Pillow cases: any particular traps to avoid?

[Wildcard]

I've got a customer looking at doing regular orders of printed cotton pillow cases. White with black print. It seems like the job couldn't get too much easier... but this makes me wary. So I'm interested in any advice or fun tales around pillow case printing.

First hurdle for me will be the switch to wb ink, which I'm not feeling too confident about. I have a tiny dryer with max 2min retention, so I expect that I will add a flash after the print on press and maybe run them through the tunnel twice.

Anything to watch out for?

[RICK STEFANICK]

Black water base ink  is a very simple product to use so lose that fear but you could run a plastisol black with 80 percent chino base thru a 200 and get a really nice soft hand and eliminate any dryer issues.

[bulldog]

Never done pillow cases, but get that green galaxy black wb ink. That stuff is great. I cured it in a workhorse 3011 with no issues.

[Wildcard]

I have been wondering if I could get away with a soft hand plastisol ink. That would make things quite a lot less stressful.

Thanks bulldog, I'll look into getting Green Galaxy inks locally; I'm not sure if anyone stocks it since the wb market is dominated by Permaset

[broadway]

I have printed many pillow cases, mostly for sleeping not the couch. I use Green Galaxy WB inks with their low temp cure additive. Works great in my IR dryer. Customer washes everything before selling to public. Makes them very soft. Remember some people iron their pillow cases, so plastisol might not be the correct ink to use.

[Wildcard]

I have printed many pillow cases, mostly for sleeping not the couch. I use Green Galaxy WB inks with their low temp cure additive. Works great in my IR dryer. Customer washes everything before selling to public. Makes them very soft. Remember some people iron their pillow cases, so plastisol might not be the correct ink to use.

Thanks broadway! I didn't think about the ironing issue.

So, if I used a wb ink with additive to help cure the inks, would this help or just add more trouble?

[TH Apparel]

i've used regular plastisol.  thinned down and printed through a 230 mesh. 

[broadway]

I have printed many pillow cases, mostly for sleeping not the couch. I use Green Galaxy WB inks with their low temp cure additive. Works great in my IR dryer. Customer washes everything before selling to public. Makes them very soft. Remember some people iron their pillow cases, so plastisol might not be the correct ink to use.

Thanks broadway! I didn't think about the ironing issue.

So, if I used a wb ink with additive to help cure the inks, would this help or just add more trouble?

The additive is called Warp Drive and you add 1.5%, cures at 180 degrees. It helps with bottle neck with my IR dryer when printing on the auto press. The leftover ink is useless after you add the Warp Drive and you can not add any more to activate it again.

[tonypep]

I did promo P cases for Conan O'Brien a few ys back 10 colors sim pro WB without issue Frog may find the pic it was in the gallery. No issues but cheaper cases can lend themselves to scorching for sure

[DannyGruninger]

I did promo P cases for Conan O'Brien a few ys back 10 colors sim pro WB without issue Frog may find the pic it was in the gallery. No issues but cheaper cases can lend themselves to scorching for sure

Not to mention the weave of the fabric. Last time I ran pillow cases I had to bust out the angle chart to figure out the dot angle. Good ole 22.5 and 61 for the most part do not work well on pillow cases as you probably know. 

[tonypep]

True Danny........in this case thread count was high on the cases. We insisted on that

[Wildcard]

I did promo P cases for Conan O'Brien a few ys back 10 colors sim pro WB without issue Frog may find the pic it was in the gallery. No issues but cheaper cases can lend themselves to scorching for sure

10 colors doesn't sound like a promo job to me, that's insane for a pillow case. I'd be keen to see that photo!

In my case it's very basic cartoon images in black outlines. I'm sure most board members would do it in their sleep.

[Frog]

I did promo P cases for Conan O'Brien a few ys back 10 colors sim pro WB without issue Frog may find the pic it was in the gallery. No issues but cheaper cases can lend themselves to scorching for sure

[tonypep]

Yeah thats it

[Wildcard]

Great print, but who would want Conan to be the first and last sight of their day?