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What is fiber fibrillation?

8105 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Steve12Lowry, 
L
...and what causes it?
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T
What is "fibrillation" and how do you control it?
"Fibrillation" occurs when yarn fibers come through the ink film after washing. Certain types of yarns are more prone to fibrillation than others. How do you control it? Make sure you properly cure the inks and consider using a slightly coarser mesh count. More ink will be deposited which will help minimize the effect.
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Ah...thanks!
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forward dc
also, be sure to cure your underbase to the gel point but not further (160-220 degrees). if you overcure your underbase then you may cause some premature fibrillation by cooking some of the fibers up out of the inks surface resulting in a furry print.

we recommend printing waterbase inks on garments that have a lot of surface fibers (ringspun cotton) so that you can dye those fibers with the ink color and minimize the fibrillation effect.
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Yes...this is more what I was wondering about. Wasn't sure if the furry print after flashing was the same thing or not, but apparently it is.

I've had this problem before and tried a harder print stroke thinking it would flatten out the fibers, but doesn't really help much that I can tell.

Thanks again.
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dezignermann
Fibrillation on Tultex 65/35 Blend

Having fibrillation problems printing on Tultex 65/35 heather navy shirt. (I am the client.) Our printer is using 2 hits of white Rutland plastisol base, then matte down, then 2 hits of light blue (sky area) on 225 mesh, flash, then remainder of colors. Latest run used polyester ink which helped a bit. This is a great printer we use for most of our t-shirts, but this is first time we are using Tultex 65/35. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!
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Re: Fibrillation on Tultex 65/35 Blend

dezignermann said:
Having fibrillation problems printing on Tultex 65/35 heather navy shirt. (I am the client.) Our printer is using 2 hits of white Rutland plastisol base, then matte down, then 2 hits of light blue (sky area) on 225 mesh, flash, then remainder of colors. Latest run used polyester ink which helped a bit. This is a great printer we use for most of our t-shirts, but this is first time we are using Tultex 65/35. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!
View attachment 243169
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Put the smoothing screen in head #1 and matte down the shirt before any printing.
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