Cotton White

[ZooCity]

I'm mulling stocking a "cotton" white plastisol in here.  We use Quick for everything but bleeders/poly/low cure temp items and have for years.  I love it. 

However, we are running 2 presses now with a lot more coming down the belt at once and I am downright paranoid of the infamous ghosting issue that can happen when low bleed whites are used on 100% cotton.  I have been diligent in making sure the crew is running the cool down fans, not folding shirts hot on the belt, stacking high or allowing any stack of shirts to have a temp above 95˚ in the middle which I know will prevent the issue but still, it seems like cheap insurance to run the cotton white. 

Thoughts on this?  Cost is really not my concern with ink (to a point of course) and we'd be saving about 15% on ink costs running cotton white where we can over Quick.  If you think about ink costs, even at volume, that's not really a huge amount.  Now, saving any amount of money is not to be overlooked but with the lower number of jobs we run with white plastisol on cottons we would maybe save a few hundo a year on the ink.

Is Sprint white, the cotton cousin of Quick?  Anyone use it and can chime in?  I wouldn't give up the flash times or the general on press performance of Quick for anything but if they had what was basically Quick sans peroxides and dye blocking agents that would definitely fly. 

[Gilligan]

Try Meteor White from Galaxy.

[ebscreen]

Never seen ghosting. I think you have to have pretty bad luck for that to happen.

I think of it this way. Which is more likely to happen? Ghosting, or using the wrong ink
and/or putting the wrong ink back in the wrong bucket? I know the answer here and haven't
had a %100 cotton white for awhile.

[GaryG]

Quick or Extreme, both Wilflex, and Sprint White only ones needed here. Sprint is excellent for cotton.
No need to fool around with the multitude of others. You will never need to second guess. It's a good feeling.

[ZooCity]

I used to have a deep seated fear that someone was going to toss a cotton white on press where a low bleed was called for but I think I can finally say we have that on lock down.   An ink mix up would not be easy to do, even when we're rushed but yeah, it could still happen. 

I think it might be best for me to continue with the back of dryer standards for cooling v. adding more ink stock.  There's a whole host of reasons not to add more inks here, we already run 5 different types of ink so space and basic inventory control come into play.  I guess if there were some crazy benefits to using cotton white on cotton I'd sing a different tune.

[ebscreen]

I think you'd be most likely to see ghosting with the %100 poly inks. Could be wrong though.

Who here got that split belt dryer? I really want to know about those. Ink types here are getting to the
point of one dryer per press, and I want to know if a split is worth it or if we should just get two dryers.

[jvanick]

wet shirts / high humidity + over-curing + stacking the shirts too tall or having a huge stack in the box == much greater chances for ghosting.

and yes, the poly inks seem more susceptible to it...

we've only had it happen once, and it was during a 100% humidity day during the summer...

[Screened Gear]

from what I have been told it only happens with cotton shirts and 100% poly inks. Low Bleed inks like quick white will not do it. I have printed with low bleeds for over 6 years and have not seen it once.

[Inkworks]

I thought ghosting was only a concern with Poly inks with Hydrogen Peroxide in them? Which I will never again allow into my shop....

[jvanick]

when it happened for us it was on 100% poly with Wilflex Performance White (which does have peroxide in it).. Apparently Top Score does not have peroxide in it (although the topscore is NOT WoW friendly either)...

But... Rob Coleman at Nazdar told me that Peroxide is not the component that actually is what causes the ghosting... something else that I can't remember is.

[ZooCity]

Huh, well I stand corrected.  I thought that the low bleeds could also cause the issue.  We would never print our poly ink on cottons, no reason to that I can see. 

Sounds like this ain't broke so I'm not going to fix it.   

[Rob Coleman]

Sprint white is the same product as Quick - just without the bleed resist additives. So they are more like sisters than cousins! 

[Rob Coleman]

Per oxides were commonly used many years ago for BR, and they still are used in some inks. The main ingredient used now is an expansion agent - hence why most companies use oversized containers for these inks.  This expansion agent is the culprit for ghosting on 100% Cotton's.  Need to have heat, moisture, and the suspect dye which is primarily pastel shades.

[Orion]

Just checked the price on Quick white, run away from it as quickly as you can. $355 for 5 gallons!

We have used Sprint, which is $304 per 5, for many years but that is going to change, we need to cut down on costs. No need to have three different white inks in house. We use Triangle Phoenix white for 50/50 and Union Premium LB white for poly. The Union is one of the best poly inks out there, imho.

We are moving to Warrior white which is $221 per 5, to replace the Sprint and the Phoenix. One ink for cotton and 50/50. I have the PIB links below for the three Wilflex whites I have mentioned, pull them up and have a look at the ratings for each in the top right corner.

http://www.gogsg.com/UserFiles/Files/Epic_QuickWhiteTECH.pdf

http://www.gogsg.com/UserFiles/Files/Wilflex%20EpicSprintWhite%20TECH.pdf

http://techsupportsps.com/downloads/wilflex/epic_warrior_white.pdf

[Orion]

Rick Roth tells a Ghost Story.