I need the SOFTEST hand possible with BLACK ink on Yellow Cotton tees.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Ruh Roh....

Custy wants a 2000 pc, 1 color black on yellow cotton tee, printed in 2 locations. I bid it and got the job, but then found out they want ZERO "hand". Well, I can produce zero hand on black tees with straight discharge, but any color adds just a little feel.

We can run a sample tomorrow, and I intend to. 

I can't do waterbase very fast in my current Infra Red Dryer, unless I tweak the specs for the tees.... just a little. I regularly do discharge and waterbase, but only in single operator mode where I don't overload my 6 foot chamber. Plastisol works okay up to about 425/hr...unless the design is so big I can't use a double spacing on my 36" belt.

I thought about using Process black through a fine mesh...say 305-34 (Sefar), but it will have a fuzzy, fibrillated look after a wash or two. (Or am I wrong about that?) I like CCI's Spot Black, but I'm not sure about dwell and temp and airflow when I'm pushing the limits.

Any ideas? I don't want to take them a sample that isn't pretty close to (their approximate words) "the print feeling like it is a part of the shirt."

Thanks!
Stan

P.S. I forgot. My press is an all-air Gauntlet. (GT-8, 1993)

[Dottonedan]

Sounds like they need an education on the variables of what they are looking for.

Some discharge prints can have NO HAND such as limited muted colors...and the customer can take this sample to a shop and say they want this same feel but the design in question they have, might be a different beast like sim process blending with 8-10 colors and with bright whites. So, the customer isn't comparing apples to apples.

That's the first thing to look at. Make sure want they want can be done.

2, I would think that you can use a 305 (if solid print) and use process black + 10% a clear base, soft hand additive, finesse. I think at this point you're headed into "staining" the shirt (soaking it into the fibers) with ink rather than printing on top. If it's thin enough yet hold it's integrity, (doesn't become so translucent that is becomes close to transparent) then you could go the staining route.

I'm sure others can be more precise in the amount you should use.  Over 20% for my experience seemed to dilute the ink too much.

[Rockers]

May I suggest to use Union Unidye Inks.
http://www.unionink.com/unionink/products/water/undy.html

[Colin]

For No hand:

Waterbase Black with some softener and water added to it.

You can also put in an additive that speeds up the cure process, but gives your ink a pot life.  I forgot what its called.

For a little hand:

Black Pigmented Super Soft Primer Clear base from Rutland.  I use 10% C3 black pigment.

The primer clear was designed to hold down the fibers of the shirt really well (not perfect) while still maintaining a superrrrrrrrrr soft feel.  We do this on a regular basis.  Heavy pressure, slow stroke speed to saturate the fibers and drive it into the weave of the shirt.

Still not as good as waterbase - but production friendly.

If anyone knows of a comparable product to the Primer Clear from another manufacturer, please post

[ericheartsu]

For No hand:

Waterbase Black with some softener and water added to it.

You can also put in an additive that speeds up the cure process, but gives your ink a pot life.  I forgot what its called.

For a little hand:

Black Pigmented Super Soft Primer Clear base from Rutland.  I use 10% C3 black pigment.

The primer clear was designed to hold down the fibers of the shirt really well (not perfect) while still maintaining a superrrrrrrrrr soft feel.  We do this on a regular basis.  Heavy pressure, slow stroke speed to saturate the fibers and drive it into the weave of the shirt.

Still not as good as waterbase - but production friendly.

If anyone knows of a comparable product to the Primer Clear from another manufacturer, please post

green galaxy sells an additive called warp drive, which is a low cure additive. it helps the ink crosslink to the material i believe! we use it all time, and regularly cure at faster speeds with it.

[Underbase37]

For WB, Union sells a "fixer" for lower/faster cure, it acts lot like Nyalabond, as in if it dries in the cap you may need to cut the bottle open to use it again. Also not many stock it, as I don't think many people use it.

WB black will most likely get the best "no hand" finish, with the best fiber saturation.

In our experience, a 305 mesh combined with a based out black will result in fiber fibrillation quicker.

Murphy37

[jvanick]

We do this all the time with WB black... no hand at all... (heck, even our discharge whites & colors have no hand after washing... minimal hand before)...

Matsui sells Fixer-N to help with the curing/wash-fastness of their WB & Discharge inks... 

Plus Softener-MG to help soften the ink.

we use 3% Fixer-N, 3% Retardant, 3% Softener-MG in nearly all of our mixes.

When doing discharge, it seems that the amount of activator is what effects the hand of the print the most...  we try to get away with as little as possible (most colors and whites are 4-5%).

If you are getting a bit of hand at the end of the belt, try snapping the shirts before stacking/boxing.. the snap seems to help 'break' the crustyness of the ink.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Excellent responses, all....and some new info for me to consider. Thanks!

The coverage is large on the fronts for this job, so I recognize the need for a softer hand.

Fortunately, we have some lead time and can "dial it in" if necessary.

Stan

PS @ Jason, what mesh would you use for your method? I do keep Fixer-N and Printgen MG (former name?) but I don't stock Retardant. Perhaps I should, but I don't know about this product. Is it Matsui also? I'm afraid any Retardant would make my conveyor problem worse, but I do add Printgen MG to most of my jobs, even though I no longer use Matsui bases. I've gradually switched over to CCI for most of my bases and pigments.

[mimosatexas]

I do lots of one color wb black prints. I use 180S usually, though sometimes 150S or 225S depending on the detail needed. Occasionally 280 if it is something like a grayscale photo. Art determines the mesh most of the time for me. I don't add anything to my wb black ink. I use Matsui spot black. It prints great, no hand.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

I do lots of one color wb black prints. I use 180S usually, though sometimes 150S or 225S depending on the detail needed. Occasionally 280 if it is something like a grayscale photo. Art determines the mesh most of the time for me. I don't add anything to my wb black ink. I use Matsui spot black. It prints great, no hand.

I do them too. Problem here being the bottleneck my infra-red dryer causes. I wanted to print these on the auto with 3 operators. I can't see it happening that way on the LARGISH full-front art at least. I probably can double up loading the belt for the back art.

The only other solution is to run single operator mode for the fronts, unless some of these additives can kick up the speed a little. I'm going to play a little and test wash.

Air Flow is minimal through my tunnel, which doesn't help.

My Spot Black is CCI but the hand is very slight even before the first wash.

[jvanick]

generally 160S... I can hold really nice detail on it, and it has enough ink to penetrate into the garment.

print specs: 70 duro, 25-30 deg angle, 40-45psi.  slow-medium print speed.

retarder helps with dry in on the screens, not sure if we really need it or not, so it might be more voodoo, but, doesn't hurt since we have a gas dryer here.

I like the Matsui Spot Black as well (that's what we use as our WB black).

[mimosatexas]

I'm using a small infrared dryer as well, though manually I am going much slower of course. It has forced air though so it cures them fine. Does yours not have forced air? You can open the baffles a bit, crank the heat and put a fan on the intake. I've seen people doing that in YouTube videos.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

I have an older Harco UC3611 which is exhausted straight up through the roof. (36" wide x 11' belt length)

I am going to "soup up" the exhaust with an internal, 11.25" belt driven fan with an EXTERNAL motor for cooling. The existing motor inside the 12' ducting currently cycles on and off due to thermal protection. (GRRRR!....)

Yes, there are fans inside the 6' long, 4 panel Heat Chamber for intake and circulation, but they are real yawners.

I spoke with Winston Stricktland (sp?) who is an experienced dryer guy, and he ALSO suggested adding an external 1500 watt heat gun for additional heated airflow...when I do larger waterbased jobs. A very easy tweak. I might even add 2.

[kingscreen]

Texsource makes a Black plastisol called Black Dream.  It's pretty thin already, but you can add some curable reducer/soft hand additive.  Print it through a 230-305.  It will be indistinguishable from waterbased ink and be a lot friendlier with your dryer set up.

[ZooCity]

We use CCI Spot Black and it's a very good all 'rounder WB black, excellent adhesion to the widest variety of fabrics.  However, even after washing there is some amount of hand present.   Other brands of ink we tried were softer but less adhesion on say, poly blend neons than the CCI. 

Have your client handle a samp of a WB black printed (or try that primer clear, very nice ink, hand is there but it's so soft and nice feeling) garment to make sure their expectations line up with reality.

A quality WB ink base can actually be forgiving with the cure but the longest lasting print is going to come from the "best" cure of course.   Everyone makes a catalyst/fixer type additive.  Just test it first.  If your cure process is already thorough, catalysts can actually hurt the cure. 

And follow Winston's advice, that cat has some tricks in his bag.