ImagesMagUK_April_2021

www.images-magazine.com APRIL 2021 images 37 KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES www.monsterpress.co.uk Will Petersen of Monster Press breaks down this stunning discharge print created for Hard Times Clothing Anatomy of a print The design was original artwork by Collin Estrada for Hard Times Clothing. We use custom-mixed discharge ink because discharge PMS [Pantone Matching System] sucks – it’s so dependent on how the particular garment discharges. Some colours are close, some are way off and need to be adjusted or mixed by eye. That’s the good thing about a pre-mixed system versus a pigment and base system: minor adjustments to colours are much easier. It was dried for approximately 2 1/2 minutes in our Adelco Ecotex (5m tunnel, 8m total length). We printed with Sericol Texcharge, a discharge ink, straight from the pot (plus the usual activator). We like the Sericol range because they’re pre-mixed so tweaking colours is simple, and it has a good viscosity and vibrant results. The print was done on Gildan Premium tees, which [in our experience] are one of the few shirts that are consistent with discharge ink. The mesh was 80T for every colour, with Newman frames stretched to approximately 30Nm. It was a four-colour print, wet-on-wet, on an MHM S-Type Xtreme 10/12. You have to be careful when printing discharge ink because you can’t see imperfections in the print until they come out the back of the dryer, by which time you’ve already ruined about 20 shirts. M onster Press has a straightforward approach to deciding which technique to use for a particular job, explains director Will Petersen: “We tend to use whatever print type fits the garment and design we’re printing.” UK clothing brand Hard Times prefers a soft finish to its prints, he says, so the choice for this design had to be discharge inks, because they offer the softest finish. To prevent lint from spoiling the print we set up a sticky screen in head one, which is basically a screen with spray adhesive on the back of it. This picks up stray threads and lint before printing. I have also seen people sticking tape to the edge of the screen that wipes across the shirt and picks up lint; both work great.