screen build up help

[tonypep]

BTW if you printed this with WB you wouldn't be having the dot gain conversation at all

[ZooCity]

BTW if you printed this with WB you wouldn't be having the dot gain conversation at all

Yeah? It doesn't wick out when printed and gain that way?  (as opposed to being squished and spread out with plastisols)

[JBLUE]

BTW if you printed this with WB you wouldn't be having the dot gain conversation at all

Yeah? It doesn't wick out when printed and gain that way?  (as opposed to being squished and spread out with plastisols)

Print out a film and do some halftones. Look at it under the loop and be amazed. Its pretty cool.

[ericheartsu]

We've done alot of wet on wet water based printing. the first color of the print is white, and when that is the case it starts to cause all sorts of problems. mostly the white ink caking up and starting to bleed into other colors, and thus blocking the screens!

[ZooCity]

We've done alot of wet on wet water based printing. the first color of the print is white, and when that is the case it starts to cause all sorts of problems. mostly the white ink caking up and starting to bleed into other colors, and thus blocking the screens!

Yuck.  I've noticed, in our extremely limited experience with discharge white that it does indeed cake up and block even a 225/40 easily (and this was thinned and cut heavily with clear base) but the Matsui HO white that I've ran hasn't had that characteristic at all. 

[Dottonedan]

most of the water-base discharge I've done so far has been smooth sailing. I go dark to light so the white is always last. Typically, you don't need an underbase on full discharge so the top white provides no issues.

[ZooCity]

I bet a lot of the non-gain with wb comes from the fact that the stencil is low-eom so, after printing, it's not resting as a tiny columnar ink deposit just waiting for the next screen to crush it like beer half-motlen beer can.  I'm impressed with the way it's formulated to not wick out in the fabric below though if this is what you all are seeing and looking forward to using it a lot more. 

[tonypep]

Since I used to make waterbase (3 bucks a gallon back then!)ink I can tell you that a good wb product contains an anti-wick additive. Add this to the fact that with waterbase printing the halftone dots absorb into most fabrics rather than rest on top or partially on top and that easily explains the drastic drop in dot gain. I've printed sim process 60 line graphics w/discharge inks through 305 mesh and the results appear to be that of almost continuous tone. In the right hands the final result is superior than plastisol IMO.
Oh and don't print white first. It is the only wb product that contains fillers.....thus the caking and build up

[screenxpress]

Never used pure WB inks.  Don't they have a tendency to dry in the stencil unless moving uber fast or steady?

[Frog]

Hey Tony, a tangential question here. I know that you used to be out my way here on the left coast. My first printing on fabric in the early '70's was with WB inks, and the ink I used was from a local Oakland company, Inko. Ever run across that ink?

[tonypep]

No at Transcolor and Fortune Fashions we used Advanced Color and Chemical, TW Graphics, and Matsui. There's another company out your way I had some contact with but can't remember the name.

[ZooCity]

Never used pure WB inks.  Don't they have a tendency to dry in the stencil unless moving uber fast or steady?

steady as she goes. on humid days I can take a smoke break with a 225 flooded and misted with water.