# bad shirts- bad, bad shirts with white ink



## goonatic (Sep 5, 2007)

I have been printing perfect white ink for a long time with my t-jet. I use mostly beefy tee shirts. Yesterday, I started printing some large black beefy tee's and the white was coming out horrible. Of course I figured there was something wrong with my setup; so I clean everything, check heat press temp, etc. No luck. Printed an XL black beefy tee and out comes perfect white ink. Try a large - out comes crappy white ink. I tried a medium black beefy tee and the white is perfect. I changed the settings a few times on the batch of larges and no luck.

So, do I have a "bad" batch of large black shirts? Has anyone else seen something like this where a particular batch of dark shirts has white ink printing problems? I have been printing white for two years and have yet to see this phenomenon.

I guess I will need to test each batch of shirts that I receive and return them if they are bad.

Regards,
Mark


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## HuMJohn (Dec 6, 2006)

Do the labels show country of manufacture of the different sizes of shirts? That may be your first clue.


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

How the shirt is knit and how tight the printface is can affect white ink printing. Perhaps the knitting on the L and XL are different.

When you say its a bad white ink print how exactly is it bad? lots of spots and uneven coverage?


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## goonatic (Sep 5, 2007)

I should have known - Good shirts Made in Honduras or Mexico, bad shirts made in Haiti. I use ringspun cotton because I find that they are more forgiving than the open-ended cotton shirts. I thought Hanes made large rolls of cotton and dyed the cotton in the states and then shipped it to other places for cutting and sewing (the labor intensive part of making the shirt). Therefore, the consistency of the cotton would be the same from country to country, only the cut and sew maybe different. Maybe someone can correct me on this one as to the process of shirt manufacturing. 

I have heard of bad shirts from Haiti before a while back (Gildan I think) but i forgot about that. So for now on, any shirts with Made in Haiti tag are going back.

Thanks guys for the input.

Mark


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

Interesting. I think alot of us who print white ink are so used to the inconsistencies of the machine, and our manual pre-treat that we never really notice that it might be the shirt type which has a problem.


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## zoom_monster (Sep 20, 2006)

TahoeTomahawk said:


> Interesting. I think alot of us who print white ink are so used to the inconsistencies of the machine, and our manual pre-treat that we never really notice that it might be the shirt type which has a problem.


 Not sure if I've experienced this, but in the manufacture (sewing part) they may be using a "sizing" chemical. It would be interesting to find out if this is the variable that is causing the problem.


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## shirleysshirts (Jul 16, 2007)

Perhaps one reason those of us using the D-T-G process experience inconsistencies is due to garment manufacturers have focused on plastisol ink for so long they haven't been brought up to speed on the formulation of the inks used in the D-T-G machines and what the chemicals they are using produce certain reactions. One of the things we have trouble with is getting exactly the correct layer of pretreat and heat press pressure. We press for 20 seconds at approximately 5lbs of pressure @325 degrees. When we are consistent with the part of the process, the results are fairly even.

Jake


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## goonatic (Sep 5, 2007)

Here are some tests on some Hanes shirts:

5180 Beefy Tee Black
XL made in Mexico - Great white ink printing
L made in Haiti - *POOR* white ink

5180 Beefy tee Deep Royal
XL made in Haiti - Great white ink printing
L made in Haiti - Great white ink printing
M made in Haiti - *POOR* white ink

5250 tagless Deep Forest
XL made in Haiti - Great white ink
M made in Haiti - *POOR

*When I say poor printing it means the white ink looks blotchy and doesn't provide good coverage (1440 dpi looks more like 360 dpi). My guess is the pre-treatment isn't holding to these shirts, for some reason.
So it looks like some shirts from Haiti are OK and some are not. The big question is: Would the bad shirts have problems if screen printed?

Has any screen printers out there ever had a batch of bad shirts that wouldn't hold plastisol inks?

Mark


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## fdsales (Jul 1, 2007)

You raise a very interesting question. I have screen-printing for the past 21 years, and use a lot of navy t/shirts. I have noticed on a few past occassions that my gold ink would wash out on some shirts within the same order, and same print run w/ the same batch of ink, and I always make sure my dryer is hot enough, and spot check the temp using a heat gun just to make sure. Didn't quite know waht to make of this, but now, I'll check the country of mfg. Thanks for your post, you may have discovered a whole new issue w/ the mfg of shirts.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

Mark ... are you using the new bright white ink? I just completed a 288 run on Gildan's new shirt color Sky for a local radio station with our T-Jet 3, and the consistancy of the new white ink over the previous white inks is amazing.

Beyond that, this is an interesting point. I never looked for where the shirts were being made (we use both Hanes and Gildan). I checked through our huge pile of ruined tees, since April, and they were all from various places around the globe.

The only other thing I can think of ... perhaps, your sprayer isn't putting out the pre-treatment with consistency (which might not be easily seen on the shirt)?


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## goonatic (Sep 5, 2007)

Michael,
It is without a doubt a problem with the t-shirts. I run them back to back with the same settings and the problem shirts from Haiti have dismal white. The shirts not from Haiti have awesome bright white. Although, the XL from Haiti seem OK.

As I pondered before, would these same problem shirts be an issue for screen-printers? Hanes, Gildan etc have been making these shirts for decades based on the screen printing industry. Maybe they need to evaluate their process. Maybe the dying process needs to be more controlled in order to be compatible with the new DTG printing techinques? We will find out.

Mark


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

Interesting point, Mark ... I never thought about these being created for the screen printing industry. Hopefully, between DTG makers, DTG ink formulators and the textile industry will put thier heads together to brain storm blanks specifically targeted for us DTG printers.


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