Chose an ink best for the substrate!

One of the longest running and frequent questions about printing on garments is the issue of fabric with polyester content and the use of plastisol ink.

The simple answer is that no matter how high quality your plastisol or how exotic the additives, there is a chance of "visual color transfer" often called bleeding.

The lower the content and effectiveness of your "blocking" additives and higher percentage of colored polyester content - the higher chance of that fabric color becoming visible in the ink layer. There is no plastisol that I have seen on the market - even the best available that cannot be defeated by even the simplest of red polyester garments.

There are now what seems like endless volumes of FREE information in this industry about the exact physical, temperature, and chemical interactions that cause "bleeding", in it's exact technical terminology but the simple answer is that polyester fabric and plastisol are and can interact because there is a basic chemical "compatibility" with the two products. This compatibility means that when we print plastisol on poly and heat it (as we need to cure it) this process can begin and can be so overwhelming that even the BEST of the "low-bleed" plastisol inks can be defeated. There are several stages involved in this color transfer I encourage you to read some of the excellent information from some of the respected quality Ink companies out there.

There are a few who will tell you that "bleeding" is all your fault, that you are just not keeping control of your heat with the flash or dryer - you only have to keep your heat high enough to cure plastisol and not go over the temp that causes the dyes in poly to start to sublimate (turn to a gas) often this is less than 10 deg. F. !

The other excuse I see is that the garments are of poor quality, and have too much dye, while this may all be true - often you (or your staff) have problems keeping tabs on your heat (like in the real world you never have problems ).

Of course to suggest that you can should only the highest quality fabrics to print or that you should control what garments the customer could order is ridiculous bordering on fallacious. Rather than attempt to cover for the weaknesses in a product why not find a quality alternative.

What to do?

Consider inks OTHER THAN plastisol.

Within a few months, there will be available (widely) on the market an ink that is a "dual-cure" that is formed by heat under 260 deg. F. into a "dry" layer and that within 24-48 hours makes a complete bond with the fabric - a silicone ink.

There are other products that are problematic, fabrics that are not capable of reaching the cure temp of plastisol without damage.

Recently an air dry, time cured ink became available on the market for products that cannot be heated to high temps.

While not as opaque as plastisol, simply lower the temp of your dryer, apply ventilation, this forms a dry layer over the product and the final drying can be in a ventilated area - great for the synthetic bags so popular in the grocrery stores now.

One of the most problematic garments are the athletic "wicking" products, swimsuits, spandex, and other garments that distort in and out of shape, plastisol with even the best "stretch" additive will never be able to stretch as much as the newer silicone inks.

Of course, to create an opaque layer of ink, especially with bright and dark garments the layer of ink is thicker, this can make things uncomfortable for the garment user, while somewhat unavoidable with plastisol as well as the newer inks, good control of deposit with quality screens can make this less uncomfortable, the choice may be a stiff water and air proof layer of stiff plastisol that has a high chance to bleed or a softer flexible coating that can be (but not always) rubber like. With the higher meshes the alternatives often have a softer hand than plastisol.

QCM inks makes the "rubber" but air dry ink, they can be contacted at the following:

QCM
930 Central Avenue South, Kent, Washington 98032 USA
1-800-321-0170
http://www.qcminks.com

Dow Corning is developing the silicone based ink, they can be contacted at the following:

http://www.dowcorning.com/content/textiles/screenprinting.asp

What has happened to the industry?

That is a question I had on the phone today...

By the way, in the last three weeks I have watched with some shock and trepidation the flurry of electronic nastiness and an insane amount of e-mail and phone calls all similar - what is going on...

First, this is nothing new, in fact I am surprised that we had a relative break from the excessive nastiness for as long as we have. This was added to my attention while working with a project involving testing and deeply studying the direct to garment market and a particular machine and the RIP it needs to work...

At the last show while talking to manufactures of DTS machines I noted the nastiness that was so prevalent on the screen printing industry years ago - you know salesmen spinning stories, trash talk, and underhanded tactics - wow!.

I feel sad that this seems to have seeped back into Screen Printing, I guess I should not be all that shocked, some of the worst snakes ever to curse the industry have slithered back into our peaceful break in the fighting.

I only wish that as small as the industry is that we talked more, I could have avoided getting fleeced myself by some of that nastiness if I had only talked to some of you out there first... Many years ago...

Honestly I will just continue to be who I am and help as many of you as I can, helping and teaching are the only things that keep me in the industry - it has been the most rewarding part of my long stay in this industry.

Thanks again to all of you who stopped by in Atlantic City to say hi and ask questions, the show was hectic (as usual) and I had a great time seeing the lot of you there.

One strange item, I was approached by a manufacturer of screen printing "stuff", this is screen printing "stuff" (a brand) I am known for backing and recommending by the way, and I was chided for "trash talk" about their "stuff". This of course caught me off aim as I was surprised that they had a "customer" that claimed that we were "unfairly critiquing" their "stuff" to "sell an other brand".

This seems out of character for me because I happen to favor this brand of "stuff" and because I so often present neutrality to the point of becoming uncomfortable about making comparisons of equal or "on par" items manufactured for screen printers.

What I thought (later) was that this was strange coming from a company that is KNOWN for excessive "trash talk" about their competitors!

Why the "noive" of ya...

Choosing a press, I just returned from a regional show.

One of the first questions - what press do I start with. A good question and one difficult to answer well because so much background information is necessary.

Most customers orders are for one and two color prints, making up over 60 percent of all orders in most cases, the other 40 percent is 3 or 4 colors making up about 39 of that remaining 40 percent, additional colors make up the last two percent.

Four color four station presses are ok most of the time but of course don't be suprised if it limits you from time to time, many of the orders for additional colors can be contracted out to other printers.

The exception would be when you desire to print your own line of shirts and need additional colors for extensive designs.

I would suggest that you look for a good deal on a 6 color press - UNLESS - money is just that tight.

If you are on a limited set of funds, by all means get a 4 color and when you make some money then get a stand alone 6/6 or save up and get an 8/8.

If you get a good quality 4/4 you can, and will, make money with it, but there are benefits to 6 and 8 color presses, such as pre-set up of front and back or multiple one and two color jobs...

Good luck - I know this is all a big step - think hard and make the best choice you can.

I just finished our three day class and additional one day graphics seminar in California.

Unusually cold and lots of rain for Oxnard/Ventura, but the class ended up without a hitch and we were able to introduce two new graphics to print and some updates for the graphics class (We are on version three for the graphics class and Version 19 of the three day class - we up date all the time).

What I was disappointed in was the amount of students who were unhappy with other education in the industry. I have always invited and benefitted from competition it makes me want to make the class better and I always strive to keep my classes focused on helping and presenting the facts.

We print both a four color process on white shirts and a simulated process design on dark shirts with a flash for every student in the class, along with hands on and demonstrations with real equipment, we don't just talk about reclaiming, cleaning, and exposing but do that with operational equipment.

I am sad when I get a student who tells me that the last class was just lecture, no reclaiming or exposing, and the "instructor" was rude, uncaring, or just arrogant, with only a few students even getting a chance to push a squeegee... With a class of more than 15 students so only two or three even get a chance to even push some ink you have to wonder if there is any empathy with the new students at all.

How interesting is a class with all theory and high level content without even the basic effort to make the material understandable? We all know EOM is important but to explain what it is and why it is important is not "rocket science" screen printing is not that complicated there are just lots of small, important and often very simple items strung together to get an end result.

How much can you learn if an instructor is not willing to directly, completely, and in detail explain (just as a batting coach would a baseball player) the process along with the actual coating two or one handed while watching and giving tips with wet emulsion flowing?

Regardless, we leave our California host location with lots of new friends, printers and artists, fresh with new ideas and details on the facts that make this process work - that makes me happy.