100% polyester cinch bags- help us!!

[shanny]

Hello Screen Printing Friends!
We'd love some help with printing on 100% polyester cinch bags pleaaassseeee:)

We have an automated press with 2 print heads and 2 flash units (it’s a rapid tag 2p-xl if you want to google it). All of our inks so far have been different brands of plastisol with variations ranging in low cure and/or nylobond additive. At the end of the day our images can still be scratched off.

I know the bags are most likely not going to be washed but it’s still pretty easy to scratch them up. We have been reading gobs of posts here but can’t seem to find anything about 100% poly (and not the athletic shirt kind).

So down to the nitty-gritty…. no matter how long we ‘bake’ the bags just before they melt, it still scratches off. It leads us to believe that it might be cured as we are reaching temps above the cure temps on the ink’s spec’s sheets- but might be a problem with adhesion.

Yes, we have tried rubbing alcohol thinking it might be some sort of waterproofing in the way but the images are still scratching off…

We are going crazy in circles here! Please help us

Thanks so much everyone!!!!!

[Maxie]

We print nylon bags with plastisol and Nylobond at a lower temperature.
Not sure this will work on Polyester, I would get a special air drying ink from your supplier.    Most probably solvent based.
You can run them through a low temp oven to speed  them up but I wouldn't stack them one on the other until they are completely dry.

[Colin]

On Polyester this will be tough.  Especially since you mention they melt at lower temps....

What kind of dryer do you have?  length of actual heat?  There are several inks on the market that are designed to cure as low as 250 degrees.  Have you tried any?

Btw, we never screen on the cheap ones here.  We do heat pressing.

[Frog]

Shanny, just to make sure folks have as much information as possible, perhaps a link to the bag itself could help.

[ebscreen]

Should mention that nylobond takes a good day or two to fully cure, so if you are testing before
then that might be the reason for your issues.

[shanny]

Hey thanks everyone!

Maxie- We have yet to try an air drying ink... we can look into that for sure. With our automatic press it might be a little difficult but if it's the last resort- we will try!

Colin- Right now we don't have a dryer/oven because of some info that may be false- we were told we can cure with the flash cure heads so we are trying to make that work before telling the boss to drop another 10k-20k on a dryer
We have tried a low cure ink but it kept drying on our screens because the automatic press & pallets got too warm.

ebscreen- We test printed on Friday with the nylobond and scratched them this morning, no luck 

Thank you!!

[whitewater]

you need a different dryer.

[shanny]

If we are getting the inks up to temp with the flash cure's- why isn't the ink staying on the bag I guess is our question. I understand a dryer will prolong the heat but everything we read says just to get it to temp and bam, your done.

It's hard to believe it is an adhesion problem if we added nylobond.

[Frog]

Once again, could you tell us or (or post a link) which specific bag this is? May or may not help, but surely couldn't hurt!
When trouble shooting, one can rarely have too much information.

[ThePrinter]

Yes letting us know what specific bag you are printing on would help.

Also side question...is the rapid tag the only piece of equipment you have?

[3Deep]

If they're the same drawstring bags we print which are 100% poly we use regular ink with nylonbond and I just pulled one and did a scratch test nothing came off.  I will say we test our temp by running an extra or two down the belt and see what melt or shrinkage we get, once we get that down we are good to go.

[shanny]

Okay great- attached is a photo of the bag. We purchase them from a manufacturer so I don't have a link. They are 100% polyester, draw string bag, 210 denier, with a PA coating.

Yes- the rapid tag is the only piece we have right now!

Thanks for your patience!

[shanny]

Eek-- attached pic!

[royster13]

Most common thing I hear from ASI suppliers I use for bags like these is Nazdar Poly All ink....

[shanny]

3Deep- is regular ink plastisol? and what kind of dryer do you use??

royster13- thanks, we haven't heard of that ink yet!