[ghostclothingco]

Hey everyone,
I have just recently started a clothing company and for the sake of costs I've decided to print the one color designs at home. Although I have screen printed in the past...it has been years since and I cannot seem to remember most. I am printing on white 100% cotton AA tee's and I am curious to whether I should use a plastisol ink or water based ink. Keep in mind i will be curing the tee's on my own with a heat gun. I am also wondering what ink everyone recommends out there.

Thanks,
David

 

[D3L0C4T3D]

with out a flash dryer plastisol will be to hard to cure, go waterbase, the best to use is matsui

 

[adamewoods]

Second the Matsui suggestion...dry with a heat gone to the touch, then fill your work area with clotheslines and hangers and let everything hang for about 24 hrs. before you stack it, you'll get really beautiful results. If the Matsui black proves hard to work with, Nazdar's black is really easy to print, but KEEP IT WATERBASED.

 

[ScreenFoo]

Catalyzed waterbase ink will be the easiest to deal with cure-wise, but you won't get the really soft hand you may want to get out of it. You could do the heat gun thing and cure non-catalyzed WB, it will probably strike you early on that a heat press might sound cheap once you spend enough time 'blow drying' your prints--but it shouldn't be hard to get going. If you're fuzzy on the basics, the Fresener book would be a good investment--there are plans for a wooden one color press that you can build for a minimal investment--assuming you can get a hold of some woodworking tools.

Plastisol is more forgiving on press--but that's really the big advantage. If you're only doing one colors with no halftones, I'd definitely go WB.

As mentioned, Matsui is well respected--Bart at WooHoo Supplies stocks it, as well as various on-line suppliers.

 

[Hegemone]

I use ryonets matsui and use their pc color matching kit (I started with the gallon kit) and get solid consistent results. The heat gun is a massive labor sink. Make the first upgrad an ir flash. 2.3 minutes under the flash and myatsui is cured and ready to wash like a champ.