Discharge$$$$$$$

[tonypep]

I know that it's cheaper but after crunching the #s on a 123 yellow....................................................
Plastisol $90. per gal
Discharge $ 30 per gal

My "Premium Blend" base $19.60 per gal
Plastisol is my enemy

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

In large piece runs you are precisely spot on.  For smaller runs, not so much... at least in my shop.

Waste. 


In a word, waste is a big problem for smaller discharge runs, at least in our shop. If our plastisol jobs use inks from our stock colors, they are probably cheaper to run than small discharge orders.  On bigger runs even with the discharge waste, you have it exactly right---I totally agree.

I'm sure the lions share of your work has minimum piece counts to go with discharge.  But we aren't up to that level yet, so we have more waste.  I try to activate only what I need, plus oh....maybe 20%, but still I end up with lots of waste, when the plastisol goes back in the bucket more often than not.  I even occasionally have to throw out ink that has pooped out mid run. No, make that rarely, but it has happened.

Anyhow, I definitely go through more discharge ink than plastisol---LOTS more.  But it is waaaaay cheaper.

[tonypep]

Small runs= DC UB+Plastisol TC. Almost zero waste

[Screened Gear]

Gallon for Gallon do you think discharge goes as far as Plastisol? I haven't done a ton of DC yet but I have noticed I use more ink out of a bucket with discharge than plastisol. I maybe penetrating the garment too much. Any one else feel the same. I do think your right Tony waterbase when your set up for it is cheaper but its not comparable gallon for gallon in my eyes. I maybe doing it wrong.

[ZooCity]

Not sure gallon to gallon but discharge goes way further than plastisol dollar for dollar.  My test dc run was on 700pcs or so, light "Carolina" blue on Asphalt, medium front and back appx 78 sq in per T, a very typical sort of job...   

$28 worth of sericol ink, including wastage for this +$4k order. 

Think about all the P/F/P or the massive ink deposit through a thick, open stencil that would have taken running plastisol.  Think about the flash costs if you couldn't consistently one hit it.  I don't have the time to calc it but bet you a nickel that would be a lot more in Wilflex Epic.   It also produced a superior shirt.

Small runs you bump into a problem - you need at minimum of about 200g of dc/wb just to run it without it getting gummy in the screen, probably more on an auto.   Solution- you can, in fact, store and then reactivate DC.  Works like a dream on low % activated ink in particular.  Downsides are the stank, good lord the stank, and the off chance you will have a hue shift from the dead activator in there mixing with fresh.  I have no reason to believe it effects the print in any other way and am starting to save and date my DC mixes.  I mostly try to combine what's on the save shelf into other colors within a month or two.  I combine with fresh ink as well as fresh activator. 

I need to get serious about the dc base + plastisol (or HO wb) top though, that's a bangin' solution to this for shorter runs.   I'm thinking that dc base with my high-pig WFX mixes would get it done on nearly anything and still eliminate flashing.

What sort of choke can/do you run on dc ub + plastisol? I imagine reg needs to be uber tight?

[ZooCity]

Screened:

110 (40/cm) monofilament screens should yield up to
600-700 square feet (10-14 m2/kg).

That's from sericol and I find it pretty accurate.

[Screened Gear]

What sort of choke can/do you run on dc ub + plastisol? I imagine reg needs to be uber tight?

I have done a few DC underbases with plastisol top colors. this one had 5 top colors. I was a little scared on it. My choke was the same as I do for plastisol, half a point.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Screened, Nice bright colors.  What base, %ZFS and meshes?

This is a trick I haven't really worked on, and here is my thinking:  I have a marginal dryer, electric...and I worry that plastisol on top will inhibit the full cure of the discharge. I see a piece of bread covered on one side with plastic wrap.  It will still dry out, but not like all out in the open.

Maybe I'm thinking wrong.  Have I experimented on this?  Heck no..... I did do 1 (one) job like this, but it was a small order and I ran them down the tunnel twice. I did NOT wash test them.  Completely impractical...that. Two sloooow trips is the WORST but I've done it in a pinch.

[ZooCity]

That looks great.  0.5 pt is about the same here but that's from outer edge, so it would be a 1pt choke if saddling the shape.   I'm gonna r&d this over the winter. 

Outside of choke and reg, my fear was the wet dc muddying up the plastisol tops where they meet.  I can see just a hair of that on the yellow to blue (not being critical, print looks tight! I just looked there b/c it's easiest to catch on the edge of those two colors.)  Any issues with the wet dc co-mingling with the tops? 

I imagine you could do what I call a "half flash" just to move a little water out of it but that's a little self-defeating.

[Rob Coleman]

One last thing to consider is screen problems, ie pinholes.  You can repair a plastisol pinhole with spot gun; not so with waterbase.  shirt would potentially be reject.  That said, I am a big proponent of what Tony is stating - discharge ub with plastisol colors (extended out) through fine mesh on top!

[tonypep]

We sometimes do a Half flash on the auto if its a learge print area. No more than 3 sec dwell.

[Rob Coleman]

I know that it's cheaper but after crunching the #s on a 123 yellow....................................................
Plastisol $90. per gal
Discharge $ 30 per gal

My "Premium Blend" base $19.60 per gal
Plastisol is my enemy

Tony - is that a 123 made with Rutland system?  Their yellow concentrate or mixing yellow is really high priced and colors that use a lot of that component are quite expensive.  The same yellow in Wilflex EQ or MX system is about $55-$70 per gallon at full list price.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

Im under $40 for 4000g of 123c yellow - im on the Epic PC system

[tonypep]

I'm on Rutland M3

[Screened Gear]

This print was done a while back. I think it was done with a 230 DC underbase and then 155 on all the top colors. it was CCI bases 80/20 with 6 percent activator. Zoo yes the yellow and navy are just bad colors to have next to each other. The mixing your seeing is from the yellow screen being out of register on the first few test prints. The photo is of a test shirt. I know sounds like a cover. I didn't run any extras and didn't take any photos before shipping. So the only photo I got was of the test prints. I was worried about the colors muddying up. But they didn't on this run. It was only 75. I have not done a ton of these but from what I have done its not much different then printing plastisol on light colors. The colors do take longer to build on the backs of the other screens so you have to run more test prints to build your colors but that's all I noticed. Flashing does help build the colors.  I run all my colors hard so they penetrate the fabric. If you look at the back of the shirts you only see the top colors. There is not sign of clear or white discharge. That surprised me a little. What is really nice about this is you don't have any issues with screens sticking to hot or under flashed shirts.