Premix waterbase black

[Prosperi-Tees]

I was sorta surprised in that video that the guys at the end of the dryer were grabbing the towels and stacking them on top of each other after they were printed

[brandon]

I thought that high tension is not nearly as important a trait when we are diving WB ink into the fabric as when trying to get a thin deposit only on the surface as with plastisol.

You know, to be honest I have never really thought about it that way with regards to tension and WB inks. But our largest print area is 20x23, not multiple feet by multiple feet! So we tension our screens to the levels they are supposed to be according to the manufacturer and print both plastisol and water base with them. But we also do a ton of wow printing up to 9 screens and we have to have proper tension for that. I know they are printing beach towels like crazy there and the substrate is a very different one from the normal shirt we print on so I am really not sure. I wish Matt was on here. Maybe Tony has some answers

[LuxInks]

I totally remember Matt form the screen print h2o forum.  Their company does some really amazing work on towels. He once posted a pic of a Fuze Drink towel that was over the top great. He did in fact mix all of the elements to make his own inks. They played with the idea of actually becoming an ink manufacturer, and had sent us out some samples. The ink was great, but then that forum was just gone one day.

We do some towel printing (hand towels), and we use super low tension screens. You really gotta saturate the towel, so a low tension screen allows alot of ink to deposit . High tension screens just don't cut it. On standard water base printing when printing garments, we use high tension screens just as we do with plastisol.

For those of you that have yet to try water base printing, give it a try.  It's all in the prep. Read Tony's article on it as it explains it in detail. We have a great success using as high as a 350 screen for super fine detail.

Have a great day!
Paul

[tonypep]

Thats correct about tension.  A typical belt screen is 52"x65" and high tension can cause penetration issues. I've probably run about a dozent belt printers from Precision Screen Machines to M&R and even used to demo them at trade shows when they were all the rage. At Precision and elsewhere we would make our own WB inks as the manufacturers mostly didn't care about us. Their main business was and arguably still is for the roller print factories printing yard goods. You had to buy the pigments in 5 gallon containers and yes, back the certain ones were prone to molding. Some may remember pole dryers wher towels and cut pieces were draped over poles that wre drive via chain and sprocket. This was the only way to achieve sustainable production. Laying pieces flat would require such slow belt speed to cure all that WB. This was often overlooked when companies would invest in cut piece equipment. Also overlooked were screen prep issues such as coating, burning, stretching, sinks, etc. And lets not forget labour. A typical press crew was up to six people. Most belt printers were contract shops servicing the cut and sew businesses. Careful time studies revealed that many were actually losing money yet retail could not bear the brunt of severe price increases.
So at the end of the day U.S. printers (at least the smart ones) got out of that niche and watched it migrate south of the border when NAFTA opened that door.
Good Times

[tonypep]

Which got me thinking about the "Top Secret" room at Precision where they stripped the heads off a belt printer and hooked up a bunch paint guns to it. We made dums of neon discharge colors and sprayed the shirts. They were cured and then overprinted for programs like the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie. Some of the first "allover" treatments. Thats when the "Don't Have Cow" shirts and "Newport Alive with Pleasure" stuff was going down and the first "Batman" movie shirts as well.
The Newport shirt program was 3,000,000 shirts front and back. Spent most of the day loading and unloading 22 footers.

[Hegemone]

I just got a gallon of matsui ink, a "special edition charcoal" from ryonet. On sale for like 30$ it's not a jet black but my eye doesn't see anything other then black. Way cheaper then the quart I mixed myself. They also have quarts on sale as well but nearly the same deal. They are still very reasonable once you hit the free shipping on matsui, likely because they don't have a hard time pitching It to everyone printing in their homes. If anyone sees any deals floating around message me. I would be happy to do the same.

[brandon]

Thats correct about tension.  A typical belt screen is 52"x65" and high tension can cause penetration issues. I've probably run about a dozent belt printers from Precision Screen Machines to M&R and even used to demo them at trade shows when they were all the rage. At Precision and elsewhere we would make our own WB inks as the manufacturers mostly didn't care about us. Their main business was and arguably still is for the roller print factories printing yard goods. You had to buy the pigments in 5 gallon containers and yes, back the certain ones were prone to molding. Some may remember pole dryers wher towels and cut pieces were draped over poles that wre drive via chain and sprocket. This was the only way to achieve sustainable production. Laying pieces flat would require such slow belt speed to cure all that WB. This was often overlooked when companies would invest in cut piece equipment. Also overlooked were screen prep issues such as coating, burning, stretching, sinks, etc. And lets not forget labour. A typical press crew was up to six people. Most belt printers were contract shops servicing the cut and sew businesses. Careful time studies revealed that many were actually losing money yet retail could not bear the brunt of severe price increases.
So at the end of the day U.S. printers (at least the smart ones) got out of that niche and watched it migrate south of the border when NAFTA opened that door.
Good Times

That for sure is interesting. Wish I could have seen a process like that in action.

[tonypep]

The first all over finished goods were printed this way. Eventually a cornstarch based adhesive was sprayed inside the shirts (three person operation) to prevent the shirt from movig between colors. The water base tack most of us use today was also introduced at this time. The screens printed over the collars and sleeves and bottom hems. Underneath the press was a washing system consisting of a series of rollers and squeegee "scrapers" which cleaned the belt and reactivated the adhesive. The earlier belts were single directional drives which made set up a real mothereffer. Typical minimum runs were 500 pcs but even that wasn't cost effective. The all-over platens came years later. They had their own set of issues as well.
Kind of feeling like a historian this morning!

[ZooCity]

professor Tony, do you feel that belt and then simulated belt printing on t shirts on the whole is not profitable?  better done as printed fabric before cut/sew?

[Nick Bane]

Thats correct about tension.  A typical belt screen is 52"x65" and high tension can cause penetration issues. I've probably run about a dozent belt printers from Precision Screen Machines to M&R and even used to demo them at trade shows when they were all the rage. At Precision and elsewhere we would make our own WB inks as the manufacturers mostly didn't care about us. Their main business was and arguably still is for the roller print factories printing yard goods. You had to buy the pigments in 5 gallon containers and yes, back the certain ones were prone to molding. Some may remember pole dryers wher towels and cut pieces were draped over poles that wre drive via chain and sprocket. This was the only way to achieve sustainable production. Laying pieces flat would require such slow belt speed to cure all that WB. This was often overlooked when companies would invest in cut piece equipment. Also overlooked were screen prep issues such as coating, burning, stretching, sinks, etc. And lets not forget labour. A typical press crew was up to six people. Most belt printers were contract shops servicing the cut and sew businesses. Careful time studies revealed that many were actually losing money yet retail could not bear the brunt of severe price increases.
So at the end of the day U.S. printers (at least the smart ones) got out of that niche and watched it migrate south of the border when NAFTA opened that door.
Good Times

ahh the days of watching shirts loaded on belt printers, 2 pole dryers spinning, and big drums of homemade waterbase ink.  we did a lot of preprint stuff to then do namedrops etc on, lots of dinosaur/jurassic stuff and chichago bulls championship stuff.  all over ovals came next but our belt printers were always busy still.

[tonypep]

It can be but what killed it for US anyway was cost of equipment over 1/4 million dollars (with sinks, exposure units, dryers, etc), in some cases double the labor at half the throughput and increased off quality; well, you do the math. Cut and sew was more efficient but thats all gone south where labor $$ make more sense. All over printing platens run slower, require an extra loader, same OS screens/squeegees, can have deflection issues due to weight, and generally you'll need one set of platens for every two shirt sizes (thats often overlooked at Point of Sale!) and at around $800-$1,200 per platen thats a lot of beans. Plus many of them have a nasty habit of pinching the armpits. We were the Beta site for these at Harlequin and Oats.
Thats why I'm putting together a sigle station oversized manual table. One color allover WB/DC, one person, with a dedicated dryer. Using stuff we already had laying around like old school kick stands this actually will cost nothing

[ZooCity]

It can be but what killed it for US anyway was cost of equipment over 1/4 million dollars (with sinks, exposure units, dryers, etc), in some cases double the labor at half the throughput and increased off quality; well, you do the math. Cut and sew was more efficient but thats all gone south where labor $$ make more sense. All over printing platens run slower, require an extra loader, same OS screens/squeegees, can have deflection issues due to weight, and generally you'll need one set of platens for every two shirt sizes (thats often overlooked at Point of Sale!) and at around $800-$1,200 per platen thats a lot of beans. Plus many of them have a nasty habit of pinching the armpits. We were the Beta site for these at Harlequin and Oats.
Thats why I'm putting together a sigle station oversized manual table. One color allover WB/DC, one person, with a dedicated dryer. Using stuff we already had laying around like old school kick stands this actually will cost nothing

I find that stuff super interesting.  I never thought to do an all over print after cut/sew and while we get the occasional request for it, no one will actually pay for it.   In fact, we have no dedicated AOP setup because no one has gone through with an AOP order.  I think you're on the right path making a one color, single operator AOP deal.  You can get a lot done with one color all over and even add standard printing after, a combo that will fit into more budgets than any other approach.   I wouldn't be hyped about doing it manually though, sounds like a lot of work. 

So anyways....who's got a good premix black?  I like Matsui's a lot but, yes, that is a little spendy for black wb ink.  Maybe go for the drum of it if you have space and are running so much?   I need to try the Texcharge Black as well (just run unactivated) but I doubt it has better characteristics than the Matsui. 

What I want to know is how in the living hell do you dehaze/de-stain a screen after running WB black.  It's tenacious. 

[brandon]

Hey Chris,
Do y'all reclaim your water base screens immediately after use and still have trouble? Or do they have the chance to sit a bit? We do our water base / discharge screens right away and plastisol within a day. I have noticed a difference over time.

And yeah, I would hate to pull or push that AOP set up! "Brandon, these 500 black t's need a one color discharge on a 230. AOP. It's 9:15. Customer comes at noon." No thanks!

[tonypep]

It's for the Resort line. Typical run is 48 pcs. BTW I remember seeing Jeff Proctor at the Vastex booth in ATL with a one color allover rig.
Am working with a couple of suppliers to produce an affordable black WB ink. I use Vivitone black PC and binder unactivated. About $25 per gallon. And it's the carbon in the black ink that causes trouble.
Definitely reclaim immediately after use.

[ZooCity]

Always reclaim immediately after the run, I mean, right away. The worst has been the TW   black so far, the matsui isn't as gnarly.