Screen Printers Open - A Forum for Screen Printing and Embroidery

Assuming we get our screens done tonight, we are printing on a royal blue 50/50 hooded sweat shirt and t shirt.  The ink colors are gold and white.  Any suggestions?  Our ink brand is union ink, and I think I saw speedball ink too, I need to look at that again.  In the white i saw a maxopake and a ultrasoft.  I forgot to look at the gold.  If I don't like the color of gold, can I mix it with other colors until I get a desired color?

We did a test run on the white last night on a blue shirt and we used the maxopake.  We did one coat, flash cured for 15 and did a second coat, flash cured for 25 sec ... Does that sound about right?  I forgot to bring a shirt home to wash it and make sure the ink stayed on.

I think it is a flash dryer.  It is a large flat box on a stand with an element in bottom that you swivel out over the shirts.  The white did not bleed on the test shirts .  Will they bleed during wash?

Flash time will depend on your flash dryer and how high it is off the pallet. Mine is a 18 X 24 about 1.5" off the garment and will flash an under base in 5 sec.
For a good flash you need a temperature of about 230 to 280 deg F depending on the ink. It should fell dry to the tough but still be spongy if you poke your finger nail in it.

Thanks for the input!  I called union ink and we don't have a white for a poly blend ... ours was for cotton only.  They told me to get diamond white for poly/cotton blend.

When you say it will be hard to get the sweats cured and not make them shiny (scorch) ... is that because we are using a flash cure dryer or because we don't have a temp gun yet? 

I will head to amazon and look for a temp gun ... will any do? 

I noticed the speed ball ink was shoved to the back and unopened.

Our flash dryer is about 18 x 25 also and sits about 2" above the shirts.  They do feel 'spongy' but dry when we get done flash curing them.  So much to learn!!

When talking about curing ink Flashing and Curing are two different things so you don't get the wrong info just use the term Flash or flashing when talking about
flashing
and Curing or Full cure when talking about the final curing of the ink. Another tip is if your have to use your flash to cure your shirts do it on an ironing board or something
like. If you are flashing and curing your shirts on the pallet you will warp the pallets in a very short time and warped pallets are no good to peint on

What Johnny(killergraphics) is talking about is you can heat up a sweat shirt very fast with a flash dryer and it will become shinny where it was under the flash dryer
You would be saving up for conveyor dryer ASAP.  You can control your curing time a lot better with a conveyor and 50/50 and 100% cotton cure at different rates. 

Wow!  I googled a conveyor dryer ... the school bauked at buying coreldraw for me, ... I don't think they would even consider the conveyor dyrer.  I do not like the idea of not turning out a quality product, but I think for now I don't have an option.  I will suggest to the school that we can't sell any of the products, because we can't control quality.  I don't want my name on something that isn't a good product!

I read a few articles that say you can't cure ink with a flash dryer ... some said it would wash out later, some said it would scorch ... Is there anything else I can do? 

Heat gun Yes that one will work it reads over 500 deg F.

The conveyor dryer will save the school money in the long run if they plan on selling shirts. Mine has an 8 ft curing tunnel and will do 400 shirt/phr
But I can see your dilemma trying to convince a school that spending money is making money in the long run.

Heat presses they are like any thing else you get what you pay for. the cheap one will work but who know for how long.
This is the one my wife and I just bought to replace our old clam style. http://www.stahls.com/fusion-heat-press
The slide out pallet work great and really speeds doing numbers and names on jersey but would be a little over kill for what you need.

Doing the print you described on royal shirts you will need to under base the whole design then flash most likely print the white under base again
flash then print the top color in this case gold. Then take the shirt off the pallet and put it on a table or ironing board and do the final cure.

If your gold is High Opacity Gold ink you may get away with out under basing the gold





 

I might know how to put a print on a shirt !  I have printed 3 different designs on shirts now, they look good.  But I am finding out quickly that just getting it on there looking good isn't done, they might bleed later or wash out.  I have not done a two color yet ... maybe I should put my design up here and have the people here tell me the correct way.

I agree, I will not guarantee it won't wash out.  I think will post my current project and supplies, and take instruction from whoever wants to offer it ...