Printing on dark garments with a white ink can be difficult. Sometimes the tagless label is simply not bright enough and the darkness of the garment shows through. Here at Inkcups Now, we understand your frustration and have provided some great tips for you to get that white bright!

To get a brighter white:

try reducing your thinner mixture by 5%.
The mixture commonly use is:

50 grams White
7.5 grams SBM thinner (15%)
2.5 grams 1000HNX hardener (5%)

Add a 1 second delay before pickup and 1 second before print. Adjust front and back delay to see if you get improved results.

Make sure you increase the pad compression on the garment so the pad “over-compresses” or nearly stalls during the printing cycle

Make sure your pads are not worn

Make sure you used enough ink in the cup – it is a common problem to put too little ink into the cup with white because its pigments are so heavy. 50 gram of white ink is a minimum mixture

If you have artwork flexibility, go to all capital letters for size and country of origin

It is common to have to add thinner more frequently to white ink because it has more pigment than all the other colors. The thinner helps keep the pigment in solution.

Try using inks other than standard white ink – Inkcups Now has developed a new product called SuperWhite Ink with pigments especially designed for garment printing.

If you have any questions or are interested in tagless printing or SuperWhite ink, please click here.

Ink used in this project:
Type: SuperWhite Ink
Brand: SB Series Ink
More info: SB Series SuperWhite Ink page

Technorati tags: Tagless Printing, Bright Ink, Pad and screen printing ink” target=”_blank”>Pad Shuttle, Apparel Labels

The ICN Sapphire brand ink has been called many things in the past. “Screen printing ink“, “pad printing ink”, even “gunk”. Just don’t call it PAINT!

Pad printing ink is not suitable for coating walls, chairs or landscapes. Which is exactly why pad printing ink is not called “paint.” Ink contains coloring molecules that are dissolved in a liquid. Paints will have pigments, that is coloring molecules that are in suspension in a liquid (but not dissolved.) You must work harder in order to keep paint mixed together.

Pad printing ink is formulated to transfer images from an etched plate to 3-dimensional, irregularly shaped or flat objects. Among the various applications of pad printing inks are the following: printing on promotional products (pens, travel mugs, golf balls), medical devices, car components and tagless t-shirts.

Sapphire series screen and pad printing inks are triple milled to micron level pigment sizes yielding one of the industry’s most opaque and brilliant color palettes. You can literally see the difference as soon as you open a can of ink.

To the many experienced people in the printing industry and the many more just starting out: You know the difference, you see the difference. So please do not call ink, paint!

Are you not getting the results you want from your ink? Click here and find out how to make the best prints possible.

Are you struggling with keeping opened pad or screen printing ink and hardener fresh?
We have a convenient solution: the VersaCover! Don’t miss our commercial to air at the Super Bowl. Here is a sneak preview, just for you:

The VersaCover hermetically seals nearly all ink and hardener cans available on the market.
READ MORE

Hi! A few tips on using Sapphire inks for screen print process:

• When using Sapphire inks for screen printing, you need a slower thinner than that you use for pad printing and you need it in lesser quantities. You want to add 3-5% of thinner to start and then see if you need more. For instance blue colors will most likely be fine but some red colors will require more thinner. High density colors will always require more thinner.

• Use S3 screen thinner, it will prevent your screen from “locking.”

• To increase ink opacity use the widest mesh appropriate for your artwork.
Read more