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trouble with printing white water base ink

28K views 34 replies 11 participants last post by  shawnkspringhill 
#1 · (Edited)
I'm new to the screen printing world. any help/tips would be appreciated and thank you for the help/feedback. I have not been able to find a consistency in being able to print with white water base ink. with other waterbase ink's like black I have been able to print with them since its really watery/runny.

I am using a manual press 2 color one station, a 70 durometer squeegee, I am using spray adhesive for the shirts to stick to the platen board (even heat them up so glue can be more sticky), I am coating my screens which are 156 with macdermid plus 6000. I have my screen set up so it is 1/8 of an inch away from the platen board and I even put a washer at the end to make sure it stays consistent. The inks I have been using are green galaxy's comet white water base ink ( from ryonet) and permaset opaque white (which I bought from mclogans). Before I even put it on the screen I like to stir/mix it around. I live in los Angeles so weather isn't to bad to use this ink.

I was thinking and next thing I was going to do in a different container to add/mix the white ink and a little bit of water to make it thinner. I don't mind if I have to do extra passes so the shirt wont show. I just want to be able to print using white ink. Has anyone tried this? what are the results of doing this?

I am able to print out 1-3 shirts at the most at times that come out good/decent or not even being able to get one shirt done. the other problems I run into with the shirts are shirt's will lack ink on the shirt, ink not getting on to the shirt in some spots when I make a pass and the screen getting stuck with the shirt.

I have tried a variety of things to be able to succeed but still not able to have that consistency. I have done pull and push strokes but mainly using pull strokes. I feel one of my problems is not knowing how to properly have the pressure for the stroke and the proper angle for the squeegee. I have tried hard and soft pressures and just can not find the right way to print. sometimes when I do a semi-hard stroke the screens gets stuck to the shirt and sometimes it does not.

if it comes out right at times I usually have a spot where it missed ink or lack of ink and ill dry using my heat gun and then do another pass to hopefully get that spot it missed.
2 passes then dry and another two passes is what I do if it gets to this point.

I do have a flash dryer but not enough room to be able to use it to dry my shirts and print at the same time.



any questions or info that will further help please let me know.

thanks -ZPM-
 
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#3 ·
OK flood before you print so flood - print - flood since the patches are where the ink is drying in the mesh.

Load more ink in your screen but first ensure that you have mixed the ink until it is nice and creamy then load ink and flood the screen with ink covering the design, do your stroke no off contact with water based and flood again always keeping the design in the screen covered with ink.
 
#33 ·
Hood says to 'Fill' the screen, not flood it, on thick white ink. That means do a heavy pull with the screen off the shirt......Then he just does one push and it comes out pretty good. Using this ink at present.....it is a challenge .....also need have a thick stencil on the screen to make room for the ink..

z
 
#5 ·
Off-contact/on-contact is all about preference really. I prefer a bit of off contact.

You need to DRIVE wb ink INTO the shirt. Not lay it on top like a plastisol. So..press harder.

I'm in L.A. too and it CAN be tough to print WB here. But with practice and patience you figure it out.

Try adding a bit of water to the ink bucket and giving it a good stir. If the ink is sticking to your ink knife - then it IS going to stick to your squeegee which is going to make flooding much more difficult. ESPECIALLY with high opacity WB inks. Yes, I use PermaSet SC white and Comet White. And many other PS supercover colors as well.

I print pretty much exclusively now with High Opacity WB inks. You are pretty much going to have to do TWO passes on every print on a dark tee. Print/FLASH/Print.

If you do not get even coverage on the first pass, then you need to hit it again. WB is not as forgiving as plastisol, where you can just hit it again to "fill in" any areas.

And you need to flash it before the second pass, that could be one of the reasons why the screen is sticking.
 
#9 ·
You must not be curing it correctly, because I don't have it crack. I mean, I've had test prints crack but it was because of cure time. 320 for 2 minutes on the conveyor, or cheat it a bit at 360 for 90 seconds.

Also, it SHOULD be dying the fibers. You have to drive it down into the shirt. It shouldn't be laying on top like a plastisol at all.

Also, you CAN thin it down a bit and it won't lose opacity at all. You just have to experiment with how much water you add. If you add too much it'll get weird.

But the end result shouldn't be anything like a plastisol print at all. It should be driven down into the garment and after the cure it's like any other WB print. I don't find it much different than printing any other WB ink, like say a black WB ink. Of course it is thicker. But I print them both the same way. Try printing it HARDER when you are doing it. It might just take a bit of adjusting to get the right results.
 
#10 ·
Ok, I will try driving the ink into the shirt more.

I was made a few test prints the other night and they are starting to come out better and the hand is awesome.

I believe in curing them correctly. I turn down my belt speed and lower the temp.

Most of the prints were still cracking after my stretch test. They arnt cracking after the wash test so I know I'm curing the ink correctly.

When I stretch test, the shirt fibers pull apart and I can watch the ink "crack " or "pull apart". Once this happens, the black of the shirt beneath the ink is exposed. The print still looks good, until it's stretched. the slightest pull exposes the black. Even the shirt folded, it separates the fibers and you see vertical pin striping.

Now this didn't happen with every print. Some prints were 90% perfect with some vertical pin striping in random spots, or near edges.


I was p/f/p-ing with the above results. Even pfpfp-ing on a couple of the tests.

Now my question is, how many strokes are you making before flashing?

First I would flood, push stroke, clear screen, flash, repeat. Then I tried multiple flood/push strokes before flashing to get a lot of ink into the shirt before flashing. It seemed to work better for my coverage, but it doesn't seem very time efficient printing with so many strokes vs. 1 stroke, flash, 1 stroke.
 
#11 ·
1. Before you stretch test the print, let it cool a bit, Meaning, if you pull a piping hot shirt off the conveyor and immediately stretch test it, you MIGHT see some cracking. Set it aside for a bit till it's normal temp, let the print cool and then try it. I've seen a HOT shirt crack. Dunno why that is. I mean I think I know. The print - and whatever is in the ink - probably needs a bit of cool down time with high opacity WB inks to cool and "bond" is my guess.

2. How hard are you pulling the garment in order to get it to crack? It sounds almost like you're stretching it like crazy to the point where it will crack no matter what? I always find cracks can happen around the top and the 4 corners. The cracking at the top made no sense, only way I could figure was it was because of the way I was laying the garment on the belt. So I make sure to lay all garment FLAT on the belt. Hoodies are a bit tougher because of the hood - of course. You only need to gently stretch with your thumbs in areas of the print it to see it crack - if it will. If you stretch it as far as your arms can reach, you might get cracking no matter what ink you're using.

3: I've never seen a print crack so much that it leaves the shirt exposed underneath. So either you are stretching too hard. It's still not curing correctly. Or, you are not driving the ink DOWN INTO the garment enough. If you're coming from plastisol, this may be the "hardest" thing to re-teach yourself. Luckily, for me, it wasn't that hard, I always drove plastisol the same way on the first hit anyway to matt down the fibers. Hit it HARD and you will learn how to work it. After I cure a tee, the print looks like it was almost "embossed" or "sunken down" down into the fibers. If that makes sense.

4: As far as p/f/p etc. Again, if you you're coming from plastisol, you can always cheat a plastisol print if you don't get even coverage on the first hit before the flash. Just "fill it in" on the second pass. WB - not so much. You want to make sure your "base coat" is consistent. Sometimes, you MIGHT have to hit it another time before you flash it. That can be due to a number of variables. But most likely it's because you just have to learn and figure out how exactly to work with the ink you're using. And that part usually is learned by repetition.
 
#12 ·
I'm doing some research into wb and thinking of trying it. Something I'm unsure about and that's talked about here is curing. I have a workhorse odyssey conveyor dryer. I cannot control temperature , only speed. Is this going to be a problem when curing? I'm thinking and worried about scorching the shirt when it's in the dryer for 90 - 120 seconds. With plastisol now if I don't have the speed right it can get pretty toasty.
 
#13 ·
If you can raise and lower the heater element, that's the other trick to tweaking the temperatures if you don't have a temperature control I guess.

Matter of fact, I do very few plastisol prints. But I do a couple. Although my dryer does have a temp control, I rarely adjust it much after I set it at the beginning of the day. If I need to print any orders with a plastisol print (I still have a couple designs that use plastisols) then I merely lower the heating element and speed up the belt. When I switch back to WB, I raise the element and lower the belt belt speed.
 
#14 ·
I don't believe I can raise or lower the element. Its a pretty entry level dryer. What I'm thinking I'll have to do is fully open the heat panels at both ends and have a fan blowing through it to help keep the temp down and wb to cure. I'm probably going to get Ryonets green galaxy comet white and black to start, then get the warp cure that allows it to cure at a lower temp. I had a chance to get a vastex dryer for under 1k but didnt pull the trigger. Wish I would have now.
 
#15 ·
Well, where there's a will- there's a way. I used to cure WB on a little Vastex D100. It was a PITA and took a lot of time. But I did it. Although it did have a temp control and you can raise/lower the element.

Point being - you can do it, you just have to figure out how. There's plenty of others who don't even have a conveyor that are curing WB. Now, how much production you do, and how badly it slows you down is another thing.

If it's gonna be a real time consuming thing, you may want to flash them dry - not even turn on the conveyor - and stack them. When you're done printing, turn on the conveyor and batch cure them - one after another. You may not need to do that though. That's how I did it with the D100.

The Ryonet WB inks are good. I've never used the warp drive personally so I'm not sure how it would affect things. For most dark stuff, especially 50/50 I use Supercover. Only thing I would use warp drive for is 50/50 and the Supercover needs no additives for that. Plus many more high opacity colors.
 
#16 ·
The Ryonet WB inks are good. I've never used the warp drive personally so I'm not sure how it would affect things. For most dark stuff, especially 50/50 I use Supercover. Only thing I would use warp drive for is 50/50 and the Supercover needs no additives for that. Plus many more high opacity colors.
I'm not completely sold on Ryonet's WB, but had not heard of Permaset - is that what you use? Only thing I don't see is the curing instructions on their product pages - scratch that, it's at the bottom. From the reviews they look really promising and I like their color ranges. Can I ask what emulsion you are using and have had the best luck with? I use SAATI photopolymer right now, but am thinking of just switching to a hybrid for plastisol and WB.

Last question (of this reply): Is it important that I have really good ventilation? From what I understand with WB it's just water vapor that's in the air. I do this in my basement. If I was doing discharge I'd for sure have to make some improvements. My conveyor dryer does have a vent out the top that I have going out a window vent, but I question how much that will actually take up, especially if I have a fan at the entry of the dryer to speed up the cure.
 
#17 ·
The Ryonet WB is fine as far as the dark colors, and I actually really like the Comet White. It works well on dark hoodies and other dark stuff. It covers real well. I'm not a Ryonet fanboy, the exact opposite really. But I will give them their credit on the ink. Now, why they do not make any other high opacity WB inks in other colors...I do not know.

Having said that, the PermaSet is better (to me) as far as overall print quailty and more versatile, but the Supercover is more expensive. The regular Aqua for light garments is about the same price as the regular colored Ryonet WB though.

I use mostly PermaSet SuperCover. Saati PHU emulsion (pre-sensitized) with a reclaimable stencil hardener. PHU is good for water base if you do a good post expose. But the stencil hardener helps because the issues of stencil breakdown are when you wash it out in the sink.

Dunno what type of work you do though. If you're doing print jobs, you might be able to skip the hardener. If you're doing your own stuff, like I do, and you don't reclaim stuff a ton, then those screens are (hopefully) going to see hundreds and thousands of washouts, clog removal, whatever. And you don't want to bork your stencil up.

Cure times on WB is all pretty much the same. You can cheat it a bit at 360 for 90 seconds. But you don't want to go hotter than that, or you may get brittle prints which will crack over time.

Water based ink contains ammonia - and whatever else - I wouldn't necessarily want to huff it for a ton of time. My shop doesn't have great ventilation. But I do have the dryer vented out the wall. And I have a "back door" I keep open all the time. And I'm ok.
 
#18 ·
Thanks for all the info! I also have Saati PHU and didn't realize it could be used for WB until you mentioned it. That's really nice as I have my exposure down pretty well and like it. Is there a general rule of thumb for a post-exposure? I usually keep it on there for about a minute. After reading on Saati's site it looks like I can do it even longer than the initial exposure. My screens are usually good around the 1:45 mark. What hardener do you use?

I won't be doing too much of my own stuff and will likely be doing runs of 25-100's for print jobs. I'd like to do my own stuff someday, but my market is very, very small. Selling online wouldn't be a problem, and am good with web design, it's just the time and money spent getting out there and connecting with the consumers.
 
#19 · (Edited)
After I wash out the screen, I usually sit my screens outside in the sun for a couple hours, I usually will flip them over once so each side gets to sun bathe a bit.

I know that's probably not necessary and overkill, but that is what I do. I usually won't use a screen once it's exposed until the next day or so, to ensure it's thoroughly dried out all the way through. Unless of course, I'm making an emegency screen - then all bets are off. :)

I usually like to let them dry laying flat. Like...put the screen between two chairs and lay them out that way. So no emulsion etc runs into the open stencil. Just to be safe.

As far as hardener - Kiwo WR which is a hardener made for water base and it is reclaimable.

Once I've done my post exposure ritual thing. I take a sponge, pour some of the hardener on (wear gloves) and wipe down each side of the screen. I'll either keep it out in the sun for a bit longer, or I'll leave it in the shop overnight if its too late in the day by the time I do it.

Also, I prefer to post expose in sunlight because I feel it really dries the stencil much better. Although it's not always possible for obvious reasons. If that's the case, I usually will post expose on the exposure unit for a good while. Like 15 minutes or something, then flip it over - then set it aside and let it dry really well (overnight) and do the hardener. Again, THAT's probably overkill too. But it's nothing really inconvenient, and I'm OCD.

PS - if you're doing jobs, then whether or not you use a hardener is something you may want to feel out. You might not need it if those screens are going to be reclaimed and re-used pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you're getting started with WB it may not be a bad idea to use it until you get a feel on how to deal with any possible clogs, etc.

Also if you will be cataloging a screen with WB for more orders down the line for a customer, I would probably recommend adding a hardener. Just to be safe. YMMV.

There's a chance with PHU that you may never need a hardener. But I have had stencils go nutty when washing them out - PHU included. And it always happens at the very worst time.
 
#20 ·
Ok.... I am stepping in on this post and if I need to start somewhere else I can...
I am new to water based inks and have a lot of questions for Porkchopharry because he is experienced and has some awesome points! Please help me with where my process could be wrong and offer advice where needed. I catalog my screens as you do (no special orders) they are my designs.
1. I have someone make my screens and they are either 180 or 220 mesh
2. I have tried many of my screens (none have worked) the water based ink (Enviroline) literally runs down the back side of my screen like water which puts big blots of ink on the garments
3. I use a conveyor dryer with a fan for 2 minutes to reach a temp of 300-310 with a temp gun
4. In your experience what is the best shirts to use for water based inks (I have Next level, American Apparel, Tultex etc...) and which fabric blend...I want to go with ONE brand that works best for water based ink to just go ahead and weed out that one problem because my line of clothing depends on consistency
5. you use Permaset inks and I can only find those in the UK...

Basically, I have read many many many of your posts and you have an awesome handle on water based inks and printing and I am using all of your points to hopefully help minimize more mistakes for me in the future. Thanks in advance and keep up the great work.

Rhonda
 
#22 ·
Ryonet sells co-branded Matsui as Enviroline. I printed discharge with it (same exact base and pigments just with the addition of the discharge activator). I use 156 screens and had no problems with the ink bleeding through.

How much pigment are you adding? The pigment is pretty runny; you should be putting in at most 10% by weight, as per the instructions ... AH! Think I got it. On the label does it say 301 PC? If so, we just found your problem. PC is just pigment solution, not a premixed ink. You must mix the 301 PC pigment with ink base, which is thick. Premixed ink is labeled as 301 RC.

If that is not what is going on, then it sounds like your ink is bad.
 
#21 ·
You can get PermaSet here in the U.S. just google. It's here. Number of places carry it in pints, quarts, gallons and 4 gallon containers.

I'm not sure what the "best" brand of garment is. That's all very subjective. Whenever I say anything about printing, I'm always referring to AA. It is all I use. Mostly 100% cotton but I do offer a few designs on 50/50. AA works best for ME, because...I like it, and I have built a dedicated and loyal core of customers who like it too. When they purchase a tee or hoodie, etc from me, they know it's on AA.

But again, all subjective to your likes/dislikes, what you charge per garment, etc.

I'm not familiar with Enviroline, is that the older Ryonet stuff? Regardless, it shouldn't be running down the back of your screen no matter what brand. Are you sure you are not flooding too hard?

I use 180 pretty much exclusively, a small percentage of 200, one or two 230's and I even use one or two 156-160's none have issues with inks running down the back. Make sure you mix your ink real well too before you are using it.

How are you using a fan with your conveyor? You don't want it blowing into the tunnel from one of the ends IMHO. And your cure time if you are around 300-310 needs to be longer than 2 minutes. 2-3 minutes at 320. You can cheat it a tad and go to 360 but not much higher, for 90 seconds. At 300 degrees you might be needing 4+ minutes per garment to cure.

PS - I'm not sure if I'm THAT knowledgable about this stuff. I just switched to WB one day from plastisol and I had orders to fulfill. I had no choice really but to figure it out fast! :) I still learn something new every day.

#1 rule to printing WB? DON'T PANIC!
 
#23 ·
Well I just looked and all of the Enviroline that I have say 301 RC. LOL! I have just wasted a lot of expensive pigment trying to figure out why it was dripping through my screen. Thank you so much!

I would still like some answers to the other problems/questions that I had if anyone wouldn't mind.

Rhonda
 
#26 ·
This one has regular and Supercover versions of Permaset:
Permaset Aqua :: Water Based Screen Printing Inks

This one only has Supercover, but pricing might be a little better--depending on what size you want (they also have premixed RC Matsui):
Waterbase Ink : McLogan Supply Company

If you are printing light ink on dark shirts, then Supercover is something to investigate, as you can avoid having to print an underbase or using discharge (which works great but may not be as safe to work with everyday). If you print dark ink on light shirts, then you can use pretty much anything.

As to shirts, American Apparel has a fine and tight weave without a lot of random fibers sticking up, so it could take a finely detailed print well. I also use Hanes Beefy-T because from the customer perspective the fit and weight of the shirt is usually what matters most and different people like different fit and weight of shirt. Both have good brand recognition and are considered premium brands. Still, lots and lots of Gildan shirts are sold and cost you half as much ... Other than shirts with lots of stray fibers, you can print regular (non discharge) ink on anything and get good results. It's really a matter of what styles you want to offer and the fitment preferences of your customers. Uhm, though some inks require special additives if used on synthetic blends to avoid dye migration (Permaset does not).
 
#32 ·
This was a great post! read the entire thing. I'm bias here as well as I started my business 4 months ago and never have used plastisol. To me the tipping factor was the ability to clean everything with just water. dealing with all the chemicals of plastisol was a big deterrent for me. I have done dark garments with Comet White and gotten away with 2 passes no flash most of the time on 200 count screens. It really looks better if you do pass/flash/pass but for faded looks and most underbase, one good hit is good enough.
 
#35 ·
This ole thread inspired me to go play with Comet White, i needed add a good bit of water to get it printable. As it was like marshmellow fluff it instantly clogs screens. Has to be thinned down in my case. I like Matsui stretch White myself. P/F/P and the feel is very soft and stretchable with no cracking ever.
 
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