Need recommendations for base white plastisol for CMYK

[Prince Art]

Just started offering CMYK printing this year - something I didn't plan to do before going auto, but we got it down on the manual, and went with it. Printing only on white & natural shirts thus far...

However, customer now wants to move an existing design to black shirts. I have NO experience with CMYK on black. And, of course, it's a rush order, so we have little time to experiment.

On the plus side, this is not a color-critical design. No skin tones, not photo-realistic. Stylized plants/foliage are the main subject, but a little color shifting isn't going to kill this one.

So, biggest question is what base white should we use? And/or what printing procedure should we use to get this as good as possible? Plastisol is necessary; we have ambitions toward WB/DC, but we're not there yet.

Any other advice is also welcome! (And if this has been covered before - I'm sure it has - feel free to suggest search terms; on the fly, I couldn't come up with much.)

[blue moon]

4CP really likes bright underbases to work properly. We thus prefer to use DC, and most likely, 2 separate whites/grays for underbase. It will work with plastisol, but your coverage will have to be pretty bright and clean.
burn the screens and give it a try. You should be ale to keep the top colors even if you have to adjust the ubase. We used to double stroke the base to make it work (before the DC) and would often back off the curves so it would not gain too much when hit twice. In photoshop, drop the 50% line down to 25-30% and should be good to go with double stroking.

pierre

[Dottonedan]

Test it ASAP well before it's due.  Don't want for a day or two before due date. You will need to adjust and learn. Put it up there and run 15 scrap shirts.

[AntonySharples]

Synergy white is more optically white due to the chemistry...provides a bright base plate.  The key in my opinion to printing 4CP on a base(which we print on a base even on whites) is to have proper mesh selection so you are not double stroking and creating a nice smooth printing surface.

[Dottonedan]

Synergy white is more optically white due to the chemistry...provides a bright base plate.  The key in my opinion to printing 4CP on a base(which we print on a base even on whites) is to have proper mesh selection so you are not double stroking and creating a nice smooth printing surface.

I've been wondering just how smooth of a surface you can get with the Synergy.  Must be smooth enough if you do cmyk in just one pass on the base. Care to elaborate on that?

mesh ?
squeegee?
Angle ?
About how mush pressure?

[AntonySharples]

Synergy white is more optically white due to the chemistry...provides a bright base plate.  The key in my opinion to printing 4CP on a base(which we print on a base even on whites) is to have proper mesh selection so you are not double stroking and creating a nice smooth printing surface.

I've been wondering just how smooth of a surface you can get with the Synergy.  Must be smooth enough if you do cmyk in just one pass on the base. Care to elaborate on that?

mesh ?
squeegee?
Angle ?
About how mush pressure?

Dan, these are trade secrets...I can't go giving away my edge

The key to synergy since it has such a low tack and fast flash is to not over flash. Any issues people have had is due to over heating. 
Currently we print UB on 180/45, 65 lpi.  Double bevel smiling jack.  Angle is 5 degrees which is as straight up and down as can get on a Roq. Pressure is wayyyyyy different on our older Roq, so it is not the reading everyone else will print at.

[Prince Art]

Thanks for the replies thus far. I know this isn't the best way to get into a new & potentially difficult process, so I appreciate the encouragement, and pointers.

I also remembered (after posting) that even though we haven't done this for real, I did run some tests with an underbase when we were first getting our CMYK act together. It was just a solid ub, but I kept records of inks used & print procedures, and those test shirts are still on hand. So, while it hardly substitutes for solid experience, at least it's a starting point. I'll be combining that with your input & what else I've been able to dig up on this subject, and see if we can accomplish something worth doing!