PSCO

I was curious if there is a way to thin my White Matsui Water Based Ink? Its too thick to print with and clogs the screen. My design comes out fuzzy and to thick. I tried misting it with water on the screen but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Could anyone give me a sort of walk through on how to go about printing white on dark garments? What mesh to use, what cure time with a flash dryer, and how many passes to do? Thanks for any help you can give me!

 

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K5design

Add water to the ink and mix before printing. the mist would just lay on top. 110 mesh would be good.

 

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kmapparel

As K5Design mentioned you can add water to thin the ink a little but don't add too much. And it might be prudent of you to only thin the amount you need to complete the job instead of thinning your entire container.

It takes some practice I suppose to get good at printing on black shirts but with black shirts you have a higher tendancy to have a misprint because of ink drying in the screen so always order extra for that reason. I find that my first couple of prints don't seem to go so smoothly and I run into issues but after about 4 or 5 shirts things seem to settle in and the process is relatively trouble free at that point. From what I can gather after those 4 or 5 shirts (each one being print,flood,print,flash) the ink seems to get to a nice consistency and I can start moving at a decent pace.

The key, in my opinion, is to have a good size reservoir of ink on your screen to do your flood stroke. The thicker the ink layer on your flood the less chance you have of the ink locking in your screen.

If it does end up locking up in your screen keep a spray bottle of water handy to spray the screen on press and with a paper towel work at the clog until it disappears... run two or three test prints on pellons or scrap shirts, and then keep going with the run.

As for flashing I flash just so that the ink is dry to the touch and stackable. With a standard flash unit it should take a couple of seconds... 3 maybe 4 seconds.

Hope that helps!

 

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PSCO

Thanks for your help! I think I'll try adding a little water and mixing it before I print next time!

 

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printing40years

Download the Matsui tech sheets and check their recommendation or call the manufacturer. Normally with waterbased inks you have to keep a tight PH balance. The ratio of amonia to water needs to remain the same. Typically if you add water, then you also need to add amonia in the correct ratio.

 

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corradomatt

Matsui also has some additives you can use to help the ink print easier. They are called 'Printgen-C' and 'Printgen-MG'. They are commonly known as Softener and Wetting Agent respectively.

Softener can be added at up to 10% by weight and Wetting Agent can be added at up to 5% also by weight.

Adding both of these to the 301 White will make it much easier to print and the ink won't dry in the screen quite as fast.

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JamesE3

I had this same problem a few months ago. Water didn't help. I bought some printgen-c and it works perfect. I think either will work.

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