T shirts Victoria
Differences Between Water Based and Plastisol For T Shirts Victoria
The two most common types of inks used in the textile screen printing victoria industry are water based and plastisol inks. Both types can be used for textile screen printing, like t shirt printing victoria or custom clothing and both types need heat to be cured. There are some differences between the two.
The differences will start with what emulsion should be used. The emulsion is coated on a screen and set to dry. The logo you are printing is burned into the emulsion using an exposure unit. The ink is then applied to the screen and pushed through the logo image only and transferred onto the garment using a screen printing press. Some emulsions will break down when using water based inks. This means you need to use a water resistant emulsion when using water based inks. The same applies for plastisol inks. They can cause premature breakdown of emulsions that are designed for water based ink. Both plastisol and non oxidizing water based inks need heat to cure. Plastisol inks need an oven or at least a flasher to properly cure. Even if you leave a plastisol design on a t shirt and expose it to lots of air, it will never cure without heat. Plastisol ink has great color output, coverage and a long lasting durability. Both plastisol and non oxidizing water based inks need heat to cure. Plastisol inks need an oven or at least a flasher to properly cure. Even if you leave a plastisol design on a t shirt and expose it to lots of air, it will never cure without heat. Plastisol ink has great color output, coverage and a long lasting durability.
Curing Ink For Screen Printing Victoria
There are a couple of ways of curing plastisol ink, with the best practice being the use of a conveyor belt driven oven. Much like a pizza oven you’d see at your local take out join, the shirt is placed on one side and is fed through on a conveyor belt. In the oven, the ink reaches the curing temperature of 330deg Fahrenheit and comes out the other side, cured and dry to the touch. You can also use a flash dryer to cure the ink although this is not as good of a method and might result in uneven curing over a longer production run, but for home screen printing it’s totally fine. You can even use heat guns, hair dryers and other back yard engineered ways to cure your t shirt printing ink but for commercial operation a conveyor oven is the standard.
When it comes to choosing which type of ink you would like to use you need to consider your application, your budget, your limitations on required equipment and your end goal. You should also consider the environment as well as your staff or students if you do live screen printing events where you teach kids to learn t shirt printing for example. For ease of use and for environmental reasons, using water based ink might be the way to go. Although new standards in the production of plastisol inks has resulted in inks that are much more environmentally friendly than you would think, however they are still tedious to clean up!The two most common types of inks used in the textile screen printing victoria industry are water based and plastisol inks. Both types can be used for textile screen printing, like t shirt printing victoria or custom clothing and both types need heat to be cured. There are some differences between the two.