Yesterday I wrote about the problems we are all seeing with dye migration, the dye of the shirts going into the ink we print on all the myriad of types of fabric that we now have to print on. The post gave instructions for a test using plasticizer and a heat press. Further testing is…
At Motion Textile we are working on implementing legit carts for job staging (we currently use these flat shelf utility carts which are awesome for garment staging but not so much for job staging). If you incorporate job staging (I’ll define this as the collection of screens, inks, squeegees and flood bars per production specifications in advance of a scheduled print…
On Wednesday Tom touched on the magical new Rutland automatic ink color matching dispenser. I agree with Tom wholeheartedly that it is pretty rad. Other highlights of our “field trip” to the Rutland Group were meeting the new CEO Jeff Leone and checking out the color proofing area. Jeff is a very smart guy that…
Besides a way to make money, printing shirts is a way to do some good. We do shirts for my local Amnesty International chapter and they make money that pays for stamps and all kinds of things for the volunteers to do human rights work. Recently we did some dye migration testing and did some…
In the last several months we have been printing with discharge inks at a higher level than ever before. This is partially a trend and partially driven internally. This trend also corresponds with a trend toward specialty substrates, i.e.: tri-blends, fashion fleece, etc. Obviously, this complicates things. You can be reasonably sure of the results you…
We’re very cautious to avoid “bleeding” and “dye-migration” when it comes to printing 100% poly and poly-blend fabrics. We use poly white plus a barrier gray when under-basing 100% poly and we use poly white plus a standard low-bleed white when under-basing blends. We drop our oven temp and cure time, and we are careful not…
Ok, you have a shirt and it has some or all polyester content, what do you do? Too many printers I see P & P it. “P & P” is what I call “print and pray” and no matter what religion you do or don’t follow, I would keep prayer out of your printing operation.…
How do you know ink is cured on a shirt? Wash it as you normally would launder a shirt and see if the ink comes off. Get a washer and dryer at work or bring shirts home, that is the only way to be sure if the ink is cured. You can use all kinds…
We have tried many tests on garments in the life of our company, but I think today we tried the craziest test on a garment we have ever tried. A customer wants to know, does corn starch stick to 100% polyester shirts? The answer is yes. Somebody that works for us just came in the…
