# Ink help. Difference between plastisol and water based inks.



## Jenkins24 (Jan 24, 2012)

im new to screen printing and i can garuntee this wont be the only help thread i post. i need to be schooled on waterbased inks vs. plastisol inks. what are their pro's and con's? what is better to use? if i am starting my business which should i choose? any knowledge is much appreciated.

-joel


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## greq27wroc (Sep 26, 2006)

Hi

All answers are already given on this forum. Just use function "search"

Regards

Greg


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

Among others,

plastisol inks
brighter colors
more effects available
won't clog screens
hard hand feel (thicker)

waterbased inks
softer hand
longer curing time (unless you use one of those with fixing agent added)
clog screens if left on screen just a few minutes (but there should be no problem with CMYK process inks, as well as longer drying inks, in continuous production runs).


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

Waterbased:
Super soft hand
Embedded in the fibers for good durability
Will air dry over time.
Using enough ink on the screen and blanketing the ink over the image area helps with clogging.
Since it air dries it can be for use on paper like posters and card stock.

Plastisol:
Can be printed to heat transfer paper so you don't have to commit to shirt ad then apply on demand.

--my experiences


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

Hi Joel, there are a few differences that Angel posted here. There is also the clean up. Water based do clean up nicely with soap and water (maybe not even soap). Cleaning up plastisol requires chemicals. I do both kinds of printing. 

Also with plastisol you can make transfers. I don't think you can do that with water based inks. They also use different kinds of emulsion on the screens and the chemicals for cleaning the screens is different. I guess it just depends on what you want to accomplish with your prints. With plastisol you can do glitter, foil, flock, and puff that you can't do with water based (that I know of).


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## Flagrant-T (Nov 11, 2009)

lben said:


> There is also the clean up. Water based do clean up nicely with soap and water (maybe not even soap). Cleaning up plastisol requires chemicals. I do both kinds of printing.


I do both also...although more plastisol.

One big advantage of plastisol is that you do not have to clean it up until you need to reclaim the screen. Plastisol never dries (it needs to be cured) so if you are running a job that is going to get re-orders (or it is the end of the day and you just feel too lazy to clean up) you can just leave the ink in the screens. It will be fine when you get back too it. 

As everyone has said, waterbased is awesome for a soft hand. It does have some restrictions/problems with printing on certain synthetic materials though. You can get nearly the same look and feel with plastisol by adding Curable Reducer. Add 5% and the ink will flow better. Add 30-50% and people will swear it is waterbased ink.

Lots of fun possibilities with both.

Good luck!
Nick


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

Leaving plastisol on the screen until the next print job is not a good practice but I do sometimes clean up a few days later.

Waterbased transfers can and is being done.

You can clean up plastisol with vegetable oil. It is not as cost effective though and takes a little more longer than minerals.

Plastisol needs to be cured to "dry" and cure. While waterbased inks will dry up on its on proper heat curing is another matter. Unless your waterbased inks has a fixing agent added to it for it to air-cure, you need to cure it like plastisol - even longer than plastisol. Nonetheless, some vendors still recommend curing waterbased inks for better color fastness even if their inks have self curing additives in them.


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

I don't believe it's a matter of curing it longer, I think it's a matter of driving the water out before you hit that curing temp which is a moot point with plastisol. It can be left un cured if washing and wear is not an issue like on paper. Water based heat transfers are being done experimentally and I am super stoked about that. Just not a lot of info out there yet nor are they readily available that I have found. There are hybrid emulsions that work just fine for medium sized runs of either type and environmentally friendly clean up agents that handle both.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

Yes, drying and curing are two different steps. This is why I put an apostrophe around 'dry'.


> Plastisol needs to be cured to "dry" and cure. While waterbased inks will dry up on its on proper heat curing is another matter. Unless your waterbased inks has a fixing agent added to it for it to air-cure, *you need to cure it like plastisol* - even longer than plastisol


In screenprinting, we often treat drying and curing waterbased ink (or the curing of plastisol) as a single continuous step - not separate which is why we sometimes compare the curing of plastisol with the "drying" and curing of waterbased. But for the record, plastisol does not need to be dried but cured. Waterbased inks needs to be dried first then cured. If you put the shirt into a conveyor oven immediately after printing, the curing (or 2 step drying and curing) process takes longer. 

In the Philippines and other asian countries like Indonesia as well as in some Latin American countries where line table systems are used, waterbased printed shirts are air-dried then heat-cured. I am not certain but I think the heat-curing process is just about the same

Waterbased need not be cured if printed on paper or other substrate that won't be washed. The OP did not mention the substrate but unless specified or obvious, I assume that posts on a t-shirt forum refers to t-shirts. Unless, the OP plans to apply(or compare) plastisol on a substrate that won't be washed or touched.

Waterbased transfer is indeed still experimental although it has been done on commercial shirt production. The experimental part that remains is in how long it can be stored before pressing.


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

All good information. Thank you. Hope no one took my replies as diggs. I just have seen quite a few posts were some of the best features of both have been omitted. I was even told that I should leave water based printing until I had mastered plastisol and that was horrible advice. Everyone has their own experiences.


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## Flagrant-T (Nov 11, 2009)

BroJames said:


> Leaving plastisol on the screen until the next print job is not a good practice but I do sometimes clean up a few days later.


I hear this all the time but I've never seen any evidence. The manufacturing engineer in me looks at it as good practice if the job is coming up again soon and I don't need these particular screens. I just ran 100 3-color prints this morning that I originally ran a dozen samples a month ago. After I was done with the samples, I just threw the screens in my rack. Came out perfect.

People sometimes bring up ghosting. It is true, there will be a ghost image if you don't clean the screens right away, however this has never been a problem with me. I don't remove ghost images because that seems to be one of the nastier chemicals involved in screen printing. They just don't seem to have any effect.

I've taken a screen that has been badly ghosted to my day job a number of years ago. We took some shots of a clean area and a ghosted area at I believe around 100X. We just didn't see any significant difference in the thread thickness or the open area between threads. Ghosted threads were definitely stained, but that was about it.

Anything I can do to not use chemicals and speed up the process without negative effects is good by me! There has been a ton of improvement in mesh technology. Maybe some of this stuff was problems with older mesh?

Whoops...hopefully this wasn't a thread hi-jack!

Good luck!
Nick


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## ScreenFoo (Aug 9, 2011)

In a way I'd think air-dry or water based inks are a great way to start printing, just because if you start with plastisol, it can train you to be lazy. I learned on flatwork with solvent inks, and it's a world of difference between that and plastisol on fabric. For some, however, the added frustration and stress of having to prepare everything properly, and move quickly can make them quit outright, before they even really start. 

I'd say if you learn on water based ink and can do great things, you will have no problem switching to plastisol if you so choose. Vice versa is a different story, IMHO.

(Not to aid and abet threadjacking ) 
I'd mention ghosting may not significantly change how the mesh prints, but it can significantly change how a stencil exposes. Try exposing and printing a 5% halftone with a high frequency on a badly ghosted screen, and you'll see what I mean.


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## maikman (Apr 19, 2011)

This is a pretty good explanation
www.pneac.org/sheets/screen/plastisolvwaterbase.pdf


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

maikman said:


> This is a pretty good explanation
> www.pneac.org/sheets/screen/plastisolvwaterbase.pdf


The link is a 404


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

Although I appreciate the laziness factor in using plastisol inks, for white ink on dark shirts, simple line art type stuff, Matusi's 301W ink with a dash of Printgen MG, print/flash/print through a 156 mesh count gives me the nicest, brightest, softest matte finish of any white ink I've ever used. Spritz the screen with a little water and wipe out with an old shirt. I can't get a plastisol print that compares. Stretchability is much better than plastisol, too. Gotta keep moving, though, and can't leave it sitting for days, but the results are worth it.

Pitman Graphics
Screen Printed T-Shirts by Pitman Graphics in Orlando, FL


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I've used similar Japanese inks with those characteristics too. Only the supplier will say its from Japan and claim it is not Matsui 301. The ink dries on the screen in 5 days. Maybe sometime on the later part of the 4th day but not within the ast 3 days as I monitored the inks closely during that time. And it is hot here with humidity a little on the low side.

My printop waterbased inks also never clogged the screen in the normal course of production. believe they has a representative in the US.

Full color process inks also don't dry that quickly. We have spot color series of ink based on the CMYK base. I never tried leaving the inks on the screen (to test) but I doubt if you can leave it longer for more than a few minutes. 

But for regular waterbased inks some can't get past a dozen shirts before clogging occurs. There are techniques to prolong the clogging though like adding urea. or spray misting the ink among others. Flooding too. As well as parking the flooded screen over a fabric without any off contact.


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## ginnocenti (Apr 24, 2014)

BroJames said:


> The link is a 404


To make it work it has to be copy pasted on the browser.


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