# water based ink curing?



## CJ&TY Clothing (Jun 15, 2007)

Hi,

I am really new to silk screening, I am planning to work with water based inks and someone told me that I could cure it by letting the print dry then cure with an iron or throw into the clothes drier. 

I just wanted to see if that was a general rule that I could follow. Does that mean I don't need to buy a flash dryer. I would love to save that money and be able to get a better exposure unit.

Thanks for any advise


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## Oritron (Feb 26, 2007)

CJ&TY Clothing said:


> Hi,water based inks and someone told me that I could cure it by letting the print dry then cure with an iron or throw into the clothes drier.


Yeah, that's true. The reason for this is water-based is a solvent system - the color is carried in a solvent, in this case, it's water (no surprise) and usually a few other chemicals. That solvent dries out from the shirt, as opposed to the plastisol method which needs the PVC to be cured, and doesn't need anything evaporated from it.

I think that ironing is better than clothes drying, because you get warmer and you get some pressure going. I haven't done any side-by-side tests, though.



CJ&TY Clothing said:


> Does that mean I don't need to buy a flash dryer.


You wouldn't want to be using a flash dryer for this in the first place. Once your shirt is off the platen (ie, you're done printing), you would put it on a conveyor dryer. A flash dryer is for doing a bit of curing between coats of ink, so in the case of either:

Making a darker print, to get two coats of the same print
You might be able to darken up in other ways, for example by doing an extra flood and pull of your squeegee.

Going between screens, ie first color to second color
You don't need to do this if you have good registration on your press, such that the second color screen comes down at the same spot relative to the first color screen each time. The flash would be to avoid "stamping" your next shirt with ink from your previous shirt.

I hope that helps!


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## CJ&TY Clothing (Jun 15, 2007)

that info was very helpfull....thanks


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

CJ&TY Clothing said:


> I am planning to work with water based inks and someone told me that I could cure it by letting the print dry then cure with an iron or throw into the clothes drier.


Iron, yes, clothes dryer, no.



CJ&TY Clothing said:


> I just wanted to see if that was a general rule that I could follow.


About three minutes on the cotton setting. The ink you use should have more specific times and temperatures listed on the container though.



CJ&TY Clothing said:


> Does that mean I don't need to buy a flash dryer.


Flash dryers are useful for other reasons, but you can get by without them.


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## Fluid (Jun 20, 2005)

I do believe a flash will be needed for dark shirt printing when using an underbase


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## Grumpyvulture (Mar 28, 2007)

I've been printing with WB for about 6/7 months now and never had to heat cure any of them. To start with I used ink that came with a catalyst that would air-dry in 24 hours, but they stopped stocking that so I had to use straight wb ink. I find that 4-5 days is adequate to get a full cure and some of it has been washed LOADS of times now and still looks great.
Admittedly, if you need the print sent out right away, having a 4-5 day drying time is no good, but its an option worth bearing in mind.

Hope that helps,

Mark


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## Oritron (Feb 26, 2007)

I'm pretty sure some high-opacity inks need the heat cure... but I think for translucent inks that you're right, eventually all of the solvents come out by evaporating naturally. Heat speeds that process up significantly, and air flow would speed things up as well.

However, I wouldn't say that it's identical. When the shirt is heated the fibres 'open up' more to hold the ink better. I read that off a jar of ink once, and everything on labels is true


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## NavyMan (Oct 4, 2007)

Sorry, can't help you. I'm very new. Don't even have any equipment


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Grumpyvulture said:


> I find that 4-5 days is adequate to get a full cure and some of it has been washed LOADS of times now and still looks great.


Have you done a side by side wash comparison? I have, and I found with the inks I was using that whilst uncured ink mostly held up much better than expected it still faded when compared to cured ink.


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## Grumpyvulture (Mar 28, 2007)

Solmu,

Yeah - they look identical to the ones that were catalysed and air cured. Still look practically brand new, tbh.

I should probably mention that I do heat gun them when printed - don't know if that might make a difference?

Mark


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Grumpyvulture said:


> I should probably mention that I do heat gun them when printed - don't know if that might make a difference?


Probably (since some people use that to cure plastisol for example), but on the other hand it might just be that the ink you use holds up better than the ink I was using.


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## JMD (Mar 16, 2007)

Just how difficult is it using WB Inks. I have been wanting to try them, but I read alot about how they dry too fast and clog the screen. I understand you can't let it sit around like plastisol, but just how fast do you have to go? Any tips from those of you that use WB with manual presses. Thanks


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## Oritron (Feb 26, 2007)

It's not too bad... basically once you're done a print, you've got to do a flood stroke.

If you don't, then the surface area/volume ratio is huge, because there's just a tiny amount of ink in the screen, and a lot of exposure to the air from the top and bottom. That lets it dry really fast, and then your screen is clogged.

You can't be as lazy as I hear you can be doing plastisol (I've never tried), ie just putting some cling wrap over the ink when you want to take a break or leave for the day, to keep dust from getting in the ink


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

JMD said:


> Just how difficult is it using WB Inks.


It's not too bad. Transparent inks are a lot easier to work with than opaques.


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## brent (Nov 3, 2006)

JMD said:


> Just how difficult is it using WB Inks. I have been wanting to try them, but I read alot about how they dry too fast and clog the screen. I understand you can't let it sit around like plastisol, but just how fast do you have to go? Any tips from those of you that use WB with manual presses. Thanks


I've only done WB printing and really like it. I have tried several brands, and the best would be Union Aerotex and Matsui. Matsui makes the best white WB ink I've ever used, and it's all I would use now. It doesn't clog quickly, nor does any of the other Matsui 301 series in my experience. Cheap inks like speedball will clog and any white ink other than the Matsui drove me nuts with clogging.

Just keep moving when printing, don't stop for a coffee break, and always flood. WB printing is great.


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## RichardGreaves (Nov 7, 2006)

Search these forums for "water based cure". There have been dozens of threads on the subject and comparing it to plastisol underbase flash curing.

Flashing water-based ink with an infrared flash unit will be very slow indeed, if it works at all. Plastisol can be partially cured when brought to 240°F and it will bond with other inks printed on top, then properly cured at 320°F.

Water based ink has to evaporate all the water before it will go above 180°F and when you have an ink that is more than 70% water, that takes a long time.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Depends on what brand you use. The brand we use flashes just like plastisol.


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## RichardGreaves (Nov 7, 2006)

neato said:


> Depends on what brand you use. The brand we use flashes just like plastisol.


Please help the readers by telling us what brand that is and what the power of your flash is. 

There are plenty of low power flash units that can take 45 seconds to flash plastisol like the low energy 110 volt Tabasco units.

You do know that the water is gone when the ink temperature reaches 200°F.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Using a 110v infrared flash and Matsui brand WB inks.


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## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

so if I were to use WB inks I just let it dry for 24 hrs then I can heat press?

Also, I've heard people say "Use plastisol and you wont need to put up with the hassle of water based" 
However, I dont hear of what the "hassles" of using WB inks are.


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## Oritron (Feb 26, 2007)

Ken Styles said:


> so if I were to use WB inks I just let it dry for 24 hrs then I can heat press?


That would definitely work. In fact, you could wait a lot less than 24 hours, it just should be dry to the touch before you heat press them.



Ken Styles said:


> However, I dont hear of what the "hassles" of using WB inks are.


The "hassles" are really just a singular hassle, essentially the fact that you need to be careful when printing - if you don't pay enough attention, you could leave ink in your screen and have it dry out. It sounds dumb, because it's not too hard to avoid it, but you pretty much end up doing this once and then never forgetting again 

You can do a lot in terms of reducing the hand of plastisol prints these days, but I don't think you can currently get to the point of running a "Pepsi Challenge" between water-based and plastisol, and not being able to tell the difference. There's the cost-benefit analysis for you to do about whether the extra effort on your part will be worth the $ to your customer.


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## Parko (Oct 2, 2007)

What exactly is flooding?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Ken Styles said:


> so if I were to use WB inks I just let it dry for 24 hrs then I can heat press?


You don't need to leave it for 24 hours.



Ken Styles said:


> Also, I've heard people say "Use plastisol and you wont need to put up with the hassle of water based"
> However, I dont hear of what the "hassles" of using WB inks are.


It's normally mentioned in the very next sentence. Waterbased inks dry in the screen if left unattended.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Parko said:


> What exactly is flooding?


Printing into thin air  It fills the mesh with ink so it can be cleanly passed to the substrate with the print stroke. In the case of waterbased ink it has the added benefit of slowing the ink from drying in the screen.


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## Parko (Oct 2, 2007)

Ah ok... thanks mate


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## Rick Q. (Mar 26, 2008)

I am new to the tshirt making scene but highly interested.

What exactly is the process to do waterbased printing? Is it just like printing with plastisol?

I have kids so I would like to know what the fumes might be like? Are they strong?


Thank you in advance!

Rick


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Ryonet just put up an excellent set of videos on printing waterbased inks. 

YouTube - Ryonet's Videos


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## Rick Q. (Mar 26, 2008)

Splathead:

Thanks so much for sharing.

This is a great resource!

AND...I was looking for a DVD tutorial as well and this is great!


Rick


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