[lioness]

When I received this order last week I shot off an email to my techs at Anajet regarding pretreating Heather Orange shirts - but never got a reply. I proceeded to pretreat over the weekend and was shocked at what appeared to be staining where the shirts were pretreated. When I called Anajet tech support Monday, George laughed at me and assured me it was not stained and the pretreatment would wash out in 1-2 washes. So we went to print 50- 2-sided print shirts. The next morning I washed one, cause it bugged me so much and sure enough - THEY ARE STAINED and it looks WORSE now that its been washed!

Does anyone know if there is a solution to remove the pre-treatment stain from heather orange tees?

I spoke to another Anajet tech, Ethel and he suggested perhaps I got a bad batch of pretreatment. How do you know if its bad pretreatment? The pretreatment looks the same as always, same consistency and color. Mixed with distilled water as instructed, same brand of distilled water we've been using.

I felt better after speaking with Barry the tech manager as he assured me he would help - but at the end of the day, he shot me an email that pretty much stated that once your warranty is up - Anajet is not responsible for ANYTHING, including what their techs advise or the use of their own products! Thank you very much!

Today, we attempted a plain orange tee and had the same "stain" results.

I found a couple of threads here, with reference to issues with oranges and reds. I did some steel blue shirts last week. that also appeared to "stain" and assured my customer the stains were pretreatment and would wash out, because that's what Anajet told me, but now I'm not so sure. And that was from a different bottle of pretreatment.

Is there an Anajet user out there who has had a similar issue and found a viable solution to remove the pretreatment stain and possibly help me salvage this order? Or is it simply a problem with the orange dye reaction to the pretreatment?

And if that is so - then this is nothing new and Anajet could save their customers a great deal of grief by passing that HELPFUL information along! I have 50 beautifully printed shirts, I might add, that are NOT sell-able because they have an obvious dark square stain where they were pretreated. Had I known the stain was set I would not have spent the time and ink printing them. I can't believe in all the years Anajet has been selling printers they've "NEVER heard of anyone having this issue". So here I am at the mercy of whoever will read this and can help. My customer had a launch today and these shirts were a vital part of that and thanks to this mishap - I let them down - they'll sure remember when someone they know is looking to have shirts printed. I am terribly frustrated and disappointed. I sure hope a seasoned Anajet printer reads this and can help. Thank You!

 

[Rodney]

I'm not sure, but hopefully someone else here will have a possible solution

 

[abmcdan]

I've always had an issue with Reds and Oranges so I'm not much help.

Lower curing temperatures at a longer time seemed to make it alittle better but it's still a 50/50.

Make sure you do wash tests if you play with the time, pressure, and heat during curing.

 

[23spiderman]

yes, AnaJet knows this is a problem. it was a problem when i became a customer almost 4 years ago...sounds like their techs are STILL spouting off "scripted" info instead of being involved with their customers. it's not unique to AnaJet, but i really wish they would give good "field tested" advice. i was basically left on my own, and these forums are where i've learned most of my stuff.

basically, you probably used too much pretreat. i've found this problem with Gildan Safety Green and Sport Grey. i backed off the amount of pretreat, and i let the shirts dry overnight instead of heat pressing them right away, and this helped. every now and then, i would get a little stain, but overall this went away. if you see the stain after air drying, you can take a wet cloth and rub the edges until the stain disappears, but once you cure it, it's there for good. also, make sure when spraying that you feather the pretreat as you get to the edges. this will help keep a "hard edge" from forming. just like painting from a spray can, you want to let up on the trigger as you get to the edges. when i spray from side-to-side, i let up on the trigger to "fade" the spray, then overlap a little and go back the other way. each time i get to the edge, i back off the trigger. does that make sense?

unfortunately, this doesn't help for your current situation, but hopefully this will help you in the future. it's all about practice and remembering what works and doesn't work. if you can afford it, you might want to redo the job for your customer to show that you've fixed the problem...if you think they are worth enough future business.

 

[zoom_monster]

At this point I would try to preatreat the entire shirt if it IS a "stain". If it's just where the pretreat is "crushed" and fused by the heatpress, you could try to use fabric sizing (in an aerosol can) and see if that make a difference. Spray it on faily liberally and then toss a garment or 2 into the clothes dryer or let it air dry. I use this for removing hoop burn in embroidery. For heather shirts in the future, I would either avoid them or hover air dry and feather the edges when you pretreat. If you are going to "eat" these shirts, You may as well use them to experiment on how you might be succesful with them in the future. You could also try a alternate brand to see if this makes a difference.

I cannot say if this will work in your case, but it's worth a try.

 

[Scifighter11]

I had the same prob with tan shirts. It was annoying. I told my mom and she had me bring over a shirt she put some kind of stain remover on it and it came out. I will see what she used.

 

[23spiderman]

Z - does this fabric sizing darken the shirt, or remove the pretreat? i'm not familiar with embroidery, so i don't know what hoop burn is, but i am familiar with the ancient screen printing trick of spraying peroxide on lightly scorched shirt. i had a horrible time with sport grey turning yellow on me, and my problem was too much pretreat...even after 3 1/2 years of doing this, i was needing to back off a bit. we're always learning something in this digital business!

 

[zoom_monster]

Z - does this fabric sizing darken the shirt, or remove the pretreat? i'm not familiar with embroidery, so i don't know what hoop burn is, but i am familiar with the ancient screen printing trick of spraying peroxide on lightly scorched shirt. i had a horrible time with sport grey turning yellow on me, and my problem was too much pretreat...even after 3 1/2 years of doing this, i was needing to back off a bit. we're always learning something in this digital business!

A hoop burn is where the knap is crushed and the knit is kind of shiny. The best I can tell is that lets the fiber relax and go back to a matte finnish.

I remember some of my first jobs with the original pretreat. It was UV sensitive... even after curing. I printed some Ashe grey shirts(with white) for a school fair. I sold out, ran back to my house to grab some more. I walked past a guy who had just purchased a shirt and it was turning yellowish. I was horrified!!. I took a shirt out of a box, put it in the sun and literaly watched it turn dark. I salvaged the shirts by pretreating the whole shirt and drying them on hangers in my back yard. I sold them as "warm heather". Cutting the pretreat with water helped a little

The UV thing was a dirty little secret that was not talked about up-front or solved until version 2 came out the next year(2008?). I agree we're learning all the time. We learn to be very careful, because a supplier or a dye lot or a manufacture could change the game at any moment.

 

[lioness]

Peroxide? Diluted or straight? Spray on and let air dry?

 

[lioness]

Z - does this fabric sizing darken the shirt, or remove the pretreat? i'm not familiar with embroidery, so i don't know what hoop burn is, but i am familiar with the ancient screen printing trick of spraying peroxide on lightly scorched shirt. i had a horrible time with sport grey turning yellow on me, and my problem was too much pretreat...even after 3 1/2 years of doing this, i was needing to back off a bit. we're always learning something in this digital business!

Sorry still learning my way around the forum.....

Is the peroxide straight or dilluted with water? Distilled?

 

[23spiderman]

we sprayed it full strength. it's primarily for scorches on white, ash, or sport grey shirts after they come out of the conveyor oven when screen printing. it may bleach through other dyes, so be sure to test it first.

if you're getting scorches on your heat pressed shirts, using peroxide could still work, but you should be fine as long as you are staying within the cure guidelines of your ink. i'm curing all my shirts for 90 seconds at 330 degrees and don't have any scorching.

 

[lioness]

we sprayed it full strength. it's primarily for scorches on white, ash, or sport grey shirts after they come out of the conveyor oven when screen printing. it may bleach through other dyes, so be sure to test it first.

if you're getting scorches on your heat pressed shirts, using peroxide could still work, but you should be fine as long as you are staying within the cure guidelines of your ink. i'm curing all my shirts for 90 seconds at 330 degrees and don't have any scorching.

Thank you! Yes, I'm using the same heat press settings, but these shirts still scorched. I think it is a combination of orange color dye and pretreatment. Some shirts are not as bad as others, so I will try this. Keep your fingers crossed! My customer is awesome - having this first batch silk screened over the weekend, so they'll have them for next week.....but they really want to work WITH me, so their giving me some time to figure it out and get them a product they can be proud of for their next run. I tried a gildan orange and still had the stain problem although I will try the peroxide and launder and see if that will make a difference.
Feeling hopeful. Thank you!

 

[23spiderman]

take an orange shirt and pretreat 3 different levels of "strength" on the front. the top would be lightest, the middle would be "normal", and the bottom would be most in regards to pretreat used. then print your design on all 3 areas. first, you're checking to see if there's any stain, second, you want to see how your print looks. i'm guessing that you're still using too much pretreat.

 

[flimas1]

When I received this order last week I shot off an email to my techs at Anajet regarding pretreating Heather Orange shirts - but never got a reply. I proceeded to pretreat over the weekend and was shocked at what appeared to be staining where the shirts were pretreated. When I called Anajet tech support Monday, George laughed at me and assured me it was not stained and the pretreatment would wash out in 1-2 washes. So we went to print 50- 2-sided print shirts. The next morning I washed one, cause it bugged me so much and sure enough - THEY ARE STAINED and it looks WORSE now that its been washed!

Does anyone know if there is a solution to remove the pre-treatment stain from heather orange tees?

I spoke to another Anajet tech, Ethel and he suggested perhaps I got a bad batch of pretreatment. How do you know if its bad pretreatment? The pretreatment looks the same as always, same consistency and color. Mixed with distilled water as instructed, same brand of distilled water we've been using.

I felt better after speaking with Barry the tech manager as he assured me he would help - but at the end of the day, he shot me an email that pretty much stated that once your warranty is up - Anajet is not responsible for ANYTHING, including what their techs advise or the use of their own products! Thank you very much!

Today, we attempted a plain orange tee and had the same "stain" results.

I found a couple of threads here, with reference to issues with oranges and reds. I did some steel blue shirts last week. that also appeared to "stain" and assured my customer the stains were pretreatment and would wash out, because that's what Anajet told me, but now I'm not so sure. And that was from a different bottle of pretreatment.

Is there an Anajet user out there who has had a similar issue and found a viable solution to remove the pretreatment stain and possibly help me salvage this order? Or is it simply a problem with the orange dye reaction to the pretreatment?

And if that is so - then this is nothing new and Anajet could save their customers a great deal of grief by passing that HELPFUL information along! I have 50 beautifully printed shirts, I might add, that are NOT sell-able because they have an obvious dark square stain where they were pretreated. Had I known the stain was set I would not have spent the time and ink printing them. I can't believe in all the years Anajet has been selling printers they've "NEVER heard of anyone having this issue". So here I am at the mercy of whoever will read this and can help. My customer had a launch today and these shirts were a vital part of that and thanks to this mishap - I let them down - they'll sure remember when someone they know is looking to have shirts printed. I am terribly frustrated and disappointed. I sure hope a seasoned Anajet printer reads this and can help. Thank You!

yep im almost sure you are using too much pre treat. you shouldnt have to spary any size print more than 5 mississippi's.

Another thing i do is spray a mist (1 or 2 squirts) of water around the edge of the pretreated area and lightly squeegee it in. it also helps with not leaving a stain.

 

[CoorsDTG]

Pretreatment staining is one of the drawbacks of DTG technology in itself...not just something that is wrong with your Anajet. Along with the fact that you may be using a little bit too much pretreat (as stated above) what I do to work around it is plain and simply "feather" the edge of the pretreatment area so there isn't a defined edge of where I sprayed. This will prevent seeing a difference between the parts of the shirt that have and have not been sprayed.

I also never press the shirt in order to dry the pretreatment (not sure if you are doing this.) I'll either hang dry them or hover them on the heat press. Once you press the shirt, the stains will be permanent and will never wash out.

Once you get the wrist motion down of feathering the edges like I do, assuming that you are using a Wagner spray gun, you'll find that the staining is a non-issue.

 

[lioness]

Pretreatment staining is one of the drawbacks of DTG technology in itself...not just something that is wrong with your Anajet. Along with the fact that you may be using a little bit too much pretreat (as stated above) what I do to work around it is plain and simply "feather" the edge of the pretreatment area so there isn't a defined edge of where I sprayed. This will prevent seeing a difference between the parts of the shirt that have and have not been sprayed.

I also never press the shirt in order to dry the pretreatment (not sure if you are doing this.) I'll either hang dry them or hover them on the heat press. Once you press the shirt, the stains will be permanent and will never wash out.

Once you get the wrist motion down of feathering the edges like I do, assuming that you are using a Wagner spray gun, you'll find that the staining is a non-issue.

Thank you, for your thoughtful reply. We hang dry all pretreated apparel. We have tried this feathering technique a couple of days ago and it did work quite well. For awhile we were having pretreatment issues and were told we were not using enough pretreatment. How do you KNOW there's enough? Should it dry very rigid or only rigid to the touch?
Thanks again. This forum is awesome and you folks are great!

 

[CoorsDTG]

Thank you, for your thoughtful reply. We hang dry all pretreated apparel. We have tried this feathering technique a couple of days ago and it did work quite well. For awhile we were having pretreatment issues and were told we were not using enough pretreatment. How do you KNOW there's enough? Should it dry very rigid or only rigid to the touch?
Thanks again. This forum is awesome and you folks are great!

If you are ending up with puddles at the bottom while you are doing the squeegie, you are using too much. It also shouldn't be soaking though to the other side of the shirt. What I normally do is touch the pretreated shirt with the back of my hand or the top of my index finger after I spray it. It should be wet enough that you can actually feel the wetness but so that nothing really comes off on your hand (if that makes any sense ) Your Wagner gun is going clog and unclog as you use it so I never rely on timing how long my sprays are. Some days it will completely blast out the pretreatment and sometimes it will barely be a mist. This is why I actually feel each shirt. If you're printing red/orange or similar color shirts, they shouldn't feel very rigid at all. If they are stiff, you're using too much.

 

[Caligal537]

I just got staining on several dozen shirts. We followed the directions to Anajet's pretreat ratio 1:1 distilled water.

I hung them up in the breeze outside to dry. These shirts were a steel gray and steel blue Anvil shirts. I have done many other color shirts before without this problem.

I washed them to take the pretreat ring out from the bottom of the shirts to no avail. I used laundry detergent as well as a stain treatment.

Has anyone here ever used the hydrogen peroxide solution to lessen or remove the pretreat ring at the bottom of the shirt?

I am using the wagner sprayer.

Thank you.

 

[23spiderman]

some shirts are just problematic, but most likely you are using too much pretreat. back off on the amount put onto the shirt and see if that helps. you could also try lightly misting the shirt with distilled water prior to pretreating.

 

[thedigiguy]

23spiderman is most likely correct. It's not the mixture but it may be the amount you applied to the shirt. Unfortunately the only way to find out for sure is to pre-treat a couple of shirts and try again. I haven't tried misting with water prior to treatment but I have heard from users who have had very good results doing that.