white ink "sticky"

[Shanarchy]

I have a gallon of Excalibur TKO white ink I am trying to use up. I'm printing manually with it. It's not exactly a thick ink, but is extremely sticky. I mean it feels like they used super glue for the plasticizer. I gave it a good stirring with the drill and have added curable reducer to it. It's still extremely sticky and doesn't clear the screen well. Suggestions? More reducer? Soft hand clear? I'm trying not to add too much so I don not effect the opacity. Thoughts? Kinda weird, I've seen thick white ink before, but this is ind of a different animal.

[Frog]

See Jeff? 
(Just yesterday I asked Jeff Proctor of Excaliber Inks to join us and give Lancer/Excaliber a presence here.)

So far, Shane, it sounds like you have done what I would have.
Years ago, I remember learning from Union tech, that though a little counter intuitive, the addition of a reducer to white can actually improve opacity. That's if it helps it to clear the screen.
Otherwise, I'm not familiar with that particular white from them.
In fact, it's difficult to even get Excaliber out here, though in the past, I was a fan of their Arctic White.

[mooseman]

WARNING.....mooseman madness follows ....proceed with caution.
I had a similar situation with some old junk white someone gave me no name brand in a quart container......the stuff was Play Dough in a screen, you could have set concrete block with it. Would go through a 110 but pulled the fabric up when i tried to raise the screen.

Scraped the junk out of the screen and trashed it out.  I used some laquer thinner on a rag  to clean the spatula and holy crap the stuff just competely transformed from sticky goo to what looked and acted like normal white ink. i dripped some into the screen agitated it up some with the squeegee and the properties changed big time it was like normal ink again. threw another old shirt on the pallet and hit it with the squeegee and the result was 10000000 time better

 The stuff went out the door but I was amazed at how much the tackiness of the ink changed with a very small amount of lacquer thinner that was on the cleaning rag.

Take a walk on the wild side ........get a sample of your sticky white add a little lacquer thinner and stir it up and see what you get I am guessing the sticky will completely go away
mooseman

[Frog]

Jeff, we really need you now!

[mooseman]

Jeff, we really need you now!

mooseman

[Shanarchy]

See Jeff? 
(Just yesterday I asked Jeff Proctor of Excaliber Inks to join us and give Lancer/Excaliber a presence here.)

So far, Shane, it sounds like you have done what I would have.
Years ago, I remember learning from Union tech, that though a little counter intuitive, the addition of a reducer to white can actually improve opacity. That's if it helps it to clear the screen.
Otherwise, I'm not familiar with that particular white from them.
In fact, it's difficult to even get Excaliber out here, though in the past, I was a fan of their Arctic White.

I think it would be great if Jeff joined in here. I've heard a lot of good things about Excalibur inks. This just seems to be an odd characteristic. If there is a way to make this ink more user friendly I would be interested in continuing to use more. The price was good and I can get it semi-locally.

I am going to try to continue increasing the reducer in small amounts to see if I can get it to a point where I get better results. I definitely get the point that a thinner ink that actually clears the screen will be more opaque than a thicker one which does not. Although I may avoid the lacquer thinner (love ya mooseman!)

[alan802]

Is there anything in laquer thinner that could screw something up, at small quantities?  Moose, did it shorten up the body or did it act like a curable reducer and "thin" it out?

[mooseman]

Alan I have messed around with this several  times since I fell into it.

Still evaluating the whole thing but this is what I like about the addition of a VERY SMALL amount of thinner.
on some of the One Stroke inks I have the addition of LQ (lacquer thinner) adds lubricity, greately shortens the body, seems not to impact the opacity, reduces climbing and makes my arms happier. the ability of the squeegee to shear the ink just seems to go up exponentially
Where screens tended to stick to the deposit they now smoothly pop off at the end of the stroke even with 1/6 or less OC

The lubricity thing is a big deal with me as we print manually and after just 3 or 4 years at this my arms are not holding up terribly well.
We recently tried some One stroke Versamax scarlet in a 230 mesh it went but with a lot of muscle. Our 230's are at least running @ 25Nm on Sefar mesh
We added just a few drops to the ink in the well and mixed it there with a spatula.... the stuff went through the 230 with @ 1/2 the effort which my arms really appreciated.

We can't speak about duarbility long term effects on the ink, adhesion to an underbase or any real changes to flash times but so far at this point we really think this stuff beats cuarble reducer by a long shot.

Try this experiment in your shop..... take a shot glass amount of ink stir it with a popsicle stick, then add ONE (1) DROP of LQ (which is probably more than you need for a shot glass amount) and repeate the stir and tell me what you think. I think you will be surprised how the ink reacts. Love to have your thoughts after you try this test.

mooseman

[alan802]

Alan I have messed around with this several  times since I fell into it.

Still evaluating the whole thing but this is what I like about the addition of a VERY SMALL amount of thinner.
on some of the One Stroke inks I have the addition of LQ (lacquer thinner) adds lubricity, greately shortens the body, seems not to impact the opacity, reduces climbing and makes my arms happier. the ability of the squeegee to shear the ink just seems to go up exponentially
Where screens tended to stick to the deposit they now smoothly pop off at the end of the stroke even with 1/6 or less OC

The lubricity thing is a big deal with me as we print manually and after just 3 or 4 years at this my arms are not holding up terribly well.
We recently tried some One stroke Versamax scarlet in a 230 mesh it went but with a lot of muscle. Our 230's are at least running @ 25Nm on Sefar mesh
We added just a few drops to the ink in the well and mixed it there with a spatula.... the stuff went through the 230 with @ 1/2 the effort which my arms really appreciated.

We can't speak about duarbility long term effects on the ink, adhesion to an underbase or any real changes to flash times but so far at this point we really think this stuff beats cuarble reducer by a long shot.

Try this experiment in your shop..... take a shot glass amount of ink stir it with a popsicle stick, then add ONE (1) DROP of LQ (which is probably more than you need for a shot glass amount) and repeate the stir and tell me what you think. I think you will be surprised how the ink reacts. Love to have your thoughts after you try this test.

mooseman

As soon as I get back into the screen printing department I'm going to test this.  I'll test the flash times and washability and anything else I can think of, not that I don't trust you, but I want to see exactly how much we can use and all there is to know about it.

I'm going to be in the embroidery building trying to straighten some things up instead of running the screen printing side so it might be a few weeks to a month before I get to mess around with it. 

[mooseman]

Just let us know if you see merit to this, more eyes and angles bring better answers besides what we print from the dark side of the moon may not work well in the light of day
mooseman

[Binkspot]

Maybe you have it but One Stroke has their Miscuc (I think that's what it's called). It is a lubricant to add to ink to make it move. I use it mostly in the winter and works well when the ink is more like a thick glue.

[mooseman]

I was not aware of that product but I did get some Visco-minus from One stroke, looked exactly like STP or honey and it was pretty useless.
I try not to call OS too ofetn except when i need som ink. They tend to hound the hell out of me and they seem to change salesprople every 6 months and the door knocking starts all over again. real PITA when you are not needing anything.
mooseman

[Binkspot]

That's the stuff, surprised you didn't like it. It made a huge difference in our shop.

I know what you mean about the phone calls. You have to give them credit they are persistent.

[mooseman]

That's the stuff, surprised you didn't like it. It made a huge difference in our shop.

I know what you mean about the phone calls. You have to give them credit they are persistent.

Persistent bordering on PITA

mooseman

[JBLUE]

All I can say is bad idea on so many levels. Depending on your area your VOC laws may end up costing yo a bunch of money for running that through the drier. Another thing would be building up the fumes in a poorly vented or defective dryer could = BOOM!