ImagesMagUK_November_2020

www.images-magazine.com NOVEMBER 2020 images 29 TIPS & TECHNIQUES Tony Palmer has been in the garment decoration industry for over 30 years and is now an independent print consultant working closely with print shops to get the most from existing processes and techniques. Tony is passionate about keeping and enhancing production skill levels within the industry. He is the owner and consultant at Palmprint Consultants, offering practical help and assistance to garment decorators all over the globe. www.palmprintuk.com When the customer insists that the universe as we know it will come to a crashing halt if you don’t have white in the design, you have two options: migration blocker and poly white. Migration blocker ink is usually grey and has chemical blockers that will stop the yellow of the vizzy crawling through the ink to turn even the most optical white a lovely shade of freshly picked lemons. The ink is sticky and thick and must be printed first underneath the white and it must be flashed, making an already difficult job infinitely more complicated. Poly white ink has dye blockers built in. It is usually thicker than normal white, but it can be printed last so there’s no need to flash. The curing temp of these inks is usually lower than normal plastisol, which allows you to reduce the dryer temperature to below the point at which the polyester starts to get angry and pollute all the bright colours in its proximity. Be sure to use low cure colours in the rest of the print to avoid a mis-cure on the other parts of the design. Curing the ink on hi-vis can be a challenge as the reflective strips sometimes appear to be sewn on with thread that has the magical ability to shrink to approximately a third of its length when a pre-designated heat is reached, thus pulling the garment in different directions. This means you’ll have to find the sweet spot of curing temperature and speed that allows the ink to stick to the garment but not pucker the reflective strips so they resemble an Instagram influencer’s top lip. Reflecting changes Hi-vis garments are not limited to vests – there is now a wide range of garments ranging from jackets that have a handy zipped print access to allow printing onto the outer ply only, to trousers that can be transferred using a sleeve board. You also have the ability to print reflective ink onto a shirt to give it hi-vis qualities (although it is important to note the HSE classification of what actually makes a garment a certified hi-vis garment). Reflective ink has changed over the years – I can still recall more than 25 years ago using a product that was prohibitively expensive and consisted of a three pack of binder, shiny reflective cat’s eye glass balls and a catalyst. This ink was difficult to use, clogged in the mesh, had a short shelf life and didn’t sit very well on textiles. The new ranges of ink available nowadays have all these properties built in and have a long shelf life. I recently printed some fluorescent yellow long sleeve shirts with MagnaPrint Reflective SB, a water- based ink that was very stable and gave superior reflective properties when printed through a 55T mesh. They were used in a motorsport pit lane. I must stress they did not conform to the EN 471 standard of normal hi-vis vests, but they looked super cool! Plastisol reflective ink is also available as a single pack, ready-to-use ink. Branded hi-vis garments are a staple product in most print shops. The option to heat seal is usually the first process that’s picked due to the low quantity print runs often associated with these orders, but it is possible to print a single-colour job of 30 pieces inside 15 minutes using screen printing, making it a viable decoration option. Reflective inks, such as this used here by Michelle Moxley of M&R, are no longer prohibitively expensive or tricky to use, advises Tony Tony used MagnaPrint Reflective SB to create this T-shirt, shown under normal light [L] and with a flash [R]