t shirt printing cornwall » Speciality inks

Port Eliot 2010 T shirt.

Steve — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:15:54 +0000

This weekend Port Eliot Festival plays host to a huge variety of creative talent, and as usual there seems to be something of interest for everyone.

Unfortunately for Advertees a consequence of this event is that we lose a highly valued member of staff for the duration. Our genius admin (who keeps everything here running in an orderly fashion) will be camped out at the Festival, no doubt enjoying everything the Elephant Fayre has to offer, and this could mean our efficiency levels for Friday this week and Monday next, could be effected. And while Admin take a wild swim, watch bands, films, talks and readings, we will do our upmost to leave desks, computers and phones exactly as we found them.

Tickets are still available at the gate, and we, or rather admin@advertees, can vouch for the pure magic of this festival.

And of course, don’t forget to take a look at the beautiful T shirts, a simple yet extremely effective design. and soft feel water based screen printing as pictured top.

Soft feel T shirt prints and foil

Steve — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:07:18 +0000

When screen printing Mixed Martial Arts T-shirts soft prints are nearly always a requirement. Screen printed foils are currently a common request.

So we are now offering foils using a phthalate free adhesive, when used in combination with waterbased inks no foil resist additives are required, the additional heat pressing also adding some colour intensity to discharge prints. It has taken some time to get the correct screen mesh, pre curing, heat press pressures, temperatures and pressing times correct, but we now seem to have relatively quick production time and a consistent final result.

T shirt printing by advertees

Screen Printing foil on T-shirts

Steve — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:39:16 +0000

Advertees will finally introduce foil to the range of screen printing techniques on offer, just a few more trial runs using different screen meshes and pressing times and we are good to go. This is not the most environmentally friendly technique as foils are supplied on a carrier which is discarded, but the effect is not one which can be achieved by any printing inks we have tried so far, and as the number of requests we recieve about foils has grown in recent years, we thought it was time to give it a proper try out. The technique is very well suited to our set up and is ideal for printing alongside water based inks.

Our first try out was using gold foil as part of a rough raster graphic, to see the effect of cracks, splatters and half tones. The details came up well, and therefore screen printing has obvious benefits over the cad cut foils. The process was certainly not as time consuming as we had anticipated.

So our first impressions are good. Our next graphic will be a vector graphic. Clean edges and a super smooth finish is no doubt a harder look to master, but we are confident this will be achieved very soon. The only real problem we had was trying to photograph the print for this blog, this design was printed on an ocean blue Gildan Ultra, but the foil has played havoc with the camera, hence the sky blue and other variants on display here.

Foils and glue are available from Textile and graphics

e mail: textileandgraphics@yahoo.co.uk

Tel:+44 116 253 0090

Web: http://www.textileandgraphics.co.uk

good advice available on all products supplied.

Growing interest in water based screen printing.

Steve — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:41:58 +0000

Slowly there is a growing awareness to the advantages of a water based screen print. Customers are also showing a certain amount of understanding regards its limitations, and prefer to be flexible in their requirements rather than lose the obvious benefits of a soft dyed in the cotton print.

The more use we make of water-based inks, the more we realise some of the benefits offered from a production point of view. In the first 2 months of 2010 we have seen significant growth in customer enquiries specific to water based inks (and surprisingly further enquiries from fellow screen printers) .

This is an incredibly positive start to the year, even to leave the environmental benefits out of the equation, screen printing with these products sees added customer satisfaction and a very high rate of return custom. Many of the prominent online T shirt printers have now stated they offer this service, lets hope this continued growth in interest and use of water based inks will lead to faster product development, and availability.

Formaldehyde Free discharge printing on T-shirts

Steve — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:01:52 +0000

Screen printing light colours on to dark T shirts is unlikely to become environmentally friendly any time soon (our recommendation to anyone who has a strict environmental policy is to print on to lighter T-shirts using clear water based inks) but discharge screen printing is one of the options being touted as a better alternative to plastisol inks. The majority of manufacturers supply a solution which contains small traces of Formaldehyde, they also uses heavy metals. These formulas are notorious for their unpleasant odours, and the required wash before wear label is a no no for most retailers.

Magnacolours have produced an alternative to these products, a discharge ink free from Formaldehyde and heavy metals. The NF formula performs very well, t-shirts printed with this ink can be worn immediately, the print has a soft hand and good colour. We have used then when printing by hand and on the auto, they are very user friendly in both situations. The draw backs are the same as those experienced when using products that use Formaldehyde . Very long curing times are required (but no flash curing, so not necessarily less energy efficient), and we think there is also an unpleasant odour, despite the manufacturer claim “No harmful or distracting odors in the workplace”.

The ink only has a limited life of 4 hours, but an organised workshop should have no problem dealing with this. The lifespan of the ink does create waste, if ink use cannot be determined accurately. We think discharge is not a suitable solution for smaller orders.

So overall the Non Formaldehyde inks seem to be the right choice when discharging T-shirts.

Some of the reasons to choose NF discharge.

• No formaldehyde added during discharge process.
• No harmful or distracting odors in the workplace.
• Garments can be worn immediately after printing-without washing or warnings.
• Super soft finish with excellent color fastness and durability.
• PVC, Phthalate and APEO free formulations. Meets all key international environmental
standards, see Technical Data Sheets for details.
• Superb discharge and color development on suitable garments.
• PC color mixing system support.
• Low viscosity inks print easily on manual and automatic presses.

Gas dryer for water based screen printing

Steve — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:22:55 +0000

Our new, or not quite so new gas dryer, is finally up and running. It is not pretty, and took far more time than expected to install (Finding a gas fitter for commercial appliances in Cornwall at short notice was not an easy task) but once fired up all was well, a serious amount of work to catch up on now, thanks to all those customers who were willing to wait a while. February and March are the months we usually consider safe to make all the big changes to our print shop, but this year has been our busiest yet. Water based printing on Tshirts will require no catalysts or cross linking, a full 3 minutes of hot air will render all designs wash fast. Thanks also to Acland Plant for putting it through our workshop doors.

Discharge screen print for UTC

Printing Hoodies: 6 colour spot separation

Steve — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:55:34 +0000

A nice colourful design came through this week for Celefest. Initially this job was more than 6 colours, a little reworking made the design more affordable but had little effect on the impact of the design. Printed entirely in opaque water based inks, the colours were all underbased with yellow, as there is no white in the design. Curing a waterbase print like this is no easy matter, especially when printing hoodies as more ink is put down, so we gave the finished design a little heat pressing to make sure.

Metallic inks, screen printing

Steve — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:13:16 +0000

More metallic inks are added to the our range, we are currently experimenting with new binders and pastes from Grafco. Such was the response to our new gold ink solutions, we are now taking a look at copper and aluminium pastes. Straight out of the pot they look great and we look forward to incorporating them into designs. New water based binders are available too which should enable us to achieve subtle differences in the final result. All we need now is a little time for research and development, the new year has started well and some experiments may to be put on hold as we only have a couple of months before we enter the T shirt printing season.

Large and oversize T shirt designs

Steve — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:37:02 +0000

For any design up to 14×16 inches most screen printers will have no problems or restrictions, however, all over T shirt designs and large T shirt designs can be problematic. They are now becoming more popular than ever, but without the correct and very expensive machinery such as belt printers, they are very difficult to achieve. Large format autos and belt printers have high set up costs and very high minimum orders to match. So how does a small label get their designs printed the full length of the shirt? Advertees is presently looking at solutions for smaller labels, and the above design is one of our largest prints to date, printed by hand in one colour only (avoiding seams) the results were good, it uses a discharge water based ink for a soft hand, as plastisol ink over such a large area of the shirt would have unsatisfactory and uncomfortable results. We will look at various templates for inserting inside the shirt when printing which could allow for better registration and the addition of colours to designs, it would also allow us to get closer to the seams of the t shirt.

More Cheerleaders T shirts

Steve — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:03:54 +0000

In the space of a couple of months we have printed two cheerleading T shirt designs, this is up on the previous 30 years, in which time we printed absolutely zero. We are interested to know if this is a sudden surge in cheerleadings popularity in the UK, or this type of work has just been passing us by? Both designs made use of metallic inks, Razzle dazzle made use of the excellent waterbased binder and gold metal flakes from Grafco. The designs are often American old school in style, and lend themselves perfectly to screen print, nice solid areas of colour which do not require super tight registration.

Fluorescent T Shirt Printing

Steve — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:49:45 +0000

Now classed as a retro look, fluorescent T Shirt Printing is synonymous with the 80’s. It is not a regular customer request, but now and again it crops up. The key to a good quality fluoro prints is underbasing, the pigments are not very opaque and a good white background is essential. For the T shirt print in the above image we put down 2 whites before printing the fluorescent green and magenta, the colours consist of an opaque water based binder with 10% pigment. Good quality pigments are always advisable.

Cromatex 2000 is made by Grafco and supplied by Screening West

This job was printed on organic T shirts from Okarma, and printed using water based products. Geeks in the basement was produced for a competition winner and will be flown out to Oz! So although these T shirts are printed using environmentally sound methods, the air miles clocked up by them will make a nonsense of it. First and last time we ship this far I am sure.

Discharge printing textiles and T-shirts

Steve — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:30:38 +0000

Discharge screen printing is one water based solution for light prints on dark clothing or textiles. It ticks the environmental printing boxes, but it is not without it’s limitations. Firstly we would not use this method for printing orders of less than 50 T shirts, the reason being the ink has a shelf life of less than 24 hours when mixed, this means there is waste on small orders or in a situation where ink use cannot be predicted accurately. Ideally we like to see print runs of 100+ for this process. Another draw back is in its ability to reproduce accurate colour across a range of different materials, discharge ink is a bleaching agent which when combined with pigments will colour the shirt, unfortunately the underlying colour of the garment to be printed is rarely white and will affect the final print, the underlying cotton colours that are most often found are pale blue, pale cream, pale pink, all will have a grey tone to them. Quite often black T shirts can be stock that has been re-dyed, so a T shirt may have been coloured red originally and later changed to black, a batch such as this can be problematic when using the discharge system.

It is not possible to use discharge printing on synthetic materials, an 80% cotton content would be the minimum requirement in our opinion. True whites are hard to achieve, and good bright reds are also very difficult to make permenant and these are things to consider when designing for this process. Greens yellows and blues are bright and permanent. Although an organic solution for screen printers discharge printing will need a wash before wear label.
Despite all the draw backs of this technique there are some circumstances where it excells, the final print has no discernable texture to it after the first wash and can be ironed over.

Printing detail on a pique knit polo shirt

Steve — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:02:30 +0000

A pique knit polo can present problems on very detailed prints, to fill the holes in the weave with ink and maintain good edges is tricky. We find, as ever, that water based inks are a good solution. The very nature of water based ink allows for both an even and opaque print, without losing the edges. A plastisol ink has a tendency to sit on top of the fibres of the shirt, there is no absorbtion of the ink and as a result the plastisol may want to spread out when trying to fill the holes in the knit. This can result in very tiny details filling in entirely, below and above is a close up view of water based printing of a detailed design, its ability to cling to and shrink around fibres makes a big difference in retaining all detail.

Glow in the dark T shirt print

Steve — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:41:41 +0000

Glow in the dark ink is a combination of a pigment (looking like a strange planet in the picture above) and a binder, either plastic or water-based binders can be used. For the best results the ink needs to be printed through a coarse mesh to allow the large phosphorescent particles to pass through the screen. It is also advisable to put down a very good white base as an under-print.

This T shirt design by Simon Allan makes great use of this technique.

You can purchase the angler fish T shirt from Nogunarmy.com plus many more excellent designs.

T shirt printing special effects

New T shirts and Hoodies from the Rebus Collective

Steve — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:35:00 +0000

“The Number One Cornish clothing label” The Rebus Collective release new Screen printed T shirts and Hoodies. Rebus love their Graffiti, Hip Hop and street clothing. This collective of DJ’s, artists and writers are responsible for some seriously interesting happenings in Cornwall, the likes of which we have rarely seen before. Beat boxes, break dancing and graffiti alive and kicking in Cornwall.

Hoodies printing

Water based T shirt Printing part 3

Steve — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:24:54 +0000

For a long time the majority of what Advertees knew about using waterbased inks for screen printing was based on our own experience, and what little information we are able to glean from on line sources, and speaking with other screen printers who have some experience with them. But recently we were able to obtain a wealth of knowledge, and a better understanding, with the help of Grafco ink suppliers Screening West. Grafco are an Italian ink manufacturer who supply waterbased and plastisol textile inks to some of the top fashion names in Europe, we asked their UK representative Massimo, who is also an expert in all things prepress, to give us some of his thoughts on the benefits of water based T shirt printing.

Too many good reasons for textile water based inks

by Massimo of Screening West

Plastisol inks are practical but.
Any printer who is confident in printing with textile water based inks does not find any good reasons to use plastisol inks, except perhaps, when the printer has finished the water based inks in his storage. The solution to the problem of waterbased inks, is to become confident with water based inks.

Water based inks are also less expensive and for many printers

Plastisols can be left in the screen, and with the can open, so printers can be lazy, they can stop their productions for a cigarette. When using water based inks it is better to start the production and finish it (although there are several kind of retarders and many tricks in order to avoid the screen clogging).
Water based inks are not for lazy printers but for practical business textile printers. This is also the case for any graphic screen printer.

A better print quality brings greater rewards

It is possible to recognize two-three kind of markets for textile screen printing: promotional, fashion-promotional, fashion.

Promotional can be done with plastisol, fashion-promotional with plastisols too (but possibly with water based inks for the final printing quality), fashion is printed almost entirely with water based inks in order to achieve the final printing quality, plastisols have a “look” and for high fashion plastisol printing does not help to sell the printed fabrics at higher prices.
A T-shirt for promotional can cost 5 pounds, for promotional-fashion can cost up to 20-25 pounds, for fashion up to 50 pounds or more with the Armani, D&G, Versace or many other brands on. It would seem that it would be possible to catch more business (£££) with water based productions than with the plastisol productions. Also the promotional prints can be made with water based inks, especially as the standard water based inks are less expensive.

A non water based culture of screen printing in the UK

In UK it is rare to talk about water based inks, there is very little in the way of waterbased screen printing culture or manufacture (we are not saying no culture) the UK T shirt printing industry has focused all development time and budget on plastisol inks, meaning any comparison from water base inks VS plastisol are made from an old kind of water based ink to a new kind of plastisols, or nearly new kind of plastisol, because in UK there is also the contradiction to print on organic cotton with plastic-plastisols with phthalates, that according to independent and upgradate studies many kind of phthalates are very dangerous for children and banned in Europe, but phthalates cost nothing and there are margins as with the petrol…

A none water based culture also means screen printers need to re learn screen printing, different squeegees, squeegee angles, squeegee pressures and more, and the pre press department requires different screen meshes and a different approach to colour separations.
In countries like Italy and France (also Germany), there is a strong and important fashion industry, there is much more water based production too. It is strange to see that the plastisols with phthalates are not banned in UK, considering that they are in the most of the UK textile screen printing market, when in Germany, Italy, France they are banned by EU norms and there the textile printing market is mostly with water based inks.

Evolution of the new water based inks

Before the plastisol inks invention there was only one option of water based inks, and it is wrong thinking that the water based inks are still with the same product of 20 or more years ago. Fashion and promotional industries do not need plastisols, waterbased is a desirable alternative. Now there are water base inks (mixed) that do not dry onto the screen and there are water based inks that cure alone without curing unit (plastisols cannot dry alone, they need an expensive technology with radiant panels, water based inks need just hot air… although for a longer time). Also, it is possible to reach much more special effects with water based inks than with plastisols.

Eco-friendly and child-friendly

Plastisol mean plastic, water based inks and related specialties are definitely nearly natural products. Not only the textile water based inks are without phthalates and bio-degradable up to 80%, but the standard water based inks are according to the more severe norms for exporting all over the world (the more severe norms are in Europe, Oekotex standards for babies too), are EN71/III compliant for children toys too, are not flammable (plastisol are) and of course safer for the printers too. The screens have to be washed with water if the inks are not left onto the screens for ages, none special chemical is required, just a water-proof emulsion. And it is good and natural choice to print onto organic cottons with water based products.

More quality with the water based inks

With the same screen mesh it is possible to reach finer details with water based inks than with plastisols. The final prints with water based inks are with softer feel, more natural colours (special colour are possible too), any kind of inks and specialties are mixable together and it is possible to reach thousand of combinations and special results (for this reasons they are the unique choice for fashion industry). So you can reach more results with water based inks than with plastisol… there also are the water based inks for synthetic fabrics and nylon too, and they work!

All the possibilities need to be understood, tried and tested

it is not possible to change in a day from plastisol to water based inks. Water based inks are more difficult to use for a beginner, because they are for textile printing professionals. And this can be where old prejudices resurface.

Old pre-judicious on water based inks

They dry into the screen: False, if you use the standard inks with a retarder (there are also are non standard specialties that do not dry); also in Tunis (North Africa) there are water based printers. If they can print there you can print here in UK, easily. But… have you never heard about a water based printing course in UK, probably not.

Water based inks need more time than plastisol to be cured: this is true, but if the curing process is right they resist longer than plastisols into the fabrics; plastisol are mostly fixed mechanically over the fabrics, water based inks go deeper into the fabrics, for this reasons the prints are softer and they need to be cured deeply, in other words for longer until the natural water is totally evaporate from the fabrics leaving the pigments to be visible without any plastics around. But there are also additives available which can cure the inks without any use of heat at all.

They need more time to be cured so they are less productive than plastisol: false, without retarder it is better not to stop the production at any time, the automatic machines have to be optimised, so the printer is more productive. The curing units have an easier technology (hot air, not the more expensive radiant panels technology as for plastisols) and usually they are bigger and longer, so you can charge more materials on the same belt.
The most important investment for water based ink productions is a good and long curing unit, and this costs, but you save money at medium time with many new applications and less expensive inks. Anyway, a good curing unit is not less important than a good screenprinting machine, and any screenprinting professional should not choose easy to cure inks – generally at lower quality (and the phthalates speed up the curing….) … because they cannot afford a right curing unit costs.

Massimo…

Gold Fever, and a little silver too

Steve — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:42:55 +0000

We have observed an interesting surge in the demand for gold and silver prints, It is the trend of the moment, in our world at least, a sudden interest in gold t shirt printing. We are guessing it could be a knee jerk reaction to talk of recession, a final flaunting of wealth (gold ink costs no more than any other, this is symbolic obviously) before we are cash strapped.

We are keen to have answers, but I guess by the time the reasons become clear we won’t care anymore, we will be wondering how on earth the next trend evolved. Chicken, egg, egg, chicken, speaking of which the Advertees chickens were treated to some broccoli, some not so nice cheese, and a big house clean this weekend. Are there any T shirt printers out there are experiencing similar trends? Is there anyone who knows the reason for the gold fever?

The word in the hen house “there is more crap cheese on the way.”

Back to screen printing hoodies

Steve — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:37:45 +0000

Well it seems that is it for the summer, and it has been confirmed for us in a switch to printing hoodies.

And while we at Advertees are busy using our gold waterbased inks to print hoodies for a youth programme aimed at helping youngsters stay on the straight and narrow, our friends at The House of Thieves are using their gold ink and screen printing skills for promotion of pretty much the opposite.
Their collection of limited edition screen printed T shirts are selling out as fast as they can create them, and with good reason, these T shirts are quite different to anything on the market at the moment, original, stand out designs, that we wish were not so limited in number. You have to be quick if you like a design!

Another Sold Out House of Thieves T shirt.

Screen Printing Gold Ink

Steve — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:25:10 +0000

One of the advantages of screen printing over Direct to garment printing is the variety of special effect inks that are available (although direct to garment and screen printing combinations are possible), printing T shirts with gold, glitter and glow in the dark inks has become increasingly popular in recent years.

Good waterbased binders are available for phosphorescent, glitter, gold and silver powders. We are presently using Grafco an Italian ink manufacturer who supply very good quality waterbased inks, binders and powders with which you can achieve a very wide range of special effects.

All of these powders require coarse screens, down to a 34 recommended for golds and glitters. Glow in the dark can be printed through a finer screen but we have found the better coverage you can achieve the better the glow. A good white underbase is also required, a fully opaque white is going to give the best results for glow in the dark ink, with a white plastisol underbase and binder this can create a very heavy print, there is a distinctly lighter feel to the water based opaque inks and binders.
There are alternatives for gold t shirt printing such as foil. Foil comes in the form of a vinyl which can be heatpressed to the garment, or a foil which can be applied over the top of a screen printed glue, these methods can achieve a fully mirrored effect, but these prints are more fragile than traditional screen prints. So using a binder and powder solution should give the print a longer life.

Water-based T shirt printing | Part2

Steve — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:26:49 +0000

Having outlined a few of the main differences between plastic and water-based inks in a previous article we can now take a look at some more factors which can help us make decisions about what inks to use for our T shirt printing. Water based inks require better time management. Drying in the screen is one of the biggest draw backs of waterbased screen inks, for the big workshop running large orders it is helpful to be able to leave a complex multicolour set up on the machine overnight, if a screen gets damaged it may take time to prepare a new one and get the press running again, the last thing a busy shop running to deadlines wants is to have to strip the entire job down wash out the screens and set up again because of one hold up.
And for the smaller operator it is equally frustrating, lone operators often need to leave the press to talk to customers and answer phone calls, they do not want to have the stress of getting back to the screens before all the detail on even a single colour job is lost to drying ink. Precious time is easily lost washing out screens drying them and setting up again. None of these problems are had when using plastic inks, so what incentives do we have to move more print jobs to water based inks? One possible reason is health

All solvents are potential health hazards, they vary in their levels of toxicity, and can penetrate into the human body by three paths:

The respiratory tract

The skin (through unprotected contact)

The digestive system (only if swallowed!)

Limited exposure to most solvents is not going to damage your health, depending on the individual solvent. However, the affect of solvents on health should not be ignored, as continued exposure can lead to any of the following:

• Irritation of the skin, eyes and mucous membranes

• Respiratory problems

• Headaches, dizziness, nausea

• Light-headedness

• Effects to the nervous system

• Blood, liver, kidney diseases

• Carcinogenic effects

The degree of damage on human health varies but for screen printers the duration and frequency of exposure is very high.
These products have an equally negative impact on the environment, and some inks manufactured in the UK and America still contain ingredients which are banned for use in European products. I think most screen printers are possibly aware of the health hazards, but when faced with the prospect of slowing the press down most T shirt printers will put these issues to the back of their mind, especially with the tight margins we are often required to work to.
The problems of a water based workshop can be overcome, waterbased inks have improved tremendously in recent years, and the quality and the variety of the prints that can be achieved should see them being considered for more jobs, more frequently.