I have a Fast T-Jet Blazer Pro and I am using Fast Ink. I print on 100% cotton shirts. I have been told to use the light garment pretreatment spray. I am still having problems with the design fading with the first washing. I have told my customers to wash is cold water the first time. I don't know what else to try. Anyone else have this problem or have a solution to this problem?
I have a Fast T-Jet Blazer Pro and I am using Fast Ink. I print on 100% cotton shirts. I have been told to use the light garment pretreatment spray. I am still having problems with the design fading with the first washing. I have told my customers to wash is cold water the first time. I don't know what else to try. Anyone else have this problem or have a solution to this problem?
Tracy,
I have a few questions for you.
1) Are you printing white ink on these shirts?
2) What time, temperature and pressure are you using to cure them?
3) Do you have a new heat press? If not, have you tested it for even temperature lately?
you really dont need ligh garment pretreat if you can get a good print and cure it correctly. I recently swapped inksets to some new stuff on sale in the UK, staybright4, almost zero washout, i cant recommend this ink highly enough, i hardly ever get any blockage etc... problems either, give it a try you wont regret it. I must stress i am in no way linked to the company, just a very happy user.
I am not printing white under the print. (of course the white ink on my blazer is not working properly). These are usually on white or grey garments only. I have completly stopped printing white ink. It is just too expense to keep working correctly and I have always done the suggested maintenance on the machine to keep it going.
The heat press is set at the correct temperature and is a fairly new machine. The manual says to cure it for 1 minute. My heat press does not have a pressure setting, so I am just having to guess on that.
The suggested pressing time for white or light colored garments without white ink is 90 seconds. If you're doing it for 60 seconds it sounds like you are undercuring the ink which would cause it to have poor washability.
I'm printing on only white and light garments currently with no underbase and no pretreatment. I'm curing at 330 degrees on hover with a teflon sheet. Before it was at 160 seconds, that was too much I was told so I went down to 80 and then down to 65. Same results always. If I don't take special care when washing the shirts - they fade like 50%. It's pathetic that I have to tell all my customers all of these special washing instructions and knowing they probably won't follow them and they'll end up with a ruined shirt and I'll have lost their business. It's also upsetting when I own DTG printed shirts that wash perfectly no matter how you wash them. I'm going to try instacolor or whatever pretreatment for white shirts. I don't know what to try any more - I hate this.
I'm printing on only white and light garments currently with no underbase and no pretreatment. I'm curing at 330 degrees on hover with a teflon sheet. Before it was at 160 seconds, that was too much I was told so I went down to 80 and then down to 65. Same results always. If I don't take special care when washing the shirts - they fade like 50%. It's pathetic that I have to tell all my customers all of these special washing instructions and knowing they probably won't follow them and they'll end up with a ruined shirt and I'll have lost their business. It's also upsetting when I own DTG printed shirts that wash perfectly no matter how you wash them. I'm going to try instacolor or whatever pretreatment for white shirts. I don't know what to try any more - I hate this.
It appears that you are not drying the ink completely. You need to press the shirt with a heat press, not hover it. Try pressing the finished print at light pressure for 90 seconds at 330 to 335 degrees. Do a wash test and you should see an improvement.
Fading after the first wash. 
