I was just hoping for any advice or tips on printing on polyester I know I need to get the right ink. I'm going to print black on orange I was wondering do I need to change the settings for curing less heat more heat or any other things like special mesh count or what have you. I'm sure this has been answered a million times but I just want to cover all my bases before I accidentally screw something up.

NIMRODOR wrote:I was just hoping for any advice or tips on printing on polyester I know I need to get the right ink.

Hi NIMRODOR, I do a lot of printing over 100% polyester shirt and I use the same plastisol as I use on 50/50 shirts.

I use Triangle and Rutland plastisol inks and haven't had any problem with them. My curing time is the same also, from 15 to 20 seconds with a flash dryer.

Hope this help you!

Dye migration is the biggest concern with 100% poly clothing. I usually wash the shirts before I print on them. That removes some of the dye which helps reduce the chance of dye migration. Use a poly ink.

I use Excalibur SportPro 1550 polyester inks and the cure temp is a bit lower at 290 degrees. The main thing is making sure you don't melt the apparel. I have gotten mine as high as around 310 with no problems but definitely did not want it getting any hotter.

This one is easy. Black ink on an orange polyester garment? No issues there. Black ink can take the dye and you’ll never see it. I don’t even think they make a special poly black do they?

Just print a decent volume of black ink and get it into the knit some with a decent layer on top of that. Black ink won’t show any dye migration if it does occur.

But here is an article on just this FYI:

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/dyemigration.html

Catspit Productions wrote:This one is easy. Black ink on an orange polyester garment? No issues there. Black ink can take the dye and you’ll never see it. I don’t even think they make a special poly black do they?

Just print a decent volume of black ink and get it into the knit some with a decent layer on top of that. Black ink won’t show any dye migration if it does occur.

But here is an article on just this FYI:

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/dyemigration.html

Yep Excalibur has a SportPro 1550 Black ink, I have a gallon of it. Doesn't hurt to make sure I suppose. I have both the 500 and 1550 in black. The 500 will probably work fine but I guess they made the 1550 for a reason so I bought it and use it on 100% poly.

That is very interesting Chrissi, thanks so much for sharing that one. I never thought a poly black would be made. I don’t recall ever having a problem with black ink on polyester garments. It’s only the lighter colored inks that can show the dye and tint the color.

Think about it in terms of color theory and mixing inks. This is called subtractive color theory. When you mix a bunch of primary, tertiary or secondary colors together what color do you get? In theory you get black. In reality you get brown. This color mixing is based on reflection of light. So we actually need a black pigment to make a rich black when working with subtractive color.

With CMYK we have the same scenario. This is more about light absorption but mixing magenta, yellow and cyan will give us black. But in reality it gives us a brown black. It’s not rich enough so we add a pigmented black. That gives us CMY and K which is black.

Now if we add one more color to the mix of a black ink even a pigmented black, what do we get? We get black. If the black is not a true pigmented black we might see a color hue to what is really a very dark brown ink. But since we use highly pigmented black inks in screenprinting, the tiny bit of color hue that might seep into the ink cannot be seen by the human eye. Especially if the ink is of a higher quality.

Here is the official rundown on color theory and a link to a great color theory website.

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/sc ... ixing.html

I have to say, I still learn things every day. Poly black, very interesting indeed. A corporate marketing endeavor? Or is there a real reason that I am unaware of? I don’t think so but I’ll have to ask my ink guys.... LOL

I’ll let you know if I learn anything new.

Thank You for all the replies I got some special black for polyester it seems to be a little more consistent though out, makes a really crisp print even on a so-so screen and cover supper good don't know if there any thing else different about it's make up to be honest.