# Curing Water Based Inks with Flash Dryer



## MacSF (Sep 12, 2008)

I've been printing with plastisol inks and want to do some experimenting with water based inks. 

I bought a set of acrylic (water based) inks from Speedball. Now I need to know how to cure them. Some of the other threads I've seen on this were written to people who did not have a flash dryer and needed another method. What I'd like to know is, can a flash dryer work well to cure WB inks? How? Do I let them dry over night before heat curing?

Here's the unit I have: Black Body 18x18" Afford-a-Flash, 120V, 2223W, 18.5 amps

Thank you!


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## ukscreenprinter (Nov 18, 2007)

A flash will cure waterbased fine.Just pull the tshirt away from the platten as you want the water to evaporate away. Set the flash abit further away than you do with plastisol,and flash.You should get steam as the heat drives the water out.


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## MacSF (Sep 12, 2008)

Sounds great for a one color print. But if I'm doing 3 or 4 colors (and don't want wet on wet mixing), what should I do?


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## brent (Nov 3, 2006)

Use the flash cure unit normally to flash dry the shirts between layers when you're printing multiple colors. Do a last flash so you can pull the shirts off the platens and stack them, then later go back and cure them one by one. It'll take a while and be pretty boring. Take your IR thermometer gun and make sure that all areas are hitting 300+ degrees.
Make sure to flash well before stacking even if you're just doing a one color. One time I was doing two layers of opaque yellow on black shirts, made a big stack, went back later to cure them with the flash one by one, then during boxing I saw that some shirts had the design on the back of them, where ink wasn't completely flashed/dry to the touch and came off on the shirt above it in the stack. Whoops! But the customer didn't ever say anything ...


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

brent said:


> One time I was doing two layers of opaque yellow on black shirts, made a big stack, went back later to cure them with the flash one by one, then during boxing I saw that some shirts had the design on the back of them, where ink wasn't completely flashed/dry to the touch and came off on the shirt above it in the stack. Whoops! But the customer didn't ever say anything ...




You're a brave man Stuart. Not many of us would admit to knowingly shipping defective products to our customers.


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## jsreid (Oct 10, 2008)

brent said:


> Use the flash cure unit normally to flash dry the shirts between layers when you're printing multiple colors. Do a last flash so you can pull the shirts off the platens and stack them, then later go back and cure them one by one. It'll take a while and be pretty boring. Take your IR thermometer gun and make sure that all areas are hitting 300+ degrees.
> Make sure to flash well before stacking even if you're just doing a one color. One time I was doing two layers of opaque yellow on black shirts, made a big stack, went back later to cure them with the flash one by one, then during boxing I saw that some shirts had the design on the back of them, where ink wasn't completely flashed/dry to the touch and came off on the shirt above it in the stack. Whoops! But the customer didn't ever say anything ...


can you not cure them right after printing while they are still on the platen?


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

jsreid said:


> can you not cure them right after printing while they are still on the platen?


Not recommended unless you have an aluminum one. Waterbased inks take a much longer time to dry/cure than plastisol. Generally about 2 minutes. That much constant heat on a wooden platen would cause warping.


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## amy_schutt (May 29, 2007)

Before we got a conveyor dryer and only 2 platens, we bought a 12 foot piece of countertop at the local Home Depot. We would pull a shirt and flash it on the countertop and move down for each shirt. This allowed the places behind to cool before time to come back around to use that spot again. It worked for awhile, but it is impossible to doing any kind of quantity and feel comfortable about the quality without one.


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## studog79 (Jul 13, 2006)

We have a 12' Chamber Gas dryer and slow the belt down so the shirts are in the dryer for around 2 minutes. Then we run them trhough the dryer again to full cure waterbase and discharge inks we print. The water has to fully evapiorate for the ink to be cured.

Now Stuart of Philly you sure give the name Stuart a bad rep and so I am thinking of changing my name. Knowingly sending out a bad product is NO WAY TO RUN A BUSINESS. So I will give you the benefit of doubt and think that you do it as a hobby. Your shirts bled because your inks were not cured. I am sure they washed out real soon also. And I am sure your customer never came back. I want all my customers to be a long time business relationship. You should have confessed to your mistake and made it right.


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## Reyes (Dec 26, 2010)

Am i better off curing water base ink with heat gun or flash dryer?


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Reyes said:


> Am i better off curing water base ink with heat gun or flash dryer?


Flash because you get a more uniform heat coverage. You could under-cure an area of your design using a heat gun, which will cause fading.


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## Reyes (Dec 26, 2010)

flash fryer it is! i did a design lastnight some of it cured great some parts faded bad


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