Thin shirts Bright Print

[3Deep]

I don't know which is worse customers asking for these thin shirts with a very bright print and no hand or the companies that keep making these almost impossible shirts to print with jumping through hoops.  So how do you all tackle printing thin material with a very bright white or any colour with a very softhand, discharge sounds like a winner but not all shirts discharge very good, water base inks maybe? but we are not really setup for long waterbase print runs if that is the answer.  So far I've been going up in mesh count and trying my best to lay down very thin ink deposits and printing the brightest colour inks I can find.

[rusty]

It's counterproductive but I go high mesh count and send it around a few times (working with a diamondback) I wish I had more flashes but if its 72 shirts its not bad. We are a small shop though

[whitewater]

I just communicate what we can do to the customer. If it's a large print with large ink deposits then I tell them if they want it bright, then they will feel it when wearing it. If they want dont want to really feel it then I just say ill use a higher mesh screen but it won't be as bright, and if they dont want to feel it, its just one layer of ink.

Its just what it is.

[tonypep]

Of course garments permitting (ie educate customers that are willing to be educated) discharge UB is how I go higher mesh plastisol top colors. Of course there is no perfect, plug in, go to solution. Back when fine gauge pima cotton was the newest hottest thing and I had a library of 100 DC colors in stock (unactivated of course) we went that way which opened A LOT of doors for us. Then all the wacky synthos 
happened and the HSAs were sketchy at best which turned everything upside down. Now days its pretty much a case by case decision however I have always found it best to master as many ink systems/techniques as possible so that we can provide the best possible solution.
Always remember.....screenprinting is easy!!!!!!!

[Rockers]

We would use a discharge underbase and then print a waterbase white (HSA) through a 255-35 mesh.

[tonypep]

BTW my formula for DC/UB is usually 80/20 base to white DC INK (not pigment!!!) or 70/30 if thats not bright enough. Or you can buy a premix DC/UB which is pretty much exactly as above just pay more.

[3Deep]

Discharge underbase would be great if it worked on everything we print here, in the pass I've did a DC underbase with plastisol on top...I talked with my One Stroke ink rep yesterday and I might try using there water colour inks again, they suppose to give you a waterbase ink feel and print without the fuss of using actual WB inks.  You would think I'd love WB inks since that's what I started out using when I first got into screen printing, put plastisol made me lazy LOL.

[mk162]

Discharge underbase would be great if it worked on everything we print here, in the pass I've did a DC underbase with plastisol on top...I talked with my One Stroke ink rep yesterday and I might try using there water colour inks again, they suppose to give you a waterbase ink feel and print without the fuss of using actual WB inks.  You would think I'd love WB inks since that's what I started out using when I first got into screen printing, put plastisol made me lazy LOL.

Their watercolor inks have almost zero opacity.  Maybe you could hit them a million times to get it bright, but I wouldn't count on it.

[BRGtshirts]

BTW my formula for DC/UB is usually 80/20 base to white DC INK (not pigment!!!) or 70/30 if thats not bright enough. Or you can buy a premix DC/UB which is pretty much exactly as above just pay more.

Tony, I'm assuming the 70-80% base is DC base yeah?  thus activating the entire 100%?  we went away from DC UB's for a long time - I was not getting good results with the topcoat plastisol colors - felt like they were washing away / not bonding to the shirt after repeated washes.  Maybe I was putting down too much DC UB. 

[tonypep]

Possibly, the base is DC base. App 6% activator. Bonding issues? Try less white (remember not white PC!) and adjust flash and final cure temp/time. Off to ATL