[Firestrike]

After shopping around and ordering tons of samples, The Alstyle 5301 blank seems to be the one best suited to my needs for an upcoming project. It has the right fit, feel and weight, the white blank is not too sheer, tearaway tags, a nice selection of heathered colors and of course the price is right.

However, we need a "soft hand" feel for the inks on this clothing line that I'm developing for a client. Our normal printer does discharge/water based only, which is exactly what we're looking for. After a chat with a tech at Threadbird however (not our normal printer), they informed me that Alstyle's are notoriously poor with discharge, due to the fact that Alstyle "re-dyes" individual blanks multiple times to achieve a more uniform appearance across batches. This leaves a lot of variance between individual pieces using discharge, they say. Threadbird's standard process uses a discharge underbase and Plastisol over, which they said won't work with the Alstyles. Similarly, regular discharge/waterbase won't either.

So, I started looking at other blank options but can't find one that meets all of my criteria. Most importantly is having heathered color options and a not-to-sheer white, along with a decent cut. I love Canvas but the white seems see-through. The Gildan softstyle 640 seems decent too, but let's be honest it's a Gildan. I can't even imagine what happens after you wash them a few times. Plus the white is sheer. The Anvil 980 looks and feels ok, but the color options are too limited. American Apparel and the like is too pricey for this project.

So, if I'm stuck with the Alstyle 5301, how can I get a nice gentle print without discharge?

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Firestrike]

For now, the avenue I'm pursuing is thus:

1) I have an email out to our Alstyle rep to figure out whether or not we can specifically request blanks that have not been re-dyed, with the expressed intent of discharge printing onto them. Barring that, we've asked whether or not there's a bulletproof way to determine whether an Alstyle blank has been re-dyed.

2) Our printer suggested using a high-opacity water based ink to offset the issue of discharging a re-dyed blank. This essentially adds an additional color underbase to the job, so obviously costs more, but may be a solution for us.

We'll report back as we know more.

 

[Firestrike]

Our Alstyle rep has responded that while they don't guarantee discharge quality of their blanks, re-dyes are "normally" sorted and sold separately from their normal stock, and indicated as such. This is to ensure the fewest customer problems when printing their blanks.

Makes me feel a little better, but we'll see.