# Glitter Inks and image



## Josiemae (Aug 11, 2009)

I have a design and the client has switched to glitter ink at the last minute. Anyone know how small a line I can print with silver glitter? I have a 40 mesh and it is Int. Coatings 150 silver glitter.


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## red514 (Jul 21, 2009)

the glitter should have come with a spec sheet. depending on the size of the glitter flakes, that would dictate what is the highest mesh count you can use.


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## Josiemae (Aug 11, 2009)

Thanks, but it didn't and I can't seem to find on the iccink.com site


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## red514 (Jul 21, 2009)

their web site says
metallic inks = 95 - 125t/in
glitter inks = 16T - 25T t/in


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## red514 (Jul 21, 2009)

I'm thinking the 40 mesh should be ok.


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## Josiemae (Aug 11, 2009)

I'm actually looking for how small a line I can print. I only hve 1 40 mesh available for this design and don't want to have to strip the screen and start over. (The image has a good amount of type in it)


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## red514 (Jul 21, 2009)

hmmm. not sure of the exact line count as i only use low mesh counts for blocky areas, line count greater then 30pts. never tested to see how fine a line we could get, anything smaller i didn't think would show much glitter even if we could capture it on the screen.


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## Alan Buffington (Oct 27, 2010)

It is difficult to print fine line glitter through 40T mesh. The mesh suggested 40 is too small an opening to print well. 25T is recommended since the opening is rarely a complete opening but may just be half an opening due to art/emulsion image crossing a mesh opening. Typically glitter flakes will hang up in these areas in your design will be blocked from printing as it gets plugged up. We used a 2 mesh opening line width in any art destined for printing with glitter, so two 25T mesh squares as minimal art width. Another way to do this is called dusting. Make a 200 micron thick screen, or a thick stencil on a 40T-60T screen. You will also need dry metallic flake, Meadowbrooke glitter is one that sells glitter in powder form. Pour glitter into a large flat tray 20x24"x1". Put the gel in the last head and print with just enough squeegee pressure to get a 'bead' of gel on the shirt, (putting a clear base plate down and flashing then printing the gel in the last position can help keep gel on surface of shirt). Turn over shirt and place flat with print side down in tray, pat the back lightly, then put in oven and cure, then vacuum the print area with brush attathcment to remove excess glitter at end of the oven.

If you decide to go with printing through a 25T use some curable reducer 1-2% or some halftone base to get the ink to flow.

Alan Buffington
Murakami Screen USA


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## ScreenFoo (Aug 9, 2011)

Alan has the solid theory going there--Thanks for being so smart *and* sharing it. 

I'm just chiming in to say if you're running an IR dryer, be VERY careful of your cure. Shimmer metallic is difficult to cure, glitter even more so. Wash testing is always advisable. (For any print )


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## ocean502 (Jul 22, 2008)

Can you add the glitter powder to a clear base ink? Also, what is gel?


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## Alan Buffington (Oct 27, 2010)

Yes you can add glitter to a gel and make a custom glitter. Make sure the flake size is small enough to go through the screen. Meadowbrook Glitters Meadowbrook Glitter : Conversion Chart this will show relative glitter sizes. You will have difficulty printing anything above .008 in size through a 25S mesh. For 'dusting' size doesn't matter. You can use Rutland Thermo line Clear or any other ink manurfacturer's gel ink. Gel's viscosity is excellent for printing as it sits on top of the surface of the shirt and dries very clear with no clouding. You can experiment with various clear bases as well, some work better than others. The goal is to get the base to disappear during the cure. Dusting of dry glitter flake is better with high viscosity gels and thick film screens of 200-300 microns, while printing glitters requires a base that disappears on curing and is lower in viscosity, modifying gel ink viscosity is possible with a curable reducer. Always wash test these techniques and as Screen Foo mentions be careful on the cure. This is a thick ink deposit and sometimes true metallic powders can oxidize or turn color. Polyester flake is not as affected by high heat.

Alan Buffington
Murakami Screen


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## ocean502 (Jul 22, 2008)

Thank you!! Is it possible then to print a two color using the tray method you mentioned? I just did a job and the purple glitter I purchased, they don't make anymore, was hardley glittery at all, on top of that it was purple on black, so you could hardley see it. I got a sample from meadowbrook, and sprinkled glitter powder on already cured ink and heatpressed at 350 for 15 sec. I got really great results, but had to tape off the silver glitter that was already printed. VERY time consuming. Washablility was fine though. I would like to experiment with different glitter, because the colors offered are so limited.


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## Alan Buffington (Oct 27, 2010)

I have tried multi color glitter, it is really hard. It cannot be done with the dusting technique off press. We did it on an autopress using dry glitters in a 25S screen. The gel is printed, then with plenty of off contact on the two glitter screens used a dry wall brush to print dry glitter. Did not come out as precisely as hoped. There were voids in some areas if the glitter didn't drop onto wet gel just right. We finally went with a transfer on gloss paper. Printed transparent colors and backed them with a final silver glitter. This allows multiple glitter colors and can yield a very glossy print with deep glitter look. There are many tricks here as well. You can hit the glossy transfer with t-shirt fabric to take gloss away and make it look printed or you can back the glitter with a puff and make it 3-d. We finally only offered 1 color dusting or glitter print, or used other metallics that flashed well if a 2-3 specialty ink print, or our favorite was the transfer technique with silver glitter. You make these by hand on a little vacuum table or even on a small t-shirt printer with light tack on the pallet and x/Y stops to help register.


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## ocean502 (Jul 22, 2008)

THank you, you have helped me so much. I just ordered the clear base from Rutland, and have the .008 glitter on order. Why can't you use two seperate screens with clear base with dif color giltter? Sorry if I'm being pesty..lol


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## Alan Buffington (Oct 27, 2010)

The reason is it can take forever to flash and cure the first glitter color. I tend to look at things from an automatic print perspective. When Gel is cured or flashed it has an incredible 'hot tack' issue. So on an automatic your dwell time to flash the gel w glitter can be very long, 8-15 seconds. This can 'scorch' the shirt, heat up the pallet too much causing other inks to cure while they print, and worse the flashed gel with glitter will rip off the shirt on the next glitter screen due to hot tack issues and build up on the bottom of the screen. The only time we came close to getting this to work was on a 14 color press printing a 2 color glitter. First head: glitter, second, third and fourth heads were all quartz flashes, fifth through tenth had fans on them, and last head was glitter again. It was a workout keeping the pallets cool yet warm enough to flash the first glitter screen.
We had to modify the gel and carrier to flash quickly. All in all transfers were far easier for multicolor glitter, but they also did not have the sparkle of a direct glitter print, but did have good qualities that makes the glitter appear to have depth. I am sure some other printer has mastered multi color glitter, we wanted to stop pulling out what little hair we had left and went with glitter transfers that our client liked better anyway. There are tricks you can do with the glitter transfer that you could never do with direct print, like printing the disney design in 4/C litho, then clear spot colors for the glitter, back with litho white for the 4/color disney characters and print 1 silver glitter with no limitation on the number of spot color glitters due to no limit on number of passes with clear spot colors followed by one silver glitter. Transfers solve a lot of issues direct printing has. 4/c litho is cheap done out of house on gloss transfer paper, litho white backing pulls the litho print off, this is applied as a 1 color white backer to the pre-printed litho prints done out of house, then all other glitter colors printed as clear spot colors with the final print being the silver glitter print through 25S that prints over the spot colors. Sometimes an adhesive still needs to be printed over glitters backer if very fine line. It sounds complicated but it isnt, just sequence it right. Commercially this is done on a 25x36" sheet with usually 6 full size designs at once, but can be done with 1 image on a smaller scale. Transfer technology requires precise drying times, hot boxes to prevent paper shrinkage, and a semi automtic flat bed, but we did all of this by hand as well on a home made vacuum table and an oven set to 240-260 degrees. One other technique I have seen used for 2 color dusting is to think like a cake decorator. You can create rolled up sheets of paper with small openings on one end, fill with dry powder and paint the dust on the areas you want. Trouble is this uses a ton of glitter since it combines two colors when you turn it upside down to let the excess fall into a tray. We used this 2 color glitter as a new glitter option. One that really worked well is combining holographic glitters with standard glitters to get spectral reflections along with the primary glitter color.

Al


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## ocean502 (Jul 22, 2008)

Does sound complicated, I will re read thru your post so it all sinks in...lol 
I am determined to master this, I think the transfer idea is something I also want to master.. Thanks again so much for your time.


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