[Hotpuppy]

Hi gang,

I have been out of the industry for 7 years. My previous operation was a Union Ink shop, we started manual and ran 2 M&R Sportsman 8/10 autos by the time I shut it down. We did in-house mixing with the mix-o-paque system, I've run most of their inks. I've dabbled in water base and didn't care for it. I've also printed speedball inks on cardboard on our presses.

I decided last year that I hated the corporate salt mine and decided to go back to apparel which I love and enjoy. I'm at the jumping off point where I need to pick an ink vendor.

The bulk of my work tends to be 1 to 2 locations 1 to 3 colors, <250 shirts per job. I intend to stay with Plastisol type inks for now.

I understand that Union and Rutland are part of Polyone / Wilflex now. I just don't understand why there are 3 brands being sold still. My primary supplies vendor has their "house" brand of Vortex also. They are claiming to have poached talent from one of the 3 brands and improved on what they offer. I personally think it is more likely they are repacking one or more of the brands as their own.

I have searched via Google and this site and not really come up with much to answer my questions. As far as my situation:
- older Gauntlet 6/8 with a infrared flash
- We will be printing around 36 dozen hour. (please no speed related comments..... the shop is tuned to our average job and being profitable. I personally have run 83.4+ dozen/hr on my Sportsman.... it just burns me up to print at 1000/hr)
- We are curing with an older, but solid Maxicure (36-6-3).
- Using ShurLoc EZ Frames (solid medium-high tension)

1) What is the difference between the 3 brands? i.e. who are they targeted to?

2) Has anyone had good or bad experiences with Vortex?

3) A presenter in an ISS seminar mentioned ink viscosity and shear as important factors in quality. I've never seen centipoise data for inks in this business. Has anyone else? Centipoise is a measure of dynamic viscosity.

My personal thoughts are that Union seems to really target manual printers and we had real issues with screen buildup. We were running Newman MZX's and using a table to stretch them, but honestly we were bad about retensioning every cycle. We did measure and manage our tension though.

 

[Inkslammer14]

Ran into the same issues with the "BIG3"...Use Triangle Ink now and I get quality inks and great service for a lot less money...Good luck to you !

 

[bpfohler]

One Stroke here. Started with Union with mixed results, I put the One Stroke salesman off for about a year then he gave us a deal on a few gallons and I’ve been buying it ever since

 

[artprints]

For color matching, we've used Rutland's M3 since it was M2, and like the color accuracy. However for CPSIA compliance reasons, we've recently tried the Wilfex Epic PC series. (We learned they supply the crucial third party paperwork that Rutland doesn't.) But not a fan so far, simply because for smaller batches the mixing amounts of the concentrates are tiny. It's really hard to get an accurate mix.

For whites, One Stroke has become our go-to. ELT-S white has been great, primarily because it works well on temperature sensitive, soft fashion garments, which we do a lot of. It's also really creamy, which is great when printing manually. We like the benefits of the ELT series enough we contemplate switching to using their mixing system, too. But the buy-in is expensive for a smaller shop like ours. One Stroke ink is quite good, but not cheap.

 

[Hotpuppy]

I spent some time on the phone today and this is the net of what I got between talking to vendors and tech reps...

Union has a wide color range of stock colors and is geared to be print ready. Heavily marketed to manual printers.
Rutland caters to folks who like to mix their own ink.
Union/Rutland answer the phone as Rutland... both owned by PolyOne, which also owns Wilflex.

Wilflex caters to automatic printers and has a narrow range of pre-mix colors. They specifically claim to solve wet on wet buildup issues.

 

[Hotpuppy]

For color matching, we've used Rutland's M3 since it was M2, and like the color accuracy. However for CPSIA compliance reasons, we've recently tried the Wilfex Epic PC series. (We learned they supply the crucial third party paperwork that Rutland doesn't.) But not a fan so far, simply because for smaller batches the mixing amounts of the concentrates are tiny. It's really hard to get an accurate mix.

For whites, One Stroke has become our go-to. ELT-S white has been great, primarily because it works well on temperature sensitive, soft fashion garments, which we do a lot of. It's also really creamy, which is great when printing manually. We like the benefits of the ELT series enough we contemplate switching to using their mixing system, too. But the buy-in is expensive for a smaller shop like ours. One Stroke ink is quite good, but not cheap.

Can you clarify what a small batch is for your shop? To me a small batch would be a quart which might be useful on a 6 color automagic press. I generally consider a quart the minimum amount you need to put in the screen, practically speaking.

 

[artprints]

Can you clarify what a small batch is for your shop? To me a small batch would be a quart which might be useful on a 6 color automagic press. I generally consider a quart the minimum amount you need to put in the screen, practically speaking.

For us, a small batch is less than a quart. For custom mix colors, where you sometimes need a specific Pantone color for one small portion of a print, and you're only going to use that color on that job, a quart is way overkill. Sometimes you can start with half a quart, print a hundred shirts, and still put most of what you mixed back in the container at the end of the run. We almost never mix a whole quart of a custom color, it would waste a lot of ink. (Most of our jobs range from 24-144 pieces, generally in the upper end of that.)

 

[Hotpuppy]

For us, a small batch is less than a quart. For custom mix colors, where you sometimes need a specific Pantone color for one small portion of a print, and you're only going to use that color on that job, a quart is way overkill. Sometimes you can start with half a quart, print a hundred shirts, and still put most of what you mixed back in the container at the end of the run. We almost never mix a whole quart of a custom color, it would waste a lot of ink. (Most of our jobs range from 24-144 pieces, generally in the upper end of that.)

Oh, I completely get it. We mixed quart+ with Maxopake in my last company. We rarely used PMS matches again. If we liked them we made them house colors. Otherwise we finally got sick of them and made "eco-grey" out of them.

 

[artprints]

You probably are aware, but the Epic PCs aren't the only mixing option from Wilflex. I've heard good things about the RIO series, too, which is an ink to ink option. You lose the ability to use some of the specialty bases; but it's supposed to be more forgiving re exact ingredient amounts during mixing.

 

[Inkslammer14]

Wilflex also claims that their ink will make your press run faster ! First time I ever heard that one....

 

[Hotpuppy]

yea, Kornit claims to reduce ink consumption by 46%..... woo, how many prints does it take to offset the 500%+ cost increase of their machine? lol Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

 

[Hotpuppy]

On a serious note, I think Wilflex's claim is that their ink is designed for wet on wet printing without buildup on the screens. That will be a difference on larger runs. Although, I can't tell you how many hundred thousand shirts we printed with Union Ink. I know one time we did a 10K run..... no thanks. More risk, less profit, more stress. We made money on it, but I prefer to catch minnows, not Jaws. Yes, Jaws is thrilling, but Nemo won't take your arm off!

 

[Inkslammer14]

Quality inks don't build up on long runs. Wilflex claiming their inks won't build up should not be a feather in their cap. Screen printers should expect to be able to do any size runs without build up issues. These guys will say anything. Jeez !

 

[bpfohler]

I spent some time on the phone today and this is the net of what I got between talking to vendors and tech reps...

Union has a wide color range of stock colors and is geared to be print ready. Heavily marketed to manual printers.
Rutland caters to folks who like to mix their own ink.
Union/Rutland answer the phone as Rutland... both owned by PolyOne, which also owns Wilflex.

Wilflex caters to automatic printers and has a narrow range of pre-mix colors. They specifically claim to solve wet on wet buildup issues.

I don’t think most Union ink is print ready. We always thinned Maxopaque and LoBleed.

 

[wrkalot]

We are a 2 auto shop and run mostly Wilflex. Most of their inks are great regarding pick up but not all of the premixed colors are good. Some are not as opaque as we would like. We also use the Rio mixing system from Wilflex and are super happy with the results. Rio inks have little to no pick up. We do a lot of large sim process runs and RIO is our go to ink for those.

 

[sben763]

I don’t think most Union ink is print ready. We always thinned Maxopaque and LoBleed.

As a previous manual printer I would have agreed. Switching to a auto the first of the year beside the Union Eclipse LB white I haven’t touched my reducer or soft hand additives. The maxopake is labeled for wet on wet and works very well with no build up when used without a underbase. When used with a underbase certain colors like red either have to be printed last or flashed, although I haven’t tried using higher mesh yet for the problem colors.

When manually printing I mostly would have to print flash print to get the opacity I like. Now with auto with exception of white and yellow on dark garments on hit no flash.

One major deciding factor why I’ve stuck with union is ink usage. I’ve used about every brand Union, QCM, Excalibur, international coatings, one stroke, wilflex, and a few others. By far I use less ink with Union. Last year helped a guy print 750 front, back and a sleeve. He brought a gallon on one stroke. We were opening a case printing the front then the back and then sleeve as it was 2 colors each location and I had a 6/6 press. We didn’t even get 1/2 though the 750 and ran out of ink. I had 1 1/2 gallon of Union Eclipse and was concerned maybe would run out plus I had printing of my own to do before I could get more ink. When we finished we had only used 3/4 of a gallon to finish.

 

[Drac]

As a previous manual printer I would have agreed. Switching to a auto the first of the year beside the Union Eclipse LB white I haven’t touched my reducer or soft hand additives. The maxopake is labeled for wet on wet and works very well with no build up when used without a underbase. When used with a underbase certain colors like red either have to be printed last or flashed, although I haven’t tried using higher mesh yet for the problem colors.

When manually printing I mostly would have to print flash print to get the opacity I like. Now with auto with exception of white and yellow on dark garments on hit no flash.

One major deciding factor why I’ve stuck with union is ink usage. I’ve used about every brand Union, QCM, Excalibur, international coatings, one stroke, wilflex, and a few others. By far I use less ink with Union. Last year helped a guy print 750 front, back and a sleeve. He brought a gallon on one stroke. We were opening a case printing the front then the back and then sleeve as it was 2 colors each location and I had a 6/6 press. We didn’t even get 1/2 though the 750 and ran out of ink. I had 1 1/2 gallon of Union Eclipse and was concerned maybe would run out plus I had printing of my own to do before I could get more ink. When we finished we had only used 3/4 of a gallon to finish.

Good info Sean, BTW what auto did you go with?

 

[sben763]

Good info Sean, BTW what auto did you go with?

Right now due to space I have a Lawson mini trooper XL 5 color 6 station. I've had a couple other Lawson press that where just too big although I was able to run just not efficiently so I always went back to manual. After many, many adjustments to get the press all back straight I've got to say I am impressed with quality of prints. I seriously didn't expect the quality and the speed I'm getting. The other Lawson's printed Ok struggled with white.

It was used, Cheap although not put together so was a risk and from past experience and with this one if you call Lawson the guy isn't very helpful when inquiring about a press always ask for serial then says that's a older press, not much value and tries to sell you a new one. last time I talked to him I said so your saying your older press don't hold any value, may have issues, and just not worth buying....Why the heck would I ever buy a new one then? He hung up on me.

 

[Drac]

Right now due to space I have a Lawson mini trooper XL 5 color 6 station. I've had a couple other Lawson press that where just too big although I was able to run just not efficiently so I always went back to manual. After many, many adjustments to get the press all back straight I've got to say I am impressed with quality of prints. I seriously didn't expect the quality and the speed I'm getting. The other Lawson's printed Ok struggled with white.

It was used, Cheap although not put together so was a risk and from past experience and with this one if you call Lawson the guy isn't very helpful when inquiring about a press always ask for serial then says that's a older press, not much value and tries to sell you a new one. last time I talked to him I said so your saying your older press don't hold any value, may have issues, and just not worth buying....Why the heck would I ever buy a new one then? He hung up on me.

I am in the same boat as far as space. I only have about 18' wall to wall so that limits me on my choices of autos and number of colors. I am looking at the Workhorse Saber 8/10 or maybe a Volt, both around 14' and in our budget.

I think the Lawson salesman got the question he didn't have a answer for. Lol.. But at least you got your set-up dialed in so congrats on that.

 

[mrOscience]

We had been using Union ink for 30 years and recently they have started using a crappy "tuna can" lid to save 5¢. You can't take the lid off or put it back on or even touch it without getting ink on your hands and we cuss at them every day. The company does not return our phone calls so we are switching ink brands to either IC (International Coatings) or One Stroke. Will update.