Hi Guys, time to pick your brains again,
I am having problems with union white ink onto polyester/ cotton polo shirts and sweats. I started with arctic white which was very hit and miss, with a very harsh feel after drying. So then I put some soft hand in, which was a slight improvement, but coverage, even with white flash white flash white still not very good. I seem to be getting fibres from the garment raising up when i print. Next step was to put puff additive in....all this seemed to do was to create a lunar feel to the print, very rough, and opacity still not perfect. I have now gone to Diamond white low bleed with soft hand with puff and it is much better, almost passible, but i am still seeing raised fibres, and the puff doesnt seem to puff that much.any theories. ( soft hand in at 10% by weight and puff in at 15% by weight.
thanks in advance
White is tricky to print. I struggled with it for a while too. But once you get the hang of it, it's easy! Like riding a bicycle, it'll just come naturally.
The biggest trick is to make absolutely sure you've cleared the screen. Sometimes this might take 3 or even 4 stokes with some whites.Slow your print stroke down if you have to. And don't flash the white unless it's smooth. Once it's flashed, that's it. And the top coat is only going to be as smooth as the first coat.
Practice on a bunch of mistake tees for a while.
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does it help to mist the garment with water first to stop the raising of fibres?
Some say it does, you might try it, but make sure you cure the shirt long enough as to where the moisture is completely gone from the mist you sprayed.
The way we print whites is straight out of the bucket (just mixing it well enough). It takes one flood, 2 strokes. Flash. one flood 1 stroke. (looks good but to eliminate fiberlation after washing and drying) we do another quick Flash, one flood 1 stroke and comes out smooth (on darks). We normally use mesh counts 110 with white ink, but a lot of stuff we do have tons of detail and thin lines so we use 156 a lot with the technique above as well. We've use Union Diamond White Lo Bleed, and haven't had too much success with it, we currently use wilflex white. We hear good things about Tiger White, so we'll be getting that soon. Good luck.
white ink on to navy blue polyester/coton 
