Retro faded look

[ZooCity]

If you're going to use reducer as a base better make sure it's curable reducer. 

I would recommend keeping your reducer around for, well, reducing and use a soft hand base for your inks.  QCM has Softee, Wilflex has Fashion Soft, etc., etc. 

The soft bases can either be pigmented directly with a PC system (which, by the way John does not make a pastel ink, the soft bases are clear. you may be referring to the look of a bright color in soft base that was driven too far into the fabric?) or used to hyper-extend rfu inks. 

Using the soft bases you can get a faded look via the fibrilation that will occur from printing a plastisol that is actually quite 'watery' and will not matt down all the fibers of the garment.  The further you drive the soft based ink into the shirt the more you'll see this fibrilation/fading.

We have to distinguish the differences with soft hand bases and fashion bases.
Soft hand base is transparent
Fashion bases are opaque.

You usually add soft hand to an ink, helping to soften the inks for a better feel and shorten the body of the inks for easier printing and to extend them with a max 50% load when printing on whites or lights. Color shifting is to be expected and colors lighten due to the transparency of the soft hand. The biggest use for soft hand is extending RFU's and producing process colors in house as it's 5% ink to 95% base. Great for making concentrated magenta's and lighter cyan's.

With fashion bases, you're adding color to them with loads up to 10%  This low viscosity base allows the use of higher mesh so you can either smash it into the shirt to simulate waterbase or on top as a very soft handed simulated process print.

Curable reducers reduce the viscosity of the inks while helping to maintain opacity to make it easier to print through high mesh counts. What they don't do is create softness, rather the opposite with a hard feeling ink. This can be the ideal look for a weathered or cracked looking retro shirt when combined with crackle or other specialty bases. This reducer is also great for thinning your white inks to make them print faster and move away from the dreaded 110-140 mesh count range. Base your white a little and print through a 160+ mesh, you get an opaque faster printing base and use less ink doing so.

Explore and experiment with different bases as when combined.. they can do amazing.. and horrible things so be sure to read the load ratings of ink vs base and document document document how you made it!

Huh, I guess I always saw it as all bases were more or less clear to start and the pigments (including white) alongside the specific rheology gave the opacity.  Some bases are runnier, some thicker.  The goal in the chemistry of all of them ought to be a soft hand but I'm sure this is a sacrificial quality in the enduring quest for opacity- thicker inks stand on the shirt and matt fibers down.  Is this incorrect then? 

For our part, we used to base down mixed pantone colors with "Softee" base.   Now, using Wilflex Epic PCs we use the Fashion Base with varying percentage of Extender Base as the base ink and add pigment loads from there.  None of the inks coming out of those mixes are anything resembling opaque, but perhaps I have more experimenting to do.  Adding extender is necessary when you want a soft transparent ink that prints like plastisol and not wb.  That Fashion Soft is runnier than all get out.

John are using Wilflex then or another PC system? 

[screenxpress]

Once you base down your inks you pretty much have to chunk the ink when done right?  Or keep it around for another similar job... is that really practical?

If we're talking curable reducer for "base down", no, IMO, you don't have to throw it away. 

As some of you know, I was shut down for 2+ years and everything went in storage, including inks.  Since getting set up, I have printed two small jobs where I used ink that had curable reducer added over 2 years ago.  Union Bright Cotton White and Wilflex Genesis Red.  Inks stirred up easily and both jobs cured fine.

[mk162]

adding some cureable reducer doesn't necessarily reduce opacity.  it allows the ink to flow better and in some cases can improve opacity since inkflow is increased.

There is a happy medium....I do have a white that is seriously thinned for highlights and some underbases.

[Gilligan]

Once you base down your inks you pretty much have to chunk the ink when done right?  Or keep it around for another similar job... is that really practical?

If we're talking curable reducer for "base down", no, IMO, you don't have to throw it away. 

As some of you know, I was shut down for 2+ years and everything went in storage, including inks.  Since getting set up, I have printed two small jobs where I used ink that had curable reducer added over 2 years ago.  Union Bright Cotton White and Wilflex Genesis Red.  Inks stirred up easily and both jobs cured fine.

Good to know.

[ZooCity]

I got rid of Curable Reducer when we switched to Wilflex.  I use Viscosity Buster now.  It's a totally clear, watery solution rather than a milkier one and @ 1-3% will get just about anything moving.  We've only needed it for some of the Performance inks so far like the White and Underbase Grey. 

[ebscreen]

Is viscosity buster curable in any amount? I'm wary of bringing anything in that will render an
ink incurable.

[ZooCity]

Is viscosity buster curable in any amount? I'm wary of bringing anything in that will render an
ink incurable.

Doubt it.  But we have the PC system so we're already dealing with unbalanced elements.  I'm sure it wouldn't ruin christmas if you added over the 3% but this stuff seems wildly different from a curable reducer.

You just gotta get an ink policy on lock which is hard as a lot of printers, myself very much included, tend to 'eyeball' with rfu inks for many color matches and that behavior translates over to additives.  You know, 'just keep putting this stuff in there until it prints right and looks right'.   Works great and it's quick to get there but it's pretty hard to repeat it without that person there and they better have a sharp memory. 

[mooseman]

Ok here is a thought from the dark side of the moon as some of you know my usual address........,
we have used this method on some tee shirts to get a color washed out effect, it worked pretty good for our purpose on shirts and we only printed a few but the effect was pretty cool we thought.

Here goes ........we wanted a typical black outline  with a very weak black fill inside the outline such that the shirt would show through as if it were washed out over time while the outline was crisp,  strong and new. Almost like a faded and worn shirt had been re-printed. We were using typical black plastisol ink

Step one create the art & screens as normal, the weak inner fill black we wanted was printed as standard full black with a 195 on a piece of light embroidery backing or pellon to screen printers. You will see the first print on the pellon is weak but as you hit it one or more times it gets pretty full of ink and actually works like a stamp pad works with a rubber stamp.

Now we have a piece of pellon pretty nicely charged with black ink in a crisp image of the inner ink color.

Next we took a fully coated and exposed screen that contains no image, just a fully coated area way larger than the image on the pellon. Ok you may have guessed it we laid this screen on to pellon pulled a light squeegee over the screen and transferred the pellon excess ink to the bottom of the blank screen. You will need to coat the squeegee side of the screen so the squeegee slides nice, we use silicone spray...slides like a sled on snow.

We then transferred this picked up image to the shirt we wanted to print leaving a very nice but weak semi transparent print of nicely faded washed out looking black image.
 
Next we printed our normal outline and the result was just what we wanted, a faded / weak washed out looking inner effect with a crisp and dark outer image outline.
It kinda looked like the shirt was washed & faded over time and then somehow reprinted with fresh ink just for the outline.

mooseman

[Frog]

Moose, that sounds like a clever technique, but I'm wondering if your outline screen could have done double duty as the "stamper" as well.
1. Fill print on pellon (or scrap shirt)
2. Outline print, wet on wet of course, on pellon
3. Outline print, including ghost image on actual shirt.

[mooseman]

Moose, that sounds like a clever technique, but I'm wondering if your outline screen could have done double duty as the "stamper" as well.
1. Fill print on pellon (or scrap shirt)
2. Outline print, wet on wet of course, on pellon
3. Outline print, including ghost image on actual shirt.

Hey Frog,
Didn't think of that but I can't see why that would not work just as well and obviously (to me now ) save a screen.   I will give that a try next time, thanks for the wisdom.
mooseman

[Gilligan]

Moose, that sounds like a clever technique, but I'm wondering if your outline screen could have done double duty as the "stamper" as well.
1. Fill print on pellon (or scrap shirt)
2. Outline print, wet on wet of course, on pellon
3. Outline print, including ghost image on actual shirt.

Hey Frog,
Didn't think of that but I can't see why that would not work just as well and obviously (to me now ) save a screen.   I will give that a try next time, thanks for the wisdom.
mooseman

If it didn't work... you could just put some sticker vinyl on the shirt side of that blank screen.  Wouldn't have to coat/expose.  Could even go with a screen that you are about to reclaim... just clean up the ink and go.

You know I love my vinyl.  But make sure all the ink is out!!!  Ughhh, that vinyl adhesive/ink reaction is SO nasty. :p

[Gilligan]

So here are the results.

Not all that impressive but the job is done.

I must fess up... I should have trusted you guys more.  I didn't base down the ink enough.  So it's "transparency" is just in the fact that it wasn't printed well (not enough ink laid down.)

I guess it works but would have been better done "right".

Maybe next time.

[ebscreen]

Shouldn't the period after "stinks" be a comma?

[Frog]

Eventually, Gilly is going to pay me (or you, or someone else in his building) to proofread.

He could also always send a proof to his clients to both put the responsibility on them, (and show how things get by him! lol)

Sorry Gilligan, we all make mistakes, but you are batting 0 for 2 with the last things that you have posted.

The way I taught my kid about periods and commas are relating them to breathing when the words are spoken. A short breath, a comma, a long breath, a period. Pretty simple.
A pause during a thought, a comma, A completed thought, a period.

Now, apostrophe use in this country is a losing war, to be fought another time.

[GraphicDisorder]

I proof nothing, that's the whole point of a proof to start with, for the CUSTOMER to proof it.  I put all spelling/proofing on the customer.  If they want me to proof it then there is no point in sending them a proof.