Discharge print, preflight color sequence advice

[squeegee]

We're getting set to print this design in all discharge colors, what you see is the design without the white text drop shadowed in black (to protect the innocent .  The text will large and centered on the design.

It's a 9 color, dark purple, lt purple, royal, yellow, orange, red, burgundy, black and white.

We are very new to printing all discharge, so I was wondering if anyone might be able to reccomend a print order for the colors.  I was thinking of putting the reds closer to the end based on a couple previous prints.  Intially I'm thinking we'll run everything on 150S mesh, WOW, double stroking each color, we can flash once if needed.   Garments are dark Gildan's that have an A discharge rating.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[tonypep]

Purples and blues first, orange, dark red, yellow bright red last. Remember on that bright red try around 4% activator.......you can always add more
tp

[Dottonedan]

Following what Tony said,  my discharge sep customers prefer me to print with the darkest colors down first.  Dark to light.  The reason I would guess is that they don't want the lighter colors to get contaminated early on and as well as wanting them to not get picked up...so they remain a full saturation and brightness.  They didn't tell em that. Thats just a guess.

In addition or as a side note, Those don't look like they need to be "exact color matches". You could take out at least 2 color and possibly 3.

Dark Purple, Burgundy and Orange can be mixed.  Now, with discharge (and those consistent areas of color), they may cause it to be trickier than I indicated. Sim process discharge separation is a tad trickier than regular sim process.

[tonypep]

Actually Dan you are right and perhaps just a tad not right. Discharge and waterbased inks may be printed as 100% solid overprint colors wet on wet to create secondary and tertiary colors without using halftones. This is something the ink companies don't know (or tell).
The discharge pre-print line I worked on exploited this as much as possible. Red/yellow=orange etc. Since these designs would go to press sometimes several times per week this a huge savings in screens/ink/time. Quite often a graphic that visually contained six colors were/are printed using only four.
If anyone wants to experiment just make up some two inch circles on three screens being sure they overlap to form a triangle. Next add a non imaged screen that has been exposed. This is your crush screen. Using singly pigmented primary discharge colors play around with combinations; being sure to put some clear base in the crush screen and print it last (not always necessary).
There are, of course limits and some rules of thumb ie lighter colors print first. And opaque inks with any white ink or PC don't work well. We actually took it to an even higher level by making color books depicting the end results of overprinting colors. Since we did our own design work we used the books to better produce a more cost effective line.
When it comes to discharge sim process on darks Dan is dead on. The truly good separators (for darks) create a halftone underbase that yield different shades and tints of a given color as well as mix halftones to create different hues. With discharge you throw the underbase out........so now you totally half to re-engineer the graphic. I have some samples but no Photoshop on the new computer so can't compress files but if you like Pierre I can send it to you and you can post

[Evo]

If it were me, dark to light with white last. Red w/ 4% activator max. Red halftones overprinting the yellow for the secondary orange. No white underbase, all printing direct wet on wet.

On darks I try to lay the lighter colors later so they don't get stepped on too hard. They come out much brighter.

No double strokes. Tight screens, firm floods, medium pressure prints.

With the red halftone, count on high dot gain and compensate for it.

So,

155mesh:
Black
Dk purple
Lt purple
Burgundy
Blue

230mesh:
Yellow
Red (50lpi halftone @ 22.5 overprint for the orange areas)
White


YMMV.

[alan802]

I don't have anything to add but you shouldn't have to double stroke those 150S screens.  I could be wrong as I've only printed discharge through a 150S one time, but it deposited plenty of ink with one stroke.

Awesome information guys.

[squeegee]

Definately appreciate all the feedback guys, and we may try mixing the primary colors as per Tony's suggestions for fewer screens or per Evo's suggestions, I've done my own color mixing with plastisol in a similar way to Evo's suggestion, red halftone over a solid yellow to create orange.

The reason I was thinking of double stroking is because the best results I've gotten from discharge colors was from a double stroke, better than a single with a hard flood and minimum pressure to clear the ink.  I don't know, maybe I'm too picky, the prints we've done with single strokes look fine coming off the dryer but don't wash as well as I would like.  The double stroke prints definately wash better.

Maybe I'll try more open mesh and a single stroke, but the run is not huge so I'm not worried about double stroking unless the colors smear.

I just got some 135lx, so that may be a good mesh for the brighter colors.

Thanks again for all the info and suggestions.  I'll post up a picture of the final print.

[Evo]

I don't have anything to add but you shouldn't have to double stroke those 150S screens.  I could be wrong as I've only printed discharge through a 150S one time, but it deposited plenty of ink with one stroke.

Awesome information guys.

With tight screens even on "normal" mesh, printing through a 150-160 you should be able to get plenty of coverage with one stroke. Two strokes will be over kill and might muddy everything up. Make sure the ink is nice and thinned out. Firm flood stroke to fill the image area and a medium pressure print. Slow the single print stroke down a bit instead of double stroking it.

Also, I did not see what brand of ink or what system this is - I am assuming water based?

For Matsui inks, I do:

Colors -
"Brite" base plus pigments
Mix
Add:
3% Fixer N
8-12% water
Mix
6% activator for most colors, 4% for reds/dark oranges
Mix

Note: in the Matsui ink mix software, some PC formulas for tints call for clear AND matte bases. (there is no specific "dye discharge" formulas in the software) I add the percentages together for these formulas and just use the "brite" base. When it calls for clear base only, no matte base, I just use the "brite" base as well.

Example, if it calls for 80% clear and 10% matte, plus 10% pigments, I use 90% brite base.

I don't use the straight "clear" discharge base at all. The bright base works for most everything and the colors "POP" much better.


For underbasing, I use the same mix as for colors above, sans pigment.


For straight white - (NOT underbase)
50% pre-mixed white base, 50% brite base
Mix
3% Fixer N
3% Printgen "C" (softener)
8-12% water
Mix
6% activator
Mix

[Evo]

The reason I was thinking of double stroking is because the best results I've gotten from discharge colors was from a double stroke, better than a single with a hard flood and minimum pressure to clear the ink.  I don't know, maybe I'm too picky, the prints we've done with single strokes look fine coming off the dryer but don't wash as well as I would like.  The double stroke prints definately wash better

Try a slightly slower single stroke with medium, not minimal pressure. You'll drive the ink into the fabric a bit more but you can avoid some of the muddiness that a double stroke may impart.

[squeegee]

I'm going to use Sericol Texcharge for the colors, rutland white plus for the white and either Sericol activated black discharge or some Nazdar WB black for the black.  I was liking Matsui's brite white until I recently did some wash tests (including fixer N) and didn't think it discharged the fabric enough, left a lot of pigment on the surface which seems to scratch off too easily.  I should try your formula though, and I will at some point.  And to be fair to Matsui, I haven't really tried anything other than a bright yellow  and white as far as discharge goes, but the yellow I got using brite dis base wasn't any better than sericol's.  I'm mainly turned off at the white for the moment.  What I like about Sericol is there is no pigment to mix, just RFU inks and they do have a complete pantone formulation guide, which is not perfect but gets you in the ballpark if not right on.

When I say minimal pressure, I'm using approximately double the pressure I'd use for plastisol, so I'm pretty sure we're driving the ink into the fabric.  As far as tight screens we're running EZ frames and the mesh is generally stretched to manu specs as far as tension is concerned.  Mesh count and discharge is a weird subject...some say run higher mesh, other say lower, Matsui's tech support has recommended lower mesh counts to me, like sub 150, so I guess I'll just have to experiment until I get the right result.  The LX mesh is encouraging though, we're getting pretty huge EOM on it with detail relative to the thread count.

[squeegee]

So we're finally printing this discharge design today (9 colors), we mixed up the colors Friday and ran tests on the colors.  I have to say Tony's advice about starting with primary colors first and then creating secondary colors by mixing has been the most helpful tip of all.  Once you get to a tertiary mixes, getting a vibrant color is much harder.  In the sericol system we are using there are "Pantone Formulas" but they are really just suggestions, most of the 3 primary formulas look like crap and we ended up formulating with 1 or 2 primaries and then tinting/shading with white or black.

Hoping to get away with 1 stroke per color wow.  I'll post a picture of the final print.

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for the advice and hope you are not working like me on this holiday.