Screen Printers Open - A Forum for Screen Printing and Embroidery

You can mix any PMS color (at least get damn close) with just a few cans of ink. I use red, ultramarine, bright green, lemon yellow, deep purple, magenta, bright blue, orange, black, and white. (all Union inks) Using combinations of these you can mix almost any color your customer wants (you could even get rid of the orange...red and yellow make almost the same color as store bought orange)

Maybe this will be the topic of my next e-book!

Fred -I kinda understand your logic - but I would be PISSED if I asked for a red print on a white shirt and you charged me for a yellow and magenta screen - plus I wouldn't know why- but if your process makes you money - good for you! as for me, I hate process printing - the ink smells funny and it always look like a damn transfer. I'll take a sim process job over 4cp anyday. Maybe I'll send my 4cp to you haha. .

It's funny you say that, i've been thinking of making transfers!

I like selling 5 colors at a time! Don't you?

In order to successfully print process color, EVERYTHING needs to be done correctly! As a professional at anything, it is is not unrealistic to expect that everything can be done correctly! If the results of process color is inconsistent, it is telling you that something is wrong. Learning what those things are and eliminating them as variable improves the quality of every job.

It isn't that process color is in any way "better" than sim process, just that todays artists are growing up in a digital age where few artists are designing for a limited color pallet. With how many printers, such as yourself, shy away from printing process, i believe there must be a market for anyone crazy enough to want to print process.

Homer, with as many years as i expect you will have in the screen printing business, i'd rather push you to learn to print process color than take any work from you. What's the worst thing which could happen, you might learn something? Sim process is like riding a bike with training wheels. Be a big boy! (is it working?)

Don't worry about the smell, in another few years you won't smell anything at all!

fred

ps i'm not sure if it is that i am too aware of color or totally a fool, but i can't mix color to save my life! No matter how close i may get, i can see how far i am away. Worse yet, by the time i'm finished, i'll have created a complete mess! I also lack the experience to know how much ink to mix. Either i mix too much or too little. With CMYK, i can just put extra back in the bucket.

One other thing that's been pointed out before is to measure and record your custom mixes when you do it by the seat of your pants so you can repeat it later. I'm in the middle of a 1600 shirt run using Royal Blue ink. I did the proof using QCM's XOLB Royal on a Gold Shirt. I planned on using Union's Ultrasoft Royal Blue since Tubelight is right up the street. Unfortunately, the ultrasoft ink soaks into the gold, and it comes out noticeably duller, so I used up what I had of the QCM and ordered more. While waiting for the QCM, I had to mix up some ink from my Union Maxopake mixing system. The Union formula to match Maxopake Royal didn't match either the little dab of Maxopake Royal I had, or the QCM ink, so I started with the Mixo Blue G/S as specified and added Cerise to it to get to a Royal Blue that would match the QCM when printed on the gold shirt. It ended up taking about 1/5 of the Cerise that the Union formula called for to match their own Maxopake Royal, which is almost identical to QCM's when printed on the gold shirt. Anywhoo, it saved my ass while I waited for the UPS truck, but I could mix it up again if I needed to and it would be a dead match for the QCM. Bust out that scale!

The QCM XOLB is nice and bright, opaque as shit, and really easy to print. My biggest gripe with Union's Royal Blue is in the Maxopake line . . . I've had to shit-can probably 2 quarts of the stuff because it thickens up so much. Tubelight delivered a quart of it once and I opened it on the spot, and even the delivery driver said it looked like something is wrong with it. I like the ultrasoft inks, but they're too thin to cover anything much but a white shirt without the shirt color affecting the tone.