[INKJESS]

This is not a question as much as it is just me venting. I'm printing a fairly large order on Gildan Performance tees, which I hate as the ink seems to sheer a lot with these forcing me to apply atleast 3 coats when printing white. Plus they print fuzzy, kind of grainy, hate em'.

So I'm loading these shirts, and I already have a tendency to pull left side long for whatever reason, drives me nuts. As I'm fighing the alignment, since I'm anal about symmetry, I was really getting frustrated because I'm wasting more time then I care to say trying to get these square when I realized most of the shoulders from the collar to shoulder seem are not the same. Most of them on one side are a 1/2 inch shorter!!! WHAT THE HELL

 

[Industryps]

Welcome to the world of Gildan quality...
As for your printing issue- what you are experiencing is called "Fibrillation" and can be helped by a couple of things-

• If printing manually, try pre heating the shirts with your flash. Just reverse your pallet rotation so the shirt is warming under the flash before it gets to you. The warm (NOT hot) shirt will warm your screen and the ink, allowing it to print smoother and flash quicker.

• If possible, try using a lower meshcount for your white screen. A properly coated lower mesh screen will lay down a thicker layer of ink giving you a nice bright white with a print/flash/print method.

• Worst-case scenario: heat press the finished shirts to smooth down the ink and reduce the chance of wash-out

One last thing, hopefully you checked your fabric content and you are using a Poly-white ink if needed. If your tees have a high Polyester content and you are using a standard white plastisol, there is a high risk of dye-migration which will turn your bright white ink into a splotchy blue as the ink cools...

 

[Dekzion]

along the imperfect blanks line, glass tiles, 7 out of ten have either a piece of hair or a blank spot on them. okay not the end of the world when pressing a photo, but most of my trade with them is printing a silhouette of baby's hands with either a baby pink or blue background! Drives me nuts!

 

[INKJESS]

Welcome to the world of Gildan quality...
As for your printing issue- what you are experiencing is called "Fibrillation" and can be helped by a couple of things-

• If printing manually, try pre heating the shirts with your flash. Just reverse your pallet rotation so the shirt is warming under the flash before it gets to you. The warm (NOT hot) shirt will warm your screen and the ink, allowing it to print smoother and flash quicker.

• If possible, try using a lower meshcount for your white screen. A properly coated lower mesh screen will lay down a thicker layer of ink giving you a nice bright white with a print/flash/print method.

• Worst-case scenario: heat press the finished shirts to smooth down the ink and reduce the chance of wash-out

One last thing, hopefully you checked your fabric content and you are using a Poly-white ink if needed. If your tees have a high Polyester content and you are using a standard white plastisol, there is a high risk of dye-migration which will turn your bright white ink into a splotchy blue as the ink cools...

Oh I've had to print these, unfortunately, a number of times over the last few years. I've tried all kinds of different poly white and none seem to hold up well with these tees. They are just that bad, bleed horribly. I'm using AllTex now which is not as brilliant a white, but pliable, not all chalky. I like OneStroke but the stuff is twice the price of anything else. Union, too gooey for my liking. So I have about 4 different whites in stock now that work halfway decent, including Rutland Super Poly White, on different blends, etc... I have to alternate quite often as I have not found any one that's the greatest.

 

[Industryps]

Wilflex poly white has been good for us, even on hard to print items like those polypropylene promo tote bags.
Dye migration can be a tough beast to to tame, we've also found it helpful to not stack the shirts as they cool down from the dryer. This is where most of your migration happens.

 

[INKJESS]

Wilflex poly white has been good for us, even on hard to print items like those polypropylene promo tote bags.
Dye migration can be a tough beast to to tame, we've also found it helpful to not stack the shirts as they cool down from the dryer. This is where most of your migration happens.

I'll have to try that Wilflex. I was having decent success with Rutland Super Poly White, until just now, lol. I received a new bucket and can't hardly get IT out of the bucket, no joke, and it hasn't cooled down that much here in SoCal. I have a trick for warming up ink to loosin' it up but this is insane. I went ahead a printed on some A4 100% poly muscle type shirts, ran 2 through at about 340, butted up together and the first one came out great and the second, even though it was actually touching the first as it went through, came out looking like antique white, lol. WHAT!

 

[INKJESS]

Seriously, if I could solve the fuzzy prints issue and get that nice matte thin rubber looking print, not shiny, not chalky, and get my press to register perfectly on all platens, no migration on poly, I could really kick some ***. I'm that far away from some near perfect prints.

 

[Industryps]

Seriously, if I could solve the fuzzy prints issue and get that nice matte thin rubber looking print, not shiny, not chalky, and get my press to register perfectly on all platens, no migration on poly, I could really kick some ***. I'm that far away from some near perfect prints.

That perfect, matte, rubbery print texture is a hard one to achieve! That perfect ideal print comes with a lot of practice and tricks like special screen coating methods, roller squeegees, and from what I hear, inks that are on the higher-end (like Union Inks) help alot.