Curing Matsui 301 with Printgen MG additive?

[Shamax]

I'll probably try placing a call directly to Matsui on Monday if possible, but I wanted to go ahead and ask here if anyone had any experience (or more specifically any issues) with curing Matsui's water-based inks when using their Printgen MG additive? I did a run of 12 shirts today doing white on black using the additive, and it did an EXCELLENT job of not drying out in the screen and clogging the mesh. However, even though I spent a few minutes per shirt curing with a heat gun at 4-6 inches, I had at least 7 shirts wash out horrendously. Talk about a Maalox moment

Maybe I was being overly cautious and trying not to scorch the shirts (since I singed a couple last run I did before i had the Printgen), but I did a stretch test on each in the heaviest inked areas and saw no cracking. The 5 that survived are going through wash #2. Needless to say, I feel like an abject failure (thankful at least that this was something I was doing out of my own pocket and not a job specifically for a customer), but I guess at the least I've got 7 guinea pig shirts for test prints.

Any advice on the Printgen or consistency tips for heat gun curing are welcome

[Shamax]

Well, I've managed to "talk myself down off the ledge" from last night's rookie debacle.

Since the fading/washout all seemed to be around the same area of the design, I know I just didn't spend the time that I should have on that part of the design with the heat gun. The additive, since it's made to keep the ink from drying out as fast in the screen most likely lengthened the cure-time needed. That combined with my hesitance to let the heat gun get too close and scorch the shirt led to undercuring in the most heavily inked part of the print. It was also the part furthest from me from where I was sitting, so my back screaming at me wasn't encouraging me to linger on that part of it either.

Lesson learned (thankfully not an OVERLY expensive one), and the printing goes on

[Catspit Productions]

Hey Andy,

Yeah, I saw this when you posted it but I do not use the water based inks you use and I never really use a retarder. So I had nothing to share with this but after reading your post and your follow up I would tend to agree.

Maybe you need to check on the mix ratio with the vendor. I would make absolutely sure that you’re not adding too much additive. Then with the retarder mixed in you may consider pulling finished shirts off the press and letting them air dry before heat setting them.

That alone may help out tremendously. By allowing the solvents in the water based ink to evaporate in the air and following up with the heat setting you should get a much better cure I would think. Most often when we use water based inks a forced air flash cure or dryer is used.

The forced hot air helps evaporate the solvents out of the ink and removes them from the immediate area allowing for total evaporation in a very short time which is then heat sets the ink as a result of the heat in the forced air.

When you do not have forced air dyers and such then allowing them to evaporate and dry to the touch before heat setting should be a great help.