Waterbased Simulated Process Printing

Using the GG Fusion Kit in Spot Process Screen Printing. 

I've had a few people private message me about this, and the topic came up again on another social media thread today. So I'm going to take a moment to give you guys a little bit of help on how to move over to waterbased printing using the green galaxy fusion kit, but more specifically, how to print spot process with the kit. 

First up I want you to make sure you have the fusion mixing kit. Some shops haven't quite made the move to waterbased, and I get it. But, if you have, or are considering it, hopefully this blog post will help. Also, you'll need some qty of bases, as I am going to have you mix quite a bit of ink to store on the shelf. You can mix just what you need as you go, but I find having what I need for simulated process printing, makes it an easy day, all day. 

Now, let's get our colors made. 

Make sure to pull up fusion.screenprinting.com on your cell phone, computer, or tablet. Having a printer available is really wonderful, because as you pull up your colors you can print those out. If you're making a quart of ink, use 600 g in your formula on the website. You can fit more than that in a quart bucket, but it's a nice starting place, that gives you room to stir your pigments. 

You'll need 8 buckets committed to this to do it right. 10 if you do it my "way", which includes mixing Comet white for the under base and white topper, in two different ways.

Bucket number one will be Comet white +10% water. Trust me on this.

Bucket number two will be basic black. This can be just a simple Pantone black. Off-the-shelf, Green galaxy water-based black.

Bucket number three will be red number 032. 

Bucket number four will be blue, Pantone 300

Bucket number five will be gold, Pantone number 123

Bucket number six will be Pantone purple. This will be pretty bright. 

Bucket number seven will be green Pantone 354. 

Bucket number eight will be turquoise, Pantone 312. 

Bucket number nine will be gray, and that will be Pantone cool gray 8. 

And bucket number 10, will be our highlight white, which will again be, white, but I prefer a 20% water addition. 

So when printing with these water-based ink combinations as a simulated process, you need to keep in mind the volume of heat that will be generated around your press with the under basing. Because of your flash creating heat, that he is going to remove moisture from the air. This dryer environment can cause some potential problems with your water-based ink attempting to stick to the previous colors. You can remedy a lot of this by keeping a ton of moisture in the area. You can run a humidifier. Or just like a simple squirt bottle and mist the air around the press every couple or four shirts. If you live in a super moist environment or your humidity in your shop is high this may not be as big of a problem. If you live in Arizona it could be a hard day if you forget to do it.

  This was a critical problem for us, even in Louisiana, the first time we attempted this beautiful six color simulator process print. I couldn't print more than one every 90 second, simply because I forgot how much moisture aids in the process.  The second time we ran one of these prints, that is a layered water-based print, was on polyester garments. Not a separation studio print, but it was a white waterbase under base, with water-based colors on top. We created a lot more humidity in the area by occasionally spritzing a little bit of water around the screens and making sure the ink stayed super wet. The result was an absolutely beautiful print that looked like it should've been plastisol, but it had to the hand feel of water-based ink, and also stayed well underneath the dye migration parameters of the polyester garment itself. #Winning This is also achieved largely in part due to the ability of being able to use the warp drive fusion catalyst with the green galaxy water-based ink line. It keeps our curing parameters low and ensures a long lasting bright and quality print for the life of the garment. 

So that's kind of it. If you are familiar already with the high-quality prints that come out of separation studio, utilizing standard plastisol ink for that process, then moving over to the water-based version of this will be no problem, if you follow these points above. 

You can still select a 230 or 280 mesh screen. We prefer 280 but a lot of shops really like a 230. 

Summary:

-pre make your colors as listed above

-moisture is your buddy. When in doubt, add more water. If you have any problems, add more water. 

-don't forget to use warp drive for increased binding and wash ability.

Bonus tip: Ryonet sells premixed fluorescent colors for waterbased HSA printers. There are Blue, Purple, Yellow, Green, Red, and Orange, all ready to go. These make a GREAT substitution for the sim process "called for" colors, if you're feeling brave enough to go Flo!

-Charlie Veuleman 

Orders@definitionindistries.com

Getting To Here

This ones going to be a long one, so sit back, have a beer, and let me tell you a story.  

Definition Industries was created by my wife Aubrianne and I, in our garage in Keithville LA, back in 2011.  Starting super simple in our garage with just a minimal volume of equipment, we've grown to a pretty impressive setup, if you don't mind me saying so.  I wanted to take this week to look back at that growth, and smile on some old photos.  Hope you don't mind my trip down memory lane.

I learned the screenprinting trade back in 2001, from a fellow martial artist named Danny Gilliland.  I pretty much learned on a Monday and was printing on a Tuesday.  Not very well, but you get the idea.  I got better quickly, but eventually sold my first shop when I was moving from my hometown to my current Parish of residence, Caddo, in North Louisiana.  I continued to service some clients that were great customers, but it wasn't until after firmly settling into Shreveport that I'd decided to get back into printing.

The year was 2011, and my fiancé Aubrianne and I were both Registered Nurses, working week-on-week-off at the local hospitals.  We were picking up overtime shifts, and wondering what would be the long term goal for us financially.  Do we - A: work more nursing shifts and potentially get burned out, B: ride bikes and drink beer, or C: Open up a business.  So one day, after working some overtime, we were riding bikes and drinking beer, and decided to open up a business.  (See what I did there?)  

It wasn't long until our garage was overtaken with equipment and supplies.  We paired with Ryonet for our purchase, and I had no clue I'd be setting myself up for a business partnership and downright friendship that has lasted now a half a decade.

Here's a panoramic of our little half-garage setup.  Some flimsy hand made racks, nuts-and-bolts shelves, a SilverPress 6-color two station and flash, a BBC little buddy, and tables and random stuff everywhere.  But hey, the industry is wild, and its nuts how much money you can make with just a $5k investment in equipment.  

Late nights a plenty, and yes, we did keep enjoying some beer and bikes.  And overtime.  Nobody says we don't work.  Aubrianne was super supportive of getting rolling, and, heres the kicker, super supportive of the work of keeping it rolling.  Life is a marathon, and she is my running partner no doubt.

Exciting times for sure.  Our kids thought it was so weird, that we "cooked tshirts" in the garage.  We even marked the garage with blue tape around the shop's boundary lines, so they would know the off limits areas.  Garage shops are tough, and my hat goes out to those still working in theirs.  Winters, were bone chilling, and summers, were dangerous.  Hey, 120 degrees F is pretty insane, especially standing next to a dryer that is bellowing out heat at over 800 degrees.      

The momentum was exhausting at times, and there was certainly a few breakdowns at time.  Emotional that is, since equipment is made pretty solid these days.  

Not an uncommon site in our home at the time, was 8' tall stacks of Gildan boxes.  Timing is everything, and finally, we added in our first employee, about late 2012, around the time Aubrianne became my wife.  A friend and martial arts training partner of mine came on board to help us, and give us some much needed off time.  Off time that, honestly, we didn't use wisely, picking up more hospital shifts. 

Back in the day, we had so many semi-custom and smaller orders, it was easy to be super cute with our presentation on delivery, even custom writing the end-users name on printed stickers, that went on stacks, that were wrapped in jute twine.  Yeah, we went hard.  We were Pinterest and Etsy quality before those platforms ever even thought about becoming a thing. 

 The hospitals were huge clients for us at the time, and the more we were there, the more we got the word out about our little business and shop.  Play chess not checkers right?  We knew we could produce, but nobody could sell the product we could make as well as us, but you can't sell it stuck behind the press.  So we essentially were of course our first outside sales people.  

Friends were, and still are super supportive.  It was nothing to take an 8 piece order back then.  Profit margin wasn't a consideration, exposure and brand building was.  

Only a few months in, our business relationship with my friend saw its struggles, and we had to part ways.  It was hard too, knowing that running an employee staffed business out of our home just wasn't possible.  It wasn't that we didn't trust people, but sometimes homes have to be homes, not shops.  The idea was there to move into a retail or warehouse location, and the search was on.

As we grew, we took on new accounts, and new accounts meant more funds, and more funds meant upgrading wimpy equipment.  It wasn't too long before I headed up to a Ryonet open house in Harrison Arkansas, and got to meet the super talented and hardworking staff up there, as well as the owner Ryan Moor himself.  Cool hair, but lots of other good stuff too.  He's a hard worker and has put in a ton of time building his business.  You can see it, how all those guys carried themselves.  I told him I'd love to work with them if the chance ever presented itself, and honestly, I didn't think anything would come of it.  I kept in touch with him, and after asking for some advice on growth and people strategy, he sent me an audio book called the E-Myth Revisited, by Micheal Gerber.  2016 now guys, and to date, I've listened to it, in its entirety, no less than 6 times.  That is a fabulous book.  You should download it immediately, after reading all of this and then sharing this on social. (Thats my right hook for today)

I didn't mention this, but we started out as "Ink In A Blink", and we were an LLC.  We started that way, because nobody gave us the advice to begin with the end in mind.  We always knew we would get employees and grow, but had no clue what we were doing when it came to some of the basic business terms and structure.  Thats another thing that is so great about the book I was talking about, the E-Myth Revisited.  We are an S-Corp now, and thats better for reasons I'll let your CPA go into with you.

Between printing, cold calls, and road shows to local festivals, we stayed as busy as you can imagine.  Those days of our humble beginnings, we will never forget.  Ink In A Blink had to go though, everyone kept calling thinking we were a rapid Tattoo parlor.  I mean...really?  You would want body ink done fast?? Seems like a take your time kinda thing.  Anyway.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, May of 2012 hits and we get a call; Ryan and Ryonet want to hire me to drive up to Harrison AR every month to teach class.  They offer me a great package, and I confirm with a "Hell Yeah".  They had me at "Would you like to teach for us".  That's SO my thing.  I love training people on how to do things, and it helps when you love what you do.  To this day, when I teach a class, I always welcome people to "My favorite thing to do to 20 people I don't know".  Teach them screenprinting that is.  

Ryonet's classroom was secretly the inspiration of how I would eventually build out and make my shop one day.  I was fortunate enough to work in the environment I wanted to create.  A company with hard workers and great values, and cool stuff everywhere.  Cool stuff costs though, so back to work.  

I was on the road a bunch, and that was always tough.  With the family 6 hours away, advancing my garage shop to a full on brick and mortar became priority number one.  We had a huge opportunity with Ryonet, but driving and all that travel just wasn't going to be sustainable.  Mario Marquez, the warehouse manager at the time, kept me in the mix so well, it became no big deal.  He and Ryan were so good to my family and I, I'll never forget it. All of the staff there really.  

Finally, after months of searching, we found a location.  Some people like a good story, and how we arrived at our Hawn Ave location is a great one, but, probably better over beers, so I'll spare you.  Just know this, there is a real estate agent in this town who will probably never work with me again.  It was...special.  And, theres another who probably can't wait to work with us again.  So, balance, right?

We found this sweet 3200 sq ft warehouse right outside of downtown Shreveport. It was pretty basic, four walls and a roof.  Big door.  Small door.  Lots of parking.  No temperature control.  So, we snatched it up. 

We signed a lease in January of 2014, and first things first, we threw a print party to help some friends launch a t-shirt brand.  

We had something like 140 people in the building that night.  It was absolute chaos.  So cool.

A bit goes by, and after the novelty of watching the steam come out of your mouth in a 20 degree warehouse while you print wears off, we made the decision to close that thing in. 

That didn't happen right away, and business was still moving forward.  We found new revenue streams, and were able to start doing a lot of charitable donations, mostly towards veterans based causes.  That kind of stuff that warms the heart, thats whats up.  We were able to do good work, get paid, then able to donate profits in to a place that helped others.  Can't hate on that too much.  And, we got business because of that model.  Not too shabby.  Pictured is Cameron Van Gossen, one of our hospital friends we stole from them to a full time postion with us.  He refers to himself as Employee-MF'ing-Number-One.  He was there in the old garage days a bit too.  Shipping was a major part of what we did.  A 100 piece order is great, shipping it to 100 different people...well, that takes time.  

Ryonet got word that I was hanging drywall, and they gave us the green light to move classes into our building.  No pro am I at dry wall, and, I'll tell you, we got done what we got done because of Aubrianne's dad Curtis.  Grandma and Grandpa were so supportive of what we were doing.  March became May, and the hammers and saws were a buzzing.  Springtime became summer, and thank heavens we got the AC's installed when we did.  Keep in mind, we are still printing too, and working at the hospital. We moved the presses daily to accommodate our construction needs.  CamVanG was a wreck the whole summer.   

July hits, and hey, its my two year anniversary with Ryonet, and look at that, they gave me my two year ann'y in my shop.  Sweet.

We were able to pick up even more equipment for that first class launch, because hey, I told you earlier, the Ryonet classroom was my inspiration for my shop buildout.  And, having 5 presses in shop just meant we could produce even more, even faster, and keep more jobs up at once.   

And to date, I'm something like 43 classes deep, and at 15-25 heads per class, plus seminars and open houses, thats a LOT of students I am responsible for teaching out there.  

Its pretty magical, teaching these classes.  Once a month, we bust ass to finish our production week even faster than normal, somehow clean the place top to bottom, turn it into a classroom, and then teach 15-20 people how to print over two days.  It is a HUGE undertaking, one that we don't take lightly.  We are as successful as we are today heavily in part due to the classes.  The connections we make there are lifetime friends now, and that responsibility we have to them is tremendous.  People come from all walks of life to us, every single month, over and over.  Mom and Dad teams, friend teams, solo stars, and people trying to start a new life where they are their own boss.  'Merica.  Its truly amazing.  I am humbled every month when evaluations come back in, and people praise us for the job we do.  I can't believe that we are so lucky, to be a part of helping so many people achieve their dreams and goals.  

 

Cool things happen when you're doing cool things.  And October of that same year, we got the chance to be a part of a huge marketing deal Ryonet was wanting to put on.  Mario planted the seed of wanting to have the company do a world record print, but after the ball got rolling, another opportunity saw him leave the company, leaving the Guinness Book Of World Records up in the air.  Ryan jumped on board, and got us involved with the Arkansas team to help make this huge undertaking happen.  We left the shop for a few days and headed back to Harrison, for somewhat of a farewell event for the facility as a teaching site.  Around 100 people showed up, and the hustle and bustle was insane.  That morning, we prepped an almost 80 foot long screen and canvas, and printed the world record for the 

"Longest Screen Print".  It was an honor to be a part of that, and to be considered smart enough to help make it all go down.  You can't replace experiences like that.  Can't wait to see our mugs in the book!

Flash back to the shop, and all those fun events are just a break from the regular work of running a business and teaching classes.  We continue to make cool tees, awesome ones as well, and teach a few dozen folks here and there.  Don't forget to mirror your selfie tee photo lol.

Caffeine and late nights, as we continue to grow this thing.  2014 moved into 2015, and we had to finally add on some staff.  Growing a business is weird.  You get to a point where you are making money the way you are doing things, hit a wall or imaginary line, then you get ambition.  Ambition means more hustle, and to grow through the glass ceiling, you'll need help.  So, in 2015, we went from being a 4 person team, to being an 11 person team.  Hiring in friends and family and strangers alike, all in an attempt to get past the place we had worked so hard to get to in 2014.  Growing pains are real adding on 7 people in one year.  I can't believe nobody fired me. 

 

We never really mentioned Blue, our Catahoula Curr, but technically, if CamVanG was employee number one, Blue is number 0.  Pizza crust is a form of payment, but late nights get us the ol' red eye pretty fast from him.  Sleeping is a pastime of his, and he lets us know when we interrupt that.  Added bonus, we are safe from UPS delivery men when Blue is around.  He never has liked the color brown.

As the class expands, and our clientele grows, we ended up taking on more equipment and more responsibility.  More clients too, and 2015 saw us help quite a few clients AKA new friends grow their tshirt brands to new heights.  Infinity and beyond!

One of these guys even made it on TV, so thats kind of cool, right?  But I'm getting ahead of myself a touch.  

Despite the growth we were seeing, we just were not making the jump we needed.  Yes, we were making more money, but we weren't increasing our profitability.  The missing piece was pretty simple, we needed to automate.  Production is one of those things, if you don't hit your time hacks, you probably arn't going to just rake in any profits.  You may make money, but big, growth is what we wanted.  

I'm the kind of person who likes new and nice and cool, and now in my mid-30's, I don't want to settle for just whatever any more.  We reached out to Ryan and his Brother in Law Brandon, who is head of sales, and set into motion the move to automate our shop. They sell this amazing press called the Roq.  Made in Portugal, its a thing of beauty.

It was late November 2015 when the green giant landed.  I can't believe that monster made it off the truck safely.  Props to Land & Sea next door to us, for the impromptu use of their fork lift.  We almost had an exciting situation, but the operator was surgical, getting it all into our building safely.

Unpacking it took two days and half of a Crossfit gym's membership to move into place.  In early December she was installed, and training went hard.  

Ok not too hard, and not too hard all the time.  But we finally got our big boy pants on, figuratively speaking, with this new automated press.  When you can go from printing 80-100 pieces an hour on a good day, to 300-400 an hour with just one operator barely breaking a sweat, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

  

Speaking of tunnel, Printing multiple jobs at a time, on nicer and bigger equipment, is totally a thing that's regular now.  Its crazy looking back at our little shop and how its grown, and crazy to me to think of how I waited so long to automate what we do.  We started out on a small little 5' dryer, and now we have this beast.  Three rows wide of drying power?  Hell yea!

We are still going to do all the weird stuff that got us here.  Shows, like the Comic Convention shown above, and the Makers fair we participate in yearly that teaches little kiddos how to print a tee shirt, are just one of the things we continue to do, unscalable as they are, from the old days.  We recently even launched an entire web platform based around selling 100 tees to 100 people.  Its called http://www.fundershirt.com and hey go check it out.  Glutton for punishment? Maybe. Keeping it OG? Definitely. 

The auto has truly stepped our game up.  We are running tees now faster than ever, and seeing happier staff from it as well.  Funny thing about pushing a squeegee since 2001 manually, is it makes you tough.  But running a business makes you tougher.  So, lifting my first ever 5 gallon bucket of ink was no big deal.  Waterbased ink as well, as we saw 2015 become the year where we established ourselves as THE eco-friendly printer in the region.  Another cool title we scored in 2015 was "Top-20 Purchasers of Next Level Apparel Blanks in the US" (#17 to be exact).  Branding is huge with us, and thats our go-to blank, thanks to the relationship we built with the company and our outside sales rep Jeremy.  

Relationships are huge for us. And if you misread this article, reread, because this whole thing isn't about us, cool equipment, or even really tshirts.  Its about relationships, and how you can't succeed without surrounding yourself with great people.  We named some names, but we omitted a bunch too. Even the UPS guy deserves props for his duty all these years.

We are who we are because at every single step of the way, there was a face.  And we will never forget those faces.  More in depth with those people I'll likely get, but for now, let me close with one more pic.

I couldn't have pursued this as aggressively as I did, without my wife by my side.  The hard times come and go, the easy ones as well, but any entrepreneur will tell you, its hard, and the hustle, or the struggle, is real.  And every day, we take it in stride, continue to build, and grow this amazing company, with a team around us, and support from the community at large.  I love my wife, and my family, and am fortunate to be able to serve and work with so many amazing people, in such an amazing town.

-Charlie Veuleman

orders@definitionindustries.com

 

Getting Seen

This week for our blog post, I wanted to focus in on brand and business marketing for just a moment.  We all know that whether we work for someone, or for ourselves, we have to push and pump the business out to whoever can see or hear about it, and hope that our message falls on the right ears.  This is the same outside of business too, if we have a thought or idea that needs validation, or maybe a personal event we want to promote, we have to figure out what medium is best suited to let people know whats up. 

The previous decade saw that TV, Newspaper, and Radio were the big three, but nowadays, social media is where its at.  And, in the social world, we have enourmous opportunities at marketing ourselves.  Much of social media advertising can be bought, but some free content carries worth as well, though it is limited to our primary circles of friends usually.

One place I have found a ton of inspiration for how I handle social, and how I find the gusto to get it rolling, is marketing expert Gary Veynerchuck.  Gary Vee, as he is often referred to, has an incredible back story, and loves to tell it.  He's super confident, and more than anything, super right.  About it all. His social advice is second to none, and his marketing firm is over 500 employees strong, so that says something towards their effectiveness and success.  Another nice thing to note regarding Gary, is that much of his content is free through his podcast.  And his books don't suck either.

Regardless of where you find inspiration, let me throw a few points out there.  Some that I have picked up from Gary, some from other resources, and some just learning on my own.

-In social, what matters is Depth, not width.  Too many people want a million "likes" on their page.  If not one person is engaging, all those likes wont matter.

-Content is king in digital marketing.  If all you do is sell sell sell, you are quickly going to loose your audience.  Talk about what matters in your industry or community if you really want to stick and engage.

-Team up!  If you do work for another biz, you need to make sure that collabo gets put out there, and that both of you get to engage each others audience from it. 

-Use Hashtags!  And make sure to use ones that make sense in what you do, and your industry.  Then, also take some risks, and engage with quirky and less sought out versions of more popular hashtags.  #crossfit may have a million posts, #crossfitgirls a half a million, but #crossfitbootyshorts may get a much smaller audience going, that you can target more directly.  Though, all of those would be included in my selling of an item targeted at that market.

-Get employees and friends involved.  If you can't get at least those people behind you, your product or business may actually suck.  If you have 500 facebook friends, and can't sell 500 tees, you might have a problem.  Family and friends are super supportive generally, and if you have a great circle, don't be afraid to ask for content or shares.  A picture with your product, or a recommendation from them goes a long way in scoring th enext client.  And, you'd probably do it for them.   Unless their product sucked...

Ok, thats it for now, but more later.  

To learn more about how your project can be made even better, reach out to us at orders@definitionindustries.com and lets get a quote started.  We will go over your options, and take the time with you, so that you make the best decision for your project, that ends with an awesome feeling product, printed perfectly, at a great price, and delivered on time.

-Charlie Veuleman
www.definitionindustries.com

Finding the Right Fabric

Fabric selection is a giant piece of the selling and design process, that many times, gets heavily overlooked.  Not long ago, if you wanted to get custom screen printed tees done, you really just selected tees based on weight, ie 4 oz, 5 oz, or 6 oz.  And maybe, all cotton or "50/50", blended cotton and polyester.  

But damn the old days, things and times have changed.  Or, at least they have in our shop.  See, we firmly believe in fashion apparel and branding, and we take that belief into the garments we encourage our clients to select.  Anytime the basic tees are even brought up, brands like Gildan and Jerzees, I never miss the opportunity to tempt the client over to other brands and fabric blends.  

Though, I have seen some of the tee blank basic companies start putting out more tri blend and 60/40 options, as well as all-poly options, nobody wins the upscale tee market like Next Level Apparel and American Apparel.  These companies, along with others like Bella+Canvas and Tultex to name a few, have redefined blank apparel goods in an industry where the status quo was getting just plain boring.  These better fabric blends not only feel better on, they look better on you.  Basic tees are "tubular construction", meaning, it was a giant super long sock, that got cut, then sleeves sewn in, and a neck, and boom, its a shirt.  Nicer brand tees are often die cut, into shape, a front and back.  These sides are sewn together, yielding a shirt that is not only of nicer material, but better fit.  This is how womens tees are made usually, so that the body of the tee matches the shape of the body of a female better.  Think: hourglass.  Guys tees, while not too drastically hourglass in shape, have started to follow this trend from better-shirt manufacturing companies.  The result is better fitting, which makes the customer look even better in them.  Another thing about the better tees, is that they just print nicer.  Seriously.  Screen print a design onto a cheaply made tee, then same design onto a nicer fabric, and compare the two side by side.  The difference is giant.  Visually, the inks and detail stand out so much nicer on the better substrate.  

Approaching clients about moving up to a nicer garment is tricky some times.  I know, that if someone is looking for a cheap tee to give away for political election season, or maybe a give away for a 5K run, they would be a hard sell to upgrade.  But clients looking for branding and marketing products that are sold or that they hope stand the test of time in the end users closet, typically understand where we are coming from when we pitch the upgrade.  Its surprising to many how affordable it is to move up to nicer brand fabrics.  

To learn more about how your project can be made even better, reach out to us at orders@definitionindustries.com and lets get a quote started.  We will go over your options, and take the time with you, so that you make the best decision for your project, that ends with an awesome feeling product, printed perfectly, at a great price, and delivered on time.

-Charlie Veuleman
www.definitionindustries.com

Printing For Polyester Fabrics

Often times, we are asked in class and by customers, "How do you adjust inks and printing methods for polyester and poly blend fabrics".  While there is a ton of info on this out there, we aim to make the info simple and easy for customers, and also for students who come to the Ryonet Screen Print Experience class.

First, we aim to make sure that customers and students truly understand the whole poly "thing".  Polyester fabrics get their color on the thread through a fusion process that consists of heat.  Many moons after that, those fibers can "open" back up or release their color as a gas, into the ink, once that ink is traditionally cured at high heat temperatures.  Its called Dye-Migration, and it can be devastating to print shops or to customers if their printer didn't follow some basic methods to ease the dye migration.

This is where we, as a print shop, truly get to shine.  We print with Plastisol style inks, and also Water-Based style inks.  So, in shop, we have a wide variety of choices when it comes to putting color on a garment.

Plastisol, the old standard in most USA screen printing shops, offers a great opacity option, as it is thicker, and stands up on top of fabric.  Also, plastisol features the option to use additives to achieve certain effects.  And, keeping ourselves on topic, plastisol has the added benefit of some low-curing options out there on the market, so that the dye migration point is never achieved.  We print with many types of plastisols, and utilize some that are thick enough to block dye migration completely, even when the high heat point of 330 degrees is reached.  Since those don't always lend the best handfeel to the garment, we also utilize some plastisol ink low - cure lines, specifically designed for polyester and performance blend fabrics, that allow curing at 285 degrees. These inks offer incredible color opacity, and also, durability.

Water based inks however, a little less used in the US than abroad, offer some interesting options now.  Locally, we are lucky enough to have been the first to take on water based printing seriously in our area.  When many shops didn't want to replace thousands of dollars in inks on the shelf in competing shops, we gladly welcomed the challenge of printing with these inks.  When we first started printing water based inks, we would often receive compliments about the soft hand feel of garments, and this, coupled with upgrades in the clients requested garments, started making us stand out in the local market.  When customers find that they can have their super nice poly-blend or tri-blend fabric garments from blank manufacturers like American Apparel, Next Level, Canvas+Bella, and even Tultex and the old stand by Gildan, printed with eco-friendly water based inks, their reaction is that of amazement of the option.  See, many customers don't ever realize their is an option.  Red ink is red ink, right? No way.  Waterbased red, or any color, is where its at in our opinion.  And, now, with our upgrade in equipment and processes, allow for us to cure garments as low as 220 degrees with waterbased inks, allowing for full fusion and bond to the tshirt, and keeping it over 80 degrees from the dreaded dye migration point.  The handfeel, the wash and wearability, and the long lasting environmental effect is huge.  Definition Industries is currently printing with somewhere around 80% of our clients work with this option, and its a big strategy for us moving into the future of printing.  On polyester garments, waterbased inks offer that same opacity now a days as plastisols, and also offer much greater durability than previously known, when paired with waterbased fusion catalysts.

As a shop owner, you also have the benefit of knowing, that you are utilizing less harmful chemicals in shop, and that spills over to employees also,  Nobody wants to be using oil based inks and oil based aerosol cleaners.  Well, at least our employees don't want to use them as often.  Also, as a shop owner, you'll see a higher level of cleanliness in your shop, as these screens get washed down at the end of production, vs plastisol screens which may get their cleaning put off until later.

To learn more about how your project can be made even better, reach out to us at orders@definitionindustries.com and lets get a quote started.  We will go over your options, and take the time with you so that you make the best decision for your project, that ends with an awesome feeling product, printed perfectly, at a great price, and delivered on time.

-Charlie Veuleman
www.definitionindustries.com

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I've always wanted to launch a long form industry blog, so here it is.  Stay tuned, and I bet we will make it fun :-)