hey guys talk to me, Josh Rickun, about flo pink and TW

The TW Flo colors we get are concentrated. They aren't really meant to be printed straight. They do settle to the bottom as stated and need to be mixed regularly to keep them alive (if not you'll need a drill+paint mixer+water). The powders you get from a place like nazdar are actually better. The powders do not grey other colors as much if you are mixing them into other things. Therefore they look cleaner. But the powders do not go as far, price-wise, as the concentrates. If it's just flor-ink vs flor powder heads on, you cannot really tell the difference.

As far as drying in, there really isn't much difference either. You should always prewet your screen regardless of what WB color you are printing. We don't use retarder very often because we print fast and don't want to wait any longer than we have to for ink to dry. If you are a slow printer that doesn't have to worry about when you are printing the next color then retarding the ink will be helpful

so much knowledge dropping - thanks fellers

yea just wanted to say a quick thanks as well, have learned so much from reading all the helpful threads on gigposters such as this one, much appreciated!

I just wanted to say that I, Tom Pappalardo, really liked the phrasing of this thread title.

yeah, i buy ink when i get funds and stock up...so sometimes things sit for a while and i have some fluorescent concentrates that have dried up...i think i need to give that paint mixer a try...any suggestion on that squeegeethree?

Crosshair and Squeegeethree are right about all. You should ALWAYS prewet your screen before you put ink in. If you don't have the TW screen cleaner that Dan or myself use, then by all means, put a couple drops of dish soap in a spray bottle with water and lightly mist the screen. It's a good idea to have a spray bottle with a soapy solution and one with just water on hand all the time. While you're running black ink mist your screen with water every once in a while to keep it from drying up on you. A few other colors tend to dry faster as well.

With flo pink, TW Aurora Pink is nice but certainly not opaque. Powder is a pain in the ass and I try to avoid using it when I can. It takes so much to simply get a good quart and is rather time consuming. We have recently been using flo pink from Versatex ( Jacquard Versatex Screen Printing Inks - BLICK art materials ) and it's far more punchy than anything else. It has the consistency of whipped snot though so I mix it with a tiny bit of water and clear.

I would like to draw attention to the Canuckian Thick Flood, as per Andy Mac's suggestion. It is wonderfully useful. I did a run of TW concentrated flo pink + clear base on foamcore and on revere. Drying-in was no issue, mostly because I thick flooded often—flooded the screen so there was a thin glossy layer of ink over the whole screen, and the image was just barely visible denting through the ink.

30% TW flo concentrate in clear base is kind of sticky though. Bump up the off-contact a bit.

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Originally Posted by jesusvbarraza

yeah, i buy ink when i get funds and stock up...so sometimes things sit for a while and i have some fluorescent concentrates that have dried up...i think i need to give that paint mixer a try...any suggestion on that squeegeethree?

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Any powerdrill paint mixer from a store like home depot will do. Just keep in mind that the bigger the mixers "wings" the more resistance and the more powerful the drill will need to be. The most hardcore you can go with this is one used for mixing plaster. Remember NOT to pull the mixer out of the bucket until it has come to a complete stop.

I was in a pinch and the supplier I use was out of all forms of flo pink but I DID try Permaset from the craft store and holy cow that stuff is opaque. Not as eye-burny as I would like but their glow orange is insane