CCI D-White Cracking in garment "channels/grooves"

[cclaud3]

Hey, CCI D-White. 4% activator. Brightness is fine. But a slight tug on dried shirt reveals the cotton "channels/grooves" in the shirt. It's like it's not penetrating into the grooves of the fabric. 156 mesh.

Gildan 5000 Black, assorted other gildan colors. Automatic press and tried numerous pressures & squeegee angle combos. Tried cranking the pressure and it doesn't seem to make a difference. Tried double stroking...same outcome on the splitting in the fiber grooves.

Tried no and low off contact, too.

Any ideas?

[ebscreen]

Inside of shirt, look for %50 penetration or better. May look fine without penetration but first wash will say otherwise...
Softish squeegee heavyish pressure, create a funnel. We print as fast as the squeegee will fly for best penetration and detail.

[Colin]

Have you added any penetrant?

[cclaud3]

Thanks for the responses.

I'm using a 70 durometer blade. I can clearly see the image on the inside of the shirt. Started using so much pressure that the image was clear on the platen. Very strange.

The ink is straight d-white with 4% d-powder.

Just with the weight of the shirt hanging off my hand it's webbing apart. It appears to be following the columns of the vertical shirt weave.

Even doubled the dwell time on the dryer to see if it was post-print issues. Same effect. I've printed water based ink recently but it's been a few months since I used the d-white.

[Screened Gear]

slight tug on dried shirt reveals the cotton "channels/grooves"

Not sure your experience level with discharge but pulling the fabric will always reveal  some unprinted areas of the shirt. This is normal. I go for about 50% penetration when I print discharge.  The key to penetration is not always more pressure. Wetter, runnier inks will soak the fibers better and get you a brighter white with less chalky feel after being cured. My whites I do 10 to 20 percent Clear base to D-white. 5 percent activator and then I add water maybe 5 to 8 percent. All of these very depending on the ink and pigment loads. The clear base helps with penetration and less chalky feel after printing. Honestly you can do up to about 30 percent clear base into D-white and not see much of a difference in brightness. Always test each shop is different and the dryer you use will also change what you need to do with your inks.

My white ink will run off of a goop scoop when you pull it out of the bucket of ink. That is how I test to make sure there is enough water added.

[cclaud3]

Yeah it does seam like it should be runnier. Mixed 7 colors with the pigment system this morning and they are much smoother. I'll try making another batch of white with a small % of water. Maybe it's been sitting to long and needs a better stirring too...

I understand the pulling apart but these are almost splitting by just looking at them. Holding the shirt sideways with 1 hand and you can see the splitting along the ribbing of the shirt.

[Binkspot]

We mix up to 10% water to thin it out. We had the same trouble the first time playing with it.

[brandon]

Yeah it does seam like it should be runnier. Mixed 7 colors with the pigment system this morning and they are much smoother. I'll try making another batch of white with a small % of water. Maybe it's been sitting to long and needs a better stirring too...

Yeah, both plastisol and water base inks need to be stirred before using. And well at that.

It's like looking at that balsamic salad dressing sitting in your fridge for months. Totally separated haha

[cclaud3]

Thanks everyone, I'll give it another try in the morning.

[ebscreen]

Try a 230 mesh as well. We've occasionally used low mesh with discharge white and it tends to put down too much ink, both penetrating
the fabric and leaving a layer on top that will crack as you've described. We rarely go below a 180 for wb/discharge.

[screenprintguy]

We run D-white through 125 and 156 mesh almost every day, you need to print it hard, drive it  into the fabric, we always double stroke, break the plastisol mentality. The ink only discharges what it soaks, if doesn't touch the fiber, it can't discharge it. We never have cracking issues when running our discharge inks like this. We stopped using high mesh counts with water based over 6 months ago and have brighter more saturated prints because of it. 230, in my opinion, isn't going to allow you to drive enough discharge ink into the fabric, just my experience. 180 is probably the highest mesh count I'd go, but not with white, and defiantly double stroke to ensure you are driving it in. We don't print for retail stores who take the shirts and we never really see them again, we have a client base for our water based printing that really inspects the crap out of their goods, wear, and have employees wearing, not to mention most of us in here always wear something we print for others every day giving us a good wash and wear test factor. Double stroking that white will also drive more white pigment into the fiber leaving more behind to be cured into the shirt. Give it a try. Another trick, when printing D-White, we us the Xenon double beveled squeegees, hold awesome detail and allow you to put a nice angle to really lay it in there nice. Hope some of this helps.

Mike

[cclaud3]

Thanks for taking the time.

Yeah I know what it needs in terms of heavy pressure as the other colors print well. It was more of why was it still cracking along the weave of the fabric since I was even getting it to smash through and print pretty vivid onto the pallet with both 1 & 2 strokes. The water/adding base approach seems like the ticket as the dwhite seemed denser/fluffier than the wb colors.

I didn't remember having this issue with dwhite before so I was puzzled. Will report back tomorrow. Thanks.

[dirkdiggler]

Mikes back in the house!  Welcome back Mike!  You always give good advice.

[mimosatexas]

it should definitely be liquid enough to drip off a scoop.  I have found that a bit more activator and as much as 20% clear base and 10-15% water produces fantastic results.  These amounts depend a bit on the variables of the print, ambient temp/humidity, screen choice, fabric, etc.

[ericheartsu]

We run D-white through 125 and 156 mesh almost every day, you need to print it hard, drive it  into the fabric, we always double stroke, break the plastisol mentality. The ink only discharges what it soaks, if doesn't touch the fiber, it can't discharge it. We never have cracking issues when running our discharge inks like this. We stopped using high mesh counts with water based over 6 months ago and have brighter more saturated prints because of it. 230, in my opinion, isn't going to allow you to drive enough discharge ink into the fabric, just my experience. 180 is probably the highest mesh count I'd go, but not with white, and defiantly double stroke to ensure you are driving it in. We don't print for retail stores who take the shirts and we never really see them again, we have a client base for our water based printing that really inspects the crap out of their goods, wear, and have employees wearing, not to mention most of us in here always wear something we print for others every day giving us a good wash and wear test factor. Double stroking that white will also drive more white pigment into the fiber leaving more behind to be cured into the shirt. Give it a try. Another trick, when printing D-White, we us the Xenon double beveled squeegees, hold awesome detail and allow you to put a nice angle to really lay it in there nice. Hope some of this helps.

Mike

Mike you should try a smiling jack squeegee. That plus d-white on a 156, comes out awesome.

The one thing i'd like to find out how to fix is how to get rid on lint! it always messes up our big blocky prints.