Author Topic: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing  (Read 387 times)

Offline SkyLinePrints

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Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« on: January 16, 2012, 10:10:45 AM »
i've read quite a bit about discharge printing.  the one thing that strikes me is the long dryer time thats needed.  i've seen up to 3 minutes required in the heat chamber to effectively discharge print.  :o

i'm curious as to how companies with smaller dryers accomplish this?  My dryer has a 10ft heat chamber but to get up to 3 minutes, my production rates would be cut by 2/3.  Are there some tricks others have found that can be shared as to how you maintain proper curing but not dramatically impacting your outputs? 

If the outputs are that slow, this would have a huge impact on final shirt pricing.
Have a great day! :)

Nathan Harrison
Skyline Prints Embroidery & Screen Printing
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Locust Grove, GA 30248
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Offline JBLUE

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Re: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2012, 10:18:40 AM »
I up-charge for WB just for this reason. It takes twice as long to produce a screen, I use a lot more tape, and I have to slow down my dryer as well. I do have forced air but I still have to slow it down to about half speed to get it to cure. Sure the cleanup is easier and a lot faster but I still have the trade off of slowing my dryer down. Until I get a better dryer I have to charge more to make it worth it. I offer WB as a specialty print for this reason.
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Offline SkyLinePrints

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Re: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2012, 11:30:50 AM »
Yeah, that what I was thinking (hoping) most people did.  It sure impacts the output.  I have a forced air dryer too but still...
Have a great day! :)

Nathan Harrison
Skyline Prints Embroidery & Screen Printing
4982 Bill Gardner Pkwy
Locust Grove, GA 30248
(770) 914-1558
www.SkylinePrints.com

Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/skylineprints or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/skylineprints


Offline stitch101

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Re: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2012, 11:39:32 AM »
The reason it takes so long for some discharge to work is you need to evaporate all the water out of the print.
I've used the Wilflex Discharge for plastisol and had to slow my dryer down by not quite half to get it to discharge
properly. You have to watch the heat when you slow your dryer down that slow as well.

So I'm like Jason I up charge discharge printing by double and don't do it unless the customer want to pay.
I also explain to them how environmentally unfriendly it is because of the water based emulsion and the
fact that any leftover ink has to be disposed off and the extra curing time means more electricity to do the job.
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Offline JBLUE

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Re: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2012, 12:01:04 PM »
I will note that if I had a dryer that I did not need to slow down for production of WB goods I would rethink my pricing. Our next upgrade is to a bigger dryer. We have a forced air 48 in wide belt that works pretty good. I should also mention that when we slow it down to half it is because of large ink areas that need a longer cure to evap the water.
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Offline killergraphics

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Re: Discharge/Waterbased Printing and curing
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2012, 01:32:48 PM »
I was in on this discharge and WB puff thing the last time it came around. Late 80's or early '90's can't remember which.

It was a 3 part with one of them being acid or something close. :eek: and the smell was much worse.

Now the one I'm using right now is Union Plasticharge. A little more body than a true WB ink, but will clean up with water. Now explain that?

I Do Not print discharge unless I have to. I want the regularly spotted plastisol ink jobs.

Now that said I ran a job for a contract customer and for wallie world no less. She was hard to Please.

What I had to do was match a DTG sample in hand with a large white background on a orange shirt.

A 2/f/1 screened white sample was turned down for the hand and it was not that much hand to the print.

So off I ran back to today's discharge or My customer had to do 250 orange shirts on his 1 station DGT. Just think about how many days that would be using a double white not to say how much ink.

I'm running a Cincinnati 24" X 16' dryer 10' heat with air that will handle anything I thought at it...the reason I got it and because my last real shop dryer was to big to fit in a 36" door. These are very overlooked dryers and are real workhorses. It has cow rods..like big home oven elements in it and makes a drier heating environment than an IR panel dryer. IMO

So this is what I did.

With the Union PC I did a 2/F/1/F white discharge base in a 158. Then black in a 230. On my press it is always a 2 the first hit or I don't get a smooth base coat and I can't do anything with out that.

Cut the exhaust on the dryer open 1/4 with forced air on to outside air and increased the dryer temp some 10 degrees. I did slow the belt down some but not alot.

It worked well and had great hand. The hardest thing for me is to tell when it is cured or not.

I also do alot of things by smell so once I got back to a hot shirt smell I called it done.

image removed

FYI....I kept the DTG sample and one of my discharge and have washed them 20+ times now.

The discharge has laundered down some but the DTG looks like crap which is no surprise over many washings. I'm big on testing and really like to know what is happening though the life of the shirt.

Now get ready for Puff it will be back this year and for me has never left.  :>i

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