Metallic Gold
11/02/10 02:46 PM
Looking to experiment with some new colors on your garments? Why not try out a Metallic Gold or Silver. We just started carrying these inks and already see their many advantages. They look great on all sorts of colored garments, and the inks themselves are an ease to print with. Check out our last print job for Liam Ortega’s non-profit “Driven to Move”. We are currently using this ink on a 166 Mesh and the ink coats beautifully on dark garments. Try it out on your next print job and you won’t be disappointed.
Newman Frames
11/02/10 02:29 PM
Isn’t she just a beauty! Yes indeed, this is called a Newman Frame for all of you that are unfamiliar with screen printing frames. These frames have many advantages over static aluminum and wood frames. Here’s a list of advantages.
- When they rip we just put new mesh on it.
- We don’t have to ship frames 2000 miles to have mesh put on them again
- We get the tension we desire for better print results
- We use less ink and emulsion because of the tighter mesh
- We use less energy to print because we can lower our offset from having a tighter mesh
- Standardization - With all our screens set at the same tension we can print with the same results 10 years from now
- We believe in being an eco-friendly business so less waste of materials and not having to ship things out is a good thing!
Wet on Wet with Permaset
09/06/10 06:14 PM
Learning to print wet on wet is a great way to become a quicker and more efficient printer. We print with Permaset Waterbased Inks and have found that they are some of the easiest inks to use. With that being said there are always challenges to using waterbased inks and that’s why we’re here to help others using waterbased inks with some tried and true methods.
To print waterbased inks with a wet on wet approach we recommend that you pre-plan at the artwork stage. Depending on how you setup your artwork, sometimes you may be able to do a true wet on wet approach and sometimes you may have to incorporate the use of a flash dryer. Having a flash dryer set up will insure that the ink is dry enough to prevent ink deposits on the underside of the next screen, and prevent it from pulling ink from your garment. For example, Mt. Denali needed a flash in the attached artwork sample.
If your artwork has multiple colors with no artwork touching and no large prints/deposits of ink then you can do wet on wet with no flash. The reason this works is because as you rotate the shirts through the carousel the ink dries up enough to the point that it doesn’t stick to the underside of your next screen. Please note that you must have an off contact for all your screens!
When printing with Permaset Supercover inks we also recommend the use of a flash because the inks have a heavier deposit compared to the Permaset Standard Inks. We hope this helps in your future wet on wet adventures and please post a comment if you have any questions. Thanks, and good luck!
To print waterbased inks with a wet on wet approach we recommend that you pre-plan at the artwork stage. Depending on how you setup your artwork, sometimes you may be able to do a true wet on wet approach and sometimes you may have to incorporate the use of a flash dryer. Having a flash dryer set up will insure that the ink is dry enough to prevent ink deposits on the underside of the next screen, and prevent it from pulling ink from your garment. For example, Mt. Denali needed a flash in the attached artwork sample.
If your artwork has multiple colors with no artwork touching and no large prints/deposits of ink then you can do wet on wet with no flash. The reason this works is because as you rotate the shirts through the carousel the ink dries up enough to the point that it doesn’t stick to the underside of your next screen. Please note that you must have an off contact for all your screens!
When printing with Permaset Supercover inks we also recommend the use of a flash because the inks have a heavier deposit compared to the Permaset Standard Inks. We hope this helps in your future wet on wet adventures and please post a comment if you have any questions. Thanks, and good luck!
Printing on dark garments with Permaset "Supercover Inks"
07/13/10 10:20 PM
Anybody who has printed with Permaset “Supercover Inks”, at some point has most likely discovered that the ink will eventually dry up in the screen, especially in the middle of a long print run.
Here at Nomadic Stars we print only with Permaset waterbased inks. Permaset has developed inks for both light and dark garments. The inks used for light garments is called “Standard Inks”. The inks for dark garments are called “Supercover Inks”. For printing on dark garments Permaset has also developed a First Down White (FD White). This FD White is used as a base layer that is then printed on top of with “Standard Inks”. What we have discovered is that the “Supercover Inks” and FD White ink dries quickly and thickens over a long print run. This causes two problems.
- The ink dries in our screen so we have to constantly spray/mist with water or stop printing and open the screen up again with a rag and water.
- The ink becomes so thick that our print loses the soft handle that we love about waterbased inks.
Here at Nomadic Stars we have developed a couple techniques that have solved these issues and provided us with the print quality we so desire.
The first thing we have done is completely stopped doing a First Down White print because we prefer to have a softer handle than it offers.
The second step is mixing the “Standard Inks” with the “Supercover Inks”. Please note that the “Standard Inks” and “Supercover Inks” may have slight variances in color. We find that mixing 75% “Standard Inks” with 25% “Supercover Inks” provides us with a great opacity and liquidity that allows us to do longer print runs. For printing white ink on dark garments we mix the “Standard White Ink” with the “First Down White Ink”.
If you would like for your prints to be very bright on darks we recommend doing a print - flash - print. Another recommendation is that you apply ink gradually through out your print run so your ink stays fresh and keeps a nice liquidity to it. Thanks for checking out our blog, we hope this will help in your next print job, Cheers and Good Luck!
