# Is There A List of Colors That Need White Underbase?



## miktoxic (Feb 21, 2008)

if there isn't there should be.

i just went through the most maddening 1 hour of screen printing in my life.

my friend wanted a front left chest and full back print for this weekend's comiccon in NYC. he wanted them done in a neon or florescent green ink on black tees. i had to print flash print flash print cure and it still looked like crap. if this were a true customer and not a friend i would be royally screwed.

is there a general rule of thumb about colors that can cover black w/o printing a white under base? i mean this design had like 8 pt type on the front left chest print. that would seem impossible to me to be able to do an under base and register (i don't have the most expensive of screen print equipment).

if i had to do it again i would have done this discharge.


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## HilcoAthletic (Oct 8, 2014)

General Rule of thumb is to underbase any color going on a black shirt.


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## FullSpectrumSeps (Aug 2, 2012)

miktoxic said:


> if there isn't there should be.
> 
> i just went through the most maddening 1 hour of screen printing in my life.
> 
> ...


You could still underbase that, and neon/fluorescent almost always need a base,(well not with discharge if its part of the color) sometimes hit-flash-hit the base even to make them pop good enough. But remember, you can always trap a top color out rather than choke the underbase in, sometimes even choosing mesh count like higher-mesh for the base and lower for the top, same film, can produce a top color that traps out enough to cover the base.

There is too much variation in the ink-consistencies not about the colors, to have total generalized underbasing rules... sometimes I need to base maroon or black even, it depends on the job and print/art style, the ink type and shirt type etc etc. 

Two things to take from this... underbase always depends on many factors like mentioned... way to underbase can be done either digitally so the film has chokes/traps between base and top color(depending on detail maybe adding to top color instead of choking base or vice-versa mix/match), or with mesh counts and other variables like pfp, double-stroke or pull-push etc on press...exposure time and variation of undercutting or washout... too much to make absolute rules about it.


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## TYGERON (Apr 26, 2009)

miktoxic said:


> if there isn't there should be.
> 
> i just went through the most maddening 1 hour of screen printing in my life.
> 
> ...


 Haaa-haaa! I did a quick couple shirts for a friend/customer. Needed a bright neon-ish Green on Black. Brain didn't engage until P-F-P-F-P (LOL)
Cleaned the screen, printed a White as underbase on the 3 shirts. Then printed the Green. No registration issue because it was the same screen. Of course this was an extreme case and it wouldn't have been feasible for a quantity of shirts, but it worked.


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## miktoxic (Feb 21, 2008)

TYGERON said:


> Haaa-haaa! I did a quick couple shirts for a friend/customer. Needed a bright neon-ish Green on Black. Brain didn't engage until P-F-P-F-P (LOL)
> Cleaned the screen, printed a White as underbase on the 3 shirts. Then printed the Green. No registration issue because it was the same screen. Of course this was an extreme case and it wouldn't have been feasible for a quantity of shirts, but it worked.


this was only 7 shirts.

how did you register the white shirts back on the platen with the green screen?


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## TYGERON (Apr 26, 2009)

miktoxic said:


> this was only 7 shirts.
> 
> how did you register the white shirts back on the platen with the green screen?


There were only 3 shirts. 

Loaded them, printed the White, flashed it, cleaned the same screen still on-press, printed the Green on right on top of the White. And it was a smaller left chest.

Six station press. Had there been 7 shirts I would've had to go through the process again 

Guy was pretty much waiting so it was quicker and less trouble than doing another screen with an underbase.


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## miktoxic (Feb 21, 2008)

yeah i figured that you must have had more than a one station press, of course after i posted that comment.

must be nice!


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

miktoxic said:


> if there isn't there should be.
> 
> i just went through the most maddening 1 hour of screen printing in my life.
> 
> ...


Less then 2 weeks ago I switched to union maxopaque inks for my plastisol. Every job is coming out vibrant without a underbase. I seriously am pleased with the results. I tried them before but they were before the ink formulas changed. If tried almost every opaque ink and a complete fail IMO even with a print flash print. The attached pic is my first print with the inks. On a charcoal shirt although this is test material but the shirts were darker. Everything is 1 hit but the hot pink. Had to P/F/P to make me happy with it. I was planning on underbaseing with the sand color since it was 6 colors and no white in the design. Supply rep talked me into trying. I have ordered over $1000 in ink the last 2 weeks and going to sell off everything I have. 

For water base @porkchopharry has been posting how well the permaset ink are working for him. I am still waiting on my sample.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

I've been printing for less time than some of you guys, but I've always skipped underbasing since my second t-shirt design and opted to use high opacity inks. I know it can cost a bit more, but I figure the time saved is worth it - to me. Especially in my business model. 

Sean, One Stroke makes some REALLY good hot pinks. You can get them to make you an Aquasilk version of one of their colormax colors. I still use their Aquasilk Colormax Brite Pink (kind of like a bubble gum pink) on one design and it seriously is as close to a WB that I've ever seen and used. That's the one plastisol, I'll probably keep using it till it runs out, then make my own mix of WB. 

EZ-Flo green by One Stroke is the ticket (was my ticket at least) for a flo green that will pop on a dark tee. Even glows under black light. 

Here's a tester I did with it way back when. This was a p/f/p, one 200 mesh screen no underbase. Built the entire "movie set" behind her from scratch in PS. Something was going on with her ear on this screen. But you get the point. This was one of my first designs, a limited Halloween release.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

sben763 said:


> For water base @porkchopharry has been posting how well the permaset ink are working for him. I am still waiting on my sample.



Scarlet red water-based Permaset Supercover print. No underbase. 180 mesh, P/F/P on a 50/50 AA cotton/poly raglan. Still blown away daily by this stuff. No hand. Never going back to plastisols. But there ARE some great plastisols out there that provide awesome pop and coverage with no underbase needed whatsoever. 

Anyway, just some stuff you can do without an underbase and one screen.


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## miktoxic (Feb 21, 2008)

porkchopharry said:


> Scarlet red water-based Permaset Supercover print. No underbase. 180 mesh, P/F/P on a 50/50 AA cotton/poly raglan. Still blown away daily by this stuff. No hand. Never going back to plastisols. But there ARE some great plastisols out there that provide awesome pop and coverage with no underbase needed whatsoever.
> 
> Anyway, just some stuff you can do without an underbase and one screen.


i love waterbase printing but would never have thought it would give as much coverage as plastisol on a dark shirt (although i have bought a max opaque white water base from ryonet (a matsui product i believe), but it looks, prints and has the hand of a plastisol.

is there one distributor you buy all those inks from?


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

Tim,

Yeah the Permaset is awesome in my eyes. I do bold stuff, it's what I'm into. Nothing really "subtle" that I do.  

Permaset Aqua Supercover I get at either buypermaset inks.com which I think is their "official" USA outlet. And I also get some from McLogan, because McLogan is fairly close to me and if I hit $250 in an order they ship it to me for free and it gets here next day. Call me lazy, but L.A. traffic is stupid. And I save time and money not having to drive the 15 miles out there and 15 miles back. 

You can submit your reseller info to both places for tax reasons if you need to. 

Buypermasetinks has a bigger selection/ all the colors in the PS range, plus a lot of the additives - retarder/extender, puff, etc. McLogan doesn't seem to have the additives, and the color selection is not as wide. But they have the basics, and I mix a lot of stuff by eye. You know - blue and yellow = green, etc. Even though I could buy green - I don't. I can just mix it, if I need it. 

Downside to PermaSet Supercover is price, it's out of Australia. They don't seem to be widely accepted here, and the price is not cheap. YMMV. I never had an issue with ink price, especially if it gives me the results I want - which it does. In reality though, it's not MUCH more than a gallon of One Stroke high opacity plastisol. And since Permaset is measured in liters - a 4 liter container is actually a bit more than a gallon. So you get a bit more ink in a PS 4 liter bucket than you would in a gallon bucket. Plus, since switching to WB, I've seen my online sales jump a lot. So there's that. 

Having said all that, you can order small bottles of PS to try from a lot of places. Even like **** Blick or whatever. 

The standard non-supercover Permaset Aqua (for light garments) is closer in price to other WB inks. And has a bit more in the color range. You can however mix standard Aqua with Supercover Aqua for a wider range of colors, and still get good opacity and save some $$$. For instance I mix standard Aqua black with Supercover Aqua white for a grey that covers like crazy. If you're only going to try one - the Supercover is what you want for dark tees.

I would also recommend trying the Ryonet Green Galaxy White WB. It's pretty good, I don't really use a lot of Ryonet stuff. But I can recommend this one. It covers really well, and it's cheap at $50 a gallon. I just don't like the final cure on it as much as the PS. It feels spongey and a bit like a REALLY thin plastisol to me. And it's got just a smidge of gloss. I hate gloss. Not sure what is in there, but I recommend it if you want to start playing around with these high opacity WB inks. 

If I were doing a lot of custom orders, I would use the GG white a lot. But my gig is retail, although I DO have a couple gallons of the GG white on hand for emergency. 

Other thing with with the GG is lack of colors. I know they are supposed to come out with more, and I'm interested in seeing them.

But yep, the PS is crazy. I've been doing a lot of red designs lately because I used to hate printing red plastisol, it was my nemesis. Not any more. Even the colors like yellow just POP on a black tee. P/F/P done.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

Tim,

PS - you're in NY and buypermasetinks ships out of NJ so you would probably have your stuff like next day. Dunno if they have a B&M location or not. I know they will charge tax in NJ and CA. Dunno about NY. So all stuff to look into. They might send you some samples if you ask? I just went for it and got a quart to start.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

PS - that Bride of Frankenstein tee that was done with One Stroke EZ Flo green, but I had them make me a Hybrid mix of it. 

They will make you a hybrid, or aquasilk version of any color they offer. But you have to call and ask.

Hybrid has a bit of puff in it. I like(d) it to cheat a bit on the AA tees, just enough puff to fill in through the conveyor to hide any stray fibers- but not enough to notice there is any puff really. The Aquasilk is like the hybrid, but less forgiving since it has less puff. They're really good at whatever they add to the inks there.

Both hybrid and aquasilk are their "soft handed" high opacity versions of plastisols. 

Anyway, no underbase needed. 

Hope some of this info helps someone.


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## robo029 (Jul 30, 2008)

I am also another who has never used a white under base I am more than happy to continue without also. I don't see what the white under base religion is all about. Another screen twice the labour when the inks these days are amazing especially the plastisol.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

Dunno to be honest. But, I guess for me, I haven't been printing as long as some others. Just a few years. But, I consider myself a good printer, I've been pretty succesful and my business keeps growing. I quickly tried some high opacity inks right out the gate. I guess I just figured...they're made for no underbase so why wouldn't they be of benefit? Didn't take me long to go that way 100%.

I think to lots of people who have been printing for longer than me, the older high opacity plastisols were like printing with concrete. So I if had tried them back then, I might not consider them either. 

Anyway, lots of good inks out there. I guess it could cause drama, but I always was happier with the print quality with no underbase vs using one. 

Some of the newer plastisol inks are amazing. But I still feel that the high opacity water-based inks are superior in the end to even the nicest plastisols. There is an adjustment curve. But it's the reason I made the switch.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

porkchopharry said:


> I think to lots of people who have been printing for longer than me, the older high opacity plastisols were like printing with concrete. So I if had tried them back then, I might not consider them either.


I have about 5 qts of the old Union maxopaque inks, super tough to print coverage sucked. still had to P/F/P. those that have printed more the 4 or 5 years may not understand the under basing. Even the opaque inks if you underbased would come out 100% better then the P/F/P the ink reformulation has greatly improved some of the opaque inks. I still don't care for the International Coatings opaque inks but I tried them shortly after the reformulation and from what I understand a lot of the manufactures have redone the inks a few times. The union was the first time I was happy with the results. I may still from time to time underbase if there is white in the design and only use 1 white screen


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## mrvixx (Jan 13, 2009)

You can now get opaque inks in most colors that work great with pfp. I will give you colors based on my experience. yellow, red, light green, orange and pink need underbase. dark greens and royal blues do not need underbase.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

mrvixx said:


> You can now get opaque inks in most colors that work great with pfp. I will give you colors based on my experience. yellow, red, light green, orange and pink need underbase. dark greens and royal blues do not need underbase.


Actually a PFP is not needed for the opaque inks. On page 1 I gave an example of maxopaque all were a 1 hit except the hot pink which was a PFP. 


Here's another example same graphic different class on this shirt everything was 1 hit. These were done with a 205 mesh and a 60 durometer squeegee.


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## porkchopharry (Mar 4, 2012)

Depends on the ink manufacturer too I suppose. I can say thay One Stroke makes yellow, red, light green, orange and pink that needs absolutely no underbase whatsoever. I posted a photo of a design I did a couple years ago on the last page, black light green halftones that didn't need an underbase at all.


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