# White ink on Safety Orange, white curing poorly, suggestions?



## TheyCallMeGrizz (Oct 5, 2011)

Hey Guys,

Having a little problem here in DTG land. I have a Brother 782. Currently I am trying to print a graphic on a Safety Orange shirt (Gildan Ultra Cotton, 50/50 preshrunk).

The problem I am running into deals with white ink. The graphic has a good portion of white in it. After the shirt is printed, the colors look fantastic, the white is bright and everything is perfect. I start running into problems after I press the shirt, to cure the ink. After pressing, the white turns yellow and all of the other colors seem take on a "safety orange" tint. 

I have tried using different combinations of passes for the white ink, hoping for better results (3:1, 3:2, 4:1). I also tried curing the shirt at different times and temperatures. Have also played around with how much pretreat I am putting on the shirt. No luck so far!

If anyone has printed white on safety orange or other bright colors via DTG and has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated. Right now I am beginning to think that I should just send this job over to the Screen shop, don't want to scorch anymore shirts .

Thanks in advance!


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## zoom_monster (Sep 20, 2006)

The problem is the 50/50 content. 

Two issues, white ink is not meant for non natural fabrics and the very thin film of ink is subject to "sublimation" of the dyes used in polyester when the shirt is cured. For a solution, See if you can find 100% cotton shirts. This same thing will happen in screenprinting if the wrong ink is used or a very thin deposit of ink is layed down.


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## loloxa (Sep 5, 2007)

forget 50/50, at 185Cº/360Fº the polyester tint will sublimate on to the ink, there is no work around in the 782 that I know of, same goes for 80/20 hoodies and anything with poly in excess of 5%. Screen print it if you can.


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## TheyCallMeGrizz (Oct 5, 2011)

Thank you both. Pretty much confirmed some of what I was thinking. Looks like this job will be going to the screen shop. Gotta keep reminding the person in charge of stock to grab 100% cotton shirts when we print with white. 

I appreciate the help.


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

The safety colors are worse in my opinion because they have so much dye in them. Even if you just heat 10 safety green shirts in a row and then heat press 1 white shirt, you will typically see the dye from the safety green shirts on the white shirt.

Mark


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## TheyCallMeGrizz (Oct 5, 2011)

Iv'e noticed this in the past. Safety colors are a pain but customers love them, especially when they are in the manual labor business.


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## 23spiderman (Jun 26, 2008)

Anvil's Chromazone has the neon colors that are close to the Safety Orange/Green. They aren't ANSI rated, but they're close, and they're 100% cotton.

By the way, I did some Safety Green shirts and the came out "good enough". The customer was happy.


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## ShirtGal (Sep 21, 2014)

23spiderman said:


> Anvil's Chromazone has the neon colors that are close to the Safety Orange/Green. They aren't ANSI rated, but they're close, and they're 100% cotton.
> 
> By the way, I did some Safety Green shirts and the came out "good enough". The customer was happy.


I am looking for the best Orange and Red Tshirts to use for DTG. I have an Epson F2000 and use the speedtreater with Image Armour pretreat. Heatpress is a Hottronix Fusion (clam, not hovering).

We can't seem to get a good white ink to lay down on the shirt. If we increase the pretreat to the Dark Ultra, we get a slightly better ink, but terrible pretreat stain. 

I'd love to know the secret with these 2 colors. It just so happens we have 2 Highschools in town, one is ORANGE and one is RED. (Hand to forehead)


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## clinthawkins (Apr 7, 2014)

Oh how I wish I had found this thread before I quoted & took this safety orange job! Looks like I may have to go to plastisol transfers after killing two of the shirts testing!


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