Ok, I'm semi new to the screen printing world. I've done mostly water based prints so far. I'm looking now to do a golden yellow print on a navy shirt, and am having a very hard time finding an opaque yellow ink. All my suppliers only carry white opaque.
I do not want to underprint, or print a discharge first. I'm not sure what discharge inks are entirely - but I'd be open to them. Really though, I just want to be able to do one print.
I'm ordering a flash dryer this week, so I'm wondering if I should just use plastisol inks instead. If I do - what additional chemicals (for cleanup, etc) do I need? Right now w/ water based, it's just a matter washing up with water. What other chemicals will I need?
What brand of ink are you using now? How are you drying it?
You really have the same issue with plastisol. Yellow on navy really calls for an underprint. The only additional chemical you need is a screen cleaner. You may also need to change your emulsion if you are using one formulated for water-based inks.
Permaset makes a water-based supercover line which is heavily pigmented and is suppose to cover in 1 stroke. It's expensive though, about twice the cost as their non supercover ink. dickblick carries it.
right now I've used the speedball "opaque" ink, which I am not a fan of. I also used AquaPaque from StandardScreen and I was very happy with that, but it only comes in white.
I really want to avoid undercoating/discharge printing. Just one simple coat would really make my day
For gold yellow color use water based opaque lacquer and pigments. Print with two strokes, flash and again two strokes with medium presure. Water based lacquers and whites do not go through the screen wery well, so it is necessary to do more strokes.
Matsui 301 white with some yellow pigment would work awesome with two layers, flashing between layers.
I would personally do discharge with a yellow pigment, but you'd really need a conveyor belt oven. I don't think it's healthy to cure discharge shirts with a flash cure unit as you'd be standing there right above the shirt as it lets off not so healthy fumes...
I use white opaque (water) bases from CHT-Bezema (Blanc 450 od Blanc LF) mixed with 5% yellow pigment and results are better than mixing 10% yellow pigment in standard opaque base's. Normaly we must P-F-P. Mesh count is 110. I tryed with other ink suplier - Argon manoukian texilac mono and result's are no so good, even with PFP, but that was 5 years ago, now we have little more knowledge, practice and our screens are better tensioned.
Because Bezema raises prices for opaque bases LAC LF and Blanc LF i invest some money in Rutland's M2 inks to do some test, because we never printed with plastisols. I was suprised with coverage of M2 Yellow on navy garment with only one print stroke, but i think is hard to print with this ink out of the box and if I add some thinner in ink the opacity will fall.
You can underbase that yellow with same screen and same ink, when we have some extra jobs in one color we print on our old press and flash with heat gun. Try to mix opaque white with standard yellow, maybe will work.
Yes, CHT opaque bases and whites (lacquers) has good covering properties, but they are not so soft and elastic and the biggest problem taht they drying in the screen very quick.
If your shirt can discharge (contact manufacturer), Wilflex Plascharge is really fun, though it stinks badly. It's probably expensive too.
I'm going to check this out, thanks. Maybe I'm confused as to what discharge inks are, I thought they needed to be put on in a separate layer, sep. screen, etc.
I ended up using Spectrachem's Golden Yellow, and though it goes on pretty transparent, to my surprise it dries opaque, which I was amazed by! I was really happy with it!
Thanks for all the other info, PFP I'm fine with doing if need be, it's just getting into multiple screens for single colors that I want to avoid!
Thanks!
He is just saying you lay down your first layer of yellow, flash, then lay down another coat of yellow. It may not be quite so bright as a white underbase, but its better than just one coat of yellow. It works on lighter color inks.
We print a LOT of gold ink on navy tees, and use Wilflex SSV gold. Print, flash, print. Usually use a 110 mesh for basic lettering and bold type designs, and 156 mesh for highly detailed designs with halftones. Cost is about $85/gallon, but it's great ink. Also, have to make sure the shirt gets throughly cured at 330 degrees.
Opaque Water Based Colors or Plastisol? 
