White Spots on Design....AFTER heat curing

4186 Views 11 Replies 11 Participants Last post by dazzabling, Nov 10, 2011

BadMoodMoose

Discussion Starter · Jun 23, 2010

Here is yet another in my long line of "What The Hell Is Wrong With This Thing?" questions. Ready?

I saw other threads with this subject but nothing seemed to come up with a final answer.

After getting a nice clean print, I put the 100% cotton shirt in the heat for 120 seconds at 340. When the 2 minutes are up, the white smudges you see below are on the shirts...

I guess its been happening for a while but I never really realized it.

Am I using too much pre treat? Too little?
Is it staying on the heat for too long? Too little?

I'm pretty sure its not the paper peeling off but I cant think of anything else. I'm using the 'correct' inks and pretreat as recommended as well.

I used to keep the printer in the hot garage in Florida (where it EASILY gets up to 85 degrees) and I thought maybe that was an issue. Not the case. Now its in an air conditioned room (a nice crisp fat guy friendly 66 degrees) and it still happens.

I havent had any complaints from anyone about it but if I see it obviously they can as well.

Thanks for the help!

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JeridHill

· #2 · Jun 23, 2010

This would be from fibers sticking up prior to printing.

Can you explain your pretreatment process? It could be that (most likely), or the type of shirt you are using.

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TahoeTomahawk

· #3 · Jun 23, 2010

It could be:

Not Enough Pre-Treat
Not Enough pressure on the Heat Press to cure the Pre-Treat
Using the Heat Press directly to cure the Pre-Treat instead of parchment / silicon or teflon sheets.

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FatKat Printz

· #4 · Jun 23, 2010

I agree..

explain your pretreat process

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vinyl signs

· #5 · Jun 23, 2010

You need to:

1.) you need to research the processes that have been discussed here many times!

2.) explain the process that you used to create these

3.) experiment on your style of pretreating to get the correct amount and a consistent process of achieving it!

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zhenjie

· #6 · Jun 24, 2010

Brush the fibres down with a foam brush/roller after you have sprayed it with pretreat. Then pretreat with a good amount of pressure. That should help.

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FatKat Printz

· #7 · Jun 24, 2010

we use the Shurine foam brush (blue handle yellow foam) .. Walmart

it gets the pretreat into the fibers.

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DansDTG_Ts

· #8 · Jul 12, 2010

BadMoodMoose said:
Here is yet another in my long line of "What The Hell Is Wrong With This Thing?" questions. Ready?

I saw other threads with this subject but nothing seemed to come up with a final answer.

After getting a nice clean print, I put the 100% cotton shirt in the heat for 120 seconds at 340. When the 2 minutes are up, the white smudges you see below are on the shirts...

I guess its been happening for a while but I never really realized it.

Am I using too much pre treat? Too little?
Is it staying on the heat for too long? Too little?

I'm pretty sure its not the paper peeling off but I cant think of anything else. I'm using the 'correct' inks and pretreat as recommended as well.

I used to keep the printer in the hot garage in Florida (where it EASILY gets up to 85 degrees) and I thought maybe that was an issue. Not the case. Now its in an air conditioned room (a nice crisp fat guy friendly 66 degrees) and it still happens.

I havent had any complaints from anyone about it but if I see it obviously they can as well.

Thanks for the help!

Try setting your heat press to 330 degrees, & press the shirt twice at 60 seconds for each press. Set the pressure at about 5-6 lbs, if you have a digital display that shows how much pressure you are using like the Stahls STX 20 heat press. If you don't have a display set your pressure so you have to close the press with moderate pressure. See if this helps and make sure you are using enough pretreat to get shirt moist but not wet. We also use coated kraft paper on top of the print and I flip the paper between presses. Hope this helps...

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Don-ColDesi

· #9 · Jul 12, 2010

Make sure you are not using the same sheet to post press with as you used to press the pre-treatment.

You can also try setting the pre-treatment in two stages, one with parchment or butcher paper followed by a quick press with teflon or no paper for 10-15 seconds to stick donw any fibers that may have pulled up when the sheet was removed.

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misscyrs

· #10 · Nov 4, 2011

My husband has been doing most of the printing the past 5 years. I've always helped out, but didn't start taking over the business myself until about 3 months ago.

These white blotches drive me CRAZY and make me cringe! It's not every shirt, though. Some come out beautiful, some look terrible.

I feel like I don't over-pretreat or under-pretreat. Cook the shirts with a Teflon sheet after spraying for about 10 seconds at 340. After doing a white layer, I check it to make sure there aren't fibers sticking up. If there are, I gently push them down with parchment paper.

After that I keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Most of the time, everything looks fine right out of the kiosk... it's after curing with the press.

The most frustrating part of direct to garment for me is inconsistent prints.

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adrenaline

· #11 · Nov 10, 2011

Waht brand of shirts are you using there? They look very Ribby and loose in the weave? or is it just the close up shoot? As Don said try a double press.

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dazzabling

· #12 · Nov 10, 2011

Printer?
Ink?
Pretreat brand?

Pretreat cure times?
Ink cure times?

How old is the paper?

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