Bleeding white........

[Rocfrog]

Ok so leave it up to the new guy to bring up a touchy subject, but we are having a ton of issues lately of white bleeding on red/maroon/cardinal garments and it's litterly hit or mis on what does or doesn't bleed, even in the same run!

So my question is how do we prevent this? We are getting ready to run a 650pc job that is cardinal pcs with white in the design. In the past the owner has thought that we need to put an underlay of another color to prevent this but it doesn't seem to consistently work. In one job we ran the white was fine on all the pieces except for 5 of them and they bled bad. Now I have not mentioned garment types because it doesn't seem to matter, sometimes one garment will work and the next time it bleeds....

For inks we use One Stroke's "Hybrid White" for 99.9% of all our white prints. We also have One Stroke's "VersaMax White" that we hardly ever use since we got the Hybrid.

Nick

[Frog]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

[mk162]

how's about some details.  garment type, is it a 50/50, 100% poly?

what brand?

[mjrprint]

Wilflex ht poly white does the trick for us. I think thats what it is called.  We used to have this problem all the time and are currently printing 50k pieces with it. No problems after we started using it.

[pushing ink]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

Throw any blue in your white to where it looks like a light sky blue and you will NEVER have any bleeding. You will have to play alittle with the mix to perfect it.

[JBLUE]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

Throw blue in your white to where it looks light a light sky blue and you will NEVER hav any bleeding. You will have to play alittle with the mix to perfect it.

You can buy this already done if you get Wilflex Quick White. It has a slight tint to it to make it brighter. We have never had an issue using this on any of those colors. We do a lot of cardinal for a big university here in Southern California.

[Frog]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

Throw any blue in your white to where it looks like a light sky blue and you will NEVER have any bleeding. You will have to play alittle with the mix to perfect it.

"Never" is a pretty all-inclusive, limiting word to use with today's crappy and inconsistent offshore dye jobs we can see.  Years ago, like twenty, I championed the blue trick (not dissimilar to the blueing agents used in white laundry) and still had a batch of red 50/50's bleed albeit more of a violet shade rather than pink. The fact that the bleeding took ten days helped me make my somewhat cowardly decision.
I've been able to avoid them since

[pushing ink]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

Throw any blue in your white to where it looks like a light sky blue and you will NEVER have any bleeding. You will have to play alittle with the mix to perfect it.

"Never" is a pretty all-inclusive, limiting word to use with today's crappy and inconsistent offshore dye jobs we can see.  Years ago, like twenty, I championed the blue trick (not dissimilar to the blueing agents used in white laundry) and still had a batch of red 50/50's bleed albeit more of a violet shade rather than pink. The fact that the bleeding took ten days helped me make my somewhat cowardly decision.
I've been able to avoid them since

[pushing ink]

I works for us and maybe it will help somebody else.

[Frog]

As I said, "blueing" is a great old trick, but with the wrong ink, at the wrong temp, on the wrong shirt, (or sometimes only one of these factors) poop occurs!
Hell, someone even posted that they have had black ink take on the color of a green poly jersey!
Your participation and observations and experiences are welcomed.
My point was merely, "never say never". Mr Murphy is dying for a shot to prove you wrong, often late on a Friday before a tournament requiring the shirts the next day.

[Rocfrog]

how's about some details.  garment type, is it a 50/50, 100% poly?

what brand?

Like I said it has been all over the board, not just one brand or mix. We've had some Gildan 50/50, underarmor both 50/50 and poly, A4, I think the last round was majestic pieces (can't remember the blend on those. And the current ones coming in I haven't seen yet so I do not know what they are, they might be the A4 50/50 moisture management things from talking with the sales person.....

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

I would love to completely avoid this problem but a lot of our business is schools and most of their colors are made up of Red's and white somehow.

Can you please elaborate on the "monitoring temps" comment because that has been a discussion around the shop but me being somewhat of a newbe I'm unsure of what is actually needed......

Nick

[Frog]

Sure. Bleeding, or dye migration usually occurs at 340 or above, so very careful monitoring of actual ink layer temp is crucial, and used to be enough to pretty much ensure a good job. However, even the ink companies know enough to call most inks used for 50/50 "low bleed" rather than "no-bleed"  because they don't want to stick their necks out any further than necessary, making promises that they can't keep.
Add to this the fact that almost all garments are now coming in from offshore, and dyed in the country of manufacture, and across the board are not nearly as consistent as they used to be.

True poly-specific inks have always been recommenced for pure poly, and now, with the advent of the low temp silicone inks, we may have turned the corner.

[Rocfrog]

Ok so what your basically saying is that if we keep our ink cure temps just below 340* we have a better chance of not having "bleeding" issues.....

Nick

[Screened Gear]

I personally avoid this issue by never printing white on red and red related poly or 50/50. I use cad-cut whenever I can (usually for teams, so the runs are short anyway)
Otherwise, if I were you, I'd look at a poly specific white, or for colors, a gray underbase like Wilflex offers. You can also explore the pricey ultra low temp cure low bleed silicone inks that have just come on the market.

Then, of course, there's the usual warnings of carefully monitoring temps.

Throw blue in your white to where it looks light a light sky blue and you will NEVER hav any bleeding. You will have to play alittle with the mix to perfect it.

You can buy this already done if you get Wilflex Quick White. It has a slight tint to it to make it brighter. We have never had an issue using this on any of those colors. We do a lot of cardinal for a big university here in Southern California.

My last few batches of Quick have not been blueish. My first gallon was so blue I had a customer even point it out after printing. I love quick white. I have never had a issue with it. Flashes fast and prints smooth.

[Screened Gear]

Ok so what your basically saying is that if we keep our ink cure temps just below 340* we have a better chance of not having "bleeding" issues.....

Nick

If your dryer is way too hot you will have issues like your talking about with almost any white ink. I would guess your way over heating the shirts. If your ink has puff in it the white will also puff up like crazy if your too hot. Is your white puffing up?