Reflective Ink & Blended Garments

[Get Shirts]

We have an upcoming job requiring reflective ink on Bella+Canvas 60/40 blends. Looks like we are going with Optilux unless anyone chimes in with a reason not to or a better option.

Our experience with reflective ink is limited. The ink specs call for no base and a single stroke using a 160 - 230 screen, which just sounds impossible to me.. Should we plan on using a base to help with migration & general opacity?

[cleveprint]

we used to print 100% poly polo shirts with that reflective ink. Ultra Club ones. the logo was simple text with a white outline and a reflective fill. the ink isn't very opaque to begin with and pfp never seemed to do much to it. we would print it on a 125, double stroke. just looked like a transparent grey on the shirt, but still reflected nice when hit by light. my customer never came back and said there was excessive bleeding or nonreflecting issues. and we were doing these for years. we never tried to UB it, so I cannot tell how that would work. its pretty thin and not very opaque so Im not sure how it would work.

[Steve12Lowry]

No experience with this specific reflective product but I would agree with not using a underbase. The reflective inks I have used are a base with reflective beads. The key is to have the base somewhat soak into the shirt so that the beads are left laying on top. This will give you max reflection. If you use a underbase, there is not anywhere for the base of the ink to soak through and you are left with a "muddy" look. The beads will help prevent dye migrations and I have had no issues printing on blended garments in the past.

[ericheartsu]

look into allureglow, and their reflective HSA inks!

[tonypep]

The 3M products have the most candlepower/reflectivity and are required on many Govt bid jobs. Expect to pay dearly and in either case cost it out before quoting

[Admiral]

As mentioned, basing doesn't work - loses a lot of the reflective ability.  I believe p/f/p was also worse when we tested this, so it was just 1 hit and done for best reflective results.

[blue moon]

'not much to add. confirming what everybody else said, has beads and is not compatible with underbasing or flashing. Bleeding should not be an issue as the dies will not migrate through the glass and the ink color is so translucent that it does not matter. It is really only visible on the very dark garments like black and navy. We printed on an orange and you could hardly tell it was there.
Optilux product has several variations, make sure you get the best version (you'll have to call the manufacturer as from what I remember, the top of the line is 509 and it was not listed on their web site or in any advertising material. Just call and confirm).

pierre

[Atownsend]

We printed Bella / Canvas Triblends with the 509 reflective pretty recently. No issues with green / red / black garments. I would test for sure, but I think you'll be just fine. Have done lots of Gildan 50/50s with the IC reflective and have not had bleeding yet. Just test to make sure. I definitely wouldn't underbase it. We usually use 110 T or a 150/48 (one stroke, just enough pressure to clear) when printing reflective.

[Get Shirts]

Great, thanks for the information everyone! I'll post some results as soon as I have them.

[Sbrem]

We've printed a fair amount, and the Optilux worked well, though I forget what mesh we used, probably what was recommended, we always start there. Reflective is NOT very spectacular; one is kind of expecting it to pop out, but the reflectivity depends on the incident light; if it's not pretty much on axis with your eyes, there is no reflection. We have customers hold a flashlight on the side of their heads to get the idea.

Steve