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
