T-Shirt Forums banner

Curing Tips

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  tpitman 
#1 ·
I am a screen printer and young entrepreneur, I run a t-shirt printing and design business with a partner. Lately we have been hearing about shirts that have been washing out which is scary, we've never had this issue before. We have been using plasticol inks bought from Ryonet and M&R Printing so I am trying to figure out what the issue is.

Is there any ink in particular that I should be using to print on 50/50 cotton/poly or any recommendations for permanent/high quality inks?

I use a flash dryer to temporarily cure my inks in between colors and then we finalize them with a very basic heat-press (12 seconds at 172 degrees Celsius, how long should I be pressing these shirts and at what temperature?

If you can think of anything else that could be causing this issue please let me know I need to fix this problem immediately!

Thanks everybody!
 
#2 ·
All plastisols should have the same permanency. While some may be better than others in how they apply, once cured they will all last the same.

If your heat press has cold spots, it's possible the entire design is not getting cured.

Why not use the flash to do the entire cure? Depending on the flash, should take about 40 seconds total.
 
#4 ·
I would run a temperature test on your press first to see if cold spots is in fact the issue

Please also note that you cannot check the temperature of a heat press platen with a laser temperature gun. Your reading could be off by up to 150 degrees. You need to use a pyrometer with a probe that actually touches the heat platen to check temperature.

Harry
Equipment Zone
If your heat press checks out ok, you may just need to have a longer press time. Or bump up your temp. Or both. :)

Remember 172C is right at cure temperature. So give yourself some leeway and bump your temp up.
 
#5 ·
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but if you're doing a lot of 200+ orders, and curing with a flash dryer is impeding your production efficiency, it's probably time for a conveyor dryer. On the other hand, if you're consistently undercuring shirts, even unintentionally, to keep production levels reasonable, you may save so much time that you'll be out of business when your reputation for quality goes south.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top