# Problems Printing Metallic Gold Ink



## lgpinc (Jan 1, 2013)

I am having and have been having for a long while, problems printing metallic gold ink. We started with Union Mirror Gold...chalked it up to just not being great ink. Now we have Union Extra Bright Rich Gold, which from everything I've seen, should be beautiful, shiny, metallic ink. I've got slightly shiny brown ink on my shirts coming out of the dryer. I'm printing on 100% cotton black tees, 86 mesh on a white base as Union recommends. I can print awesome metallic silver using the same mesh, no base. Gold is my trouble child... can anyone give me any input? I'm simply tired of putting out ugly gold ink.


----------



## PDAprintshop (Sep 5, 2012)

We use metallic gold from Wilflex and we love it, and we often print with union or rutland products for the underbase. Check your tech sheet for the gold ink and make sure its not getting to hot going through your dryer. Maybe also try hitting the underlay an extra time and see how that works for ya.


----------



## sunra1081 (Aug 8, 2009)

lgpinc said:


> I am having and have been having for a long while, problems printing metallic gold ink. We started with Union Mirror Gold...chalked it up to just not being great ink. Now we have Union Extra Bright Rich Gold, which from everything I've seen, should be beautiful, shiny, metallic ink. I've got slightly shiny brown ink on my shirts coming out of the dryer. I'm printing on 100% cotton black tees, 86 mesh on a white base as Union recommends. I can print awesome metallic silver using the same mesh, no base. Gold is my trouble child... can anyone give me any input? I'm simply tired of putting out ugly gold ink.


did you get it to work?


----------



## Cordova Graphics (Feb 1, 2016)

PDAprintshop said:


> We use Wilflex...make sure its not getting to hot...also try hitting the underlay an extra time.


*Fantastic advice by PDAprintshop*...I remember that being one of the things I learned back in the day. Of course my experience extends to HUGE automatic presses which were a REAL headache any time flash was used/needed.


----------



## Dakent012 (Nov 7, 2012)

Metallic and glitter inks in generally can be a bit of a challenge to print. A few things we do are drop the mesh count to a 40 and instead of using white as a first down (underbase) use a similar color to the metallic (we use khaki as a first down) when we print silver glitters we use a light gray as the first down. It also helps for things like registration.


----------



## Cordova Graphics (Feb 1, 2016)

Dakent012 said:


> Metallic and glitter inks in generally can be a bit of a challenge to print. A few things we do are drop the mesh count to a 40 and instead of using white as a first down (underbase) use a similar color to the metallic (we use khaki as a first down) when we print silver glitters we use a light gray as the first down. It also helps for things like registration.


*
Also extremely good points. I never printed much metalic colors when printing on the HUGE 8 color presses but we did produce a LOT of puff ink designs on black tees and 6 other colors. It is always a challenge to go far and beyond "run-o-the-mill" prints. I hope the helpful hints found from these professionals assist others in making outstanding prints.*


----------

