorry for the late reply. 
No, haven't tried any colors yet.
IIRC there's a thread on here with some photos of the other colors, it was a while back though.

As far as pigment size and screen mesh, an 86 is pretty reasonable for a 40 micron max particle size.
Pretty sure a 125, or 150S would be printable, but might start 'filtering' the bigger particles.