[igalanomati]

I had some t-shirt samples printed with a screenprinter that uses water-based ink, and although the quality of the fabric was good (semicombed, ringspun 100% cotton), after the first wash i noticed an intense case of fibrillation (see attachment). It was black ink on white t-shirt. Now i'm a designer, not a screenprinter so i am not aware of all the little tricks of the screenprinting art, but what can i ask the printer to check if she did her job right? Is it a curing mistake? Could it be a fault of the t-shirt? Would a smoother t-shirt, jersey or 90% cotton-10% elastan, react better ?
cheers
Ioanna

 

[thutch15]

I think it would be a curing issue, waterbase inks do not sit on top of the shirt like plastisol inks. Fibrillation happens when the ink that is suppose to sit on top of the shirt get pushed down into the fibers.

 

[Ace of Spades]

It looks like the red is very faint. The printer may have not had enough squeegee pressure to drive the waterbase ink into the shirt. There could also be a problem with the amount of time the t-shirt was in the dryer tunnel. I've had this happen when the ink didn't get driven in to the shirt ( either pressure or quantity of ink laid down on the garment).

Did you only do one shirt? How are the other shirts?

 

[JakPrintsAPInks]

it could be a number of things. very valid ones as said above. but it could be the quality of the shirt even as well. i have noticed that the waterbased shirts that i personally have have done the same after 1 or two washes. water base ink will get softer and lose some of the brightness as washed. pretty much the nature of the process. why a lot of printers and designers want to use it for the "vintage" look. i have noticed that using a chino base or a fashion soft base with give that soft look people are looking for but hold up a lot longer in brightness on the shirt.

 

[jsf]

Use ink with opacity, the prints you showed are sometimes an effect with the use of transparent base waterbase ink whcih tends to penetrate into the fabric. With the use of an opaque ink, some of the dye may penetrate the fabric but moreover the density/opaqueness of the ink will sit ontop of the fabric.

 

[Dan K]

This is a result of under curing the ink. The shirt did not sit in the heat chamber long enough for all of the water to cook out and set the pigments in the cotton, so when you washed it the first time, some of the pigments that were not set in the fabric washed out. A good water base print yields no fibrillation at all because those little fibers that stick up are also dyed or printed so even though they may be sticking up, you don't notice because they're the color they're supposed to be.

We saw some undercured water based prints from another printer recently and we tested them. One with the fresh print unwashed, next to one with the print washed, next to a 1/2 heat pressed one. On the heat pressed test, we took an unwashed shirt and pressed 1/2 of the design in our heat press for about 20 seconds twice to cook out more moisture and hopefully set the pigments in the fabric further, then we washed it and looked at the results. Sure enough, the heat pressed side was fine, it was a black print on a white shirt, and the side we did not heat press had the issues your shirt has in the pic above, there was a little white fuzz, fibrillation.