Print Expert Colin Huggins went live on YouTube to showcase two rad specialty inks from FN-INK: FN-INK Gold and FN-INK Silver. Couldn’t make it to the live stream? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Here are some highlights and popular questions printers had about the FN-INK metallic inks.
PRINTING GOLD
First, Huggins printed with FN-INK Gold. He printed the FN-INK Gold logo onto a black shirt first to showcase the awesome shimmer effect of the ink. The gold flake shows up after just one print pass.
Want more detail? So did Huggins. He walked through a half-moon design with lots of detail that had been printed over a white base. The design is printed through a 110 mesh and includes halftones and tons of fine detail.
QUESTION: WHAT’S THE LOWEST AND HIGHEST MESH COUNT YOU CAN USE?
Metallic inks usually prefer lower mesh counts. As mentioned earlier, the half-moon design with crazy detail was only printed through a 110 mesh. Usually, it’s recommended to use mesh counts of around 86-110 when printing directly to a shirt, and 156 or higher when printing over a white underbase. Some designs will require higher mesh counts: FN-INK Gold will print through mesh up to 230 thin thread. Make sure you take into account the parameters of the design and test thoroughly before production so you know the outcome you’ll get.
RELATED: ADD SOME SPARKLE TO YOUR PRINTS WITH FN-INK™ GOLD
QUESTION: WHEN SHOULD YOU USE A CURABLE REDUCER?
When you want to resolve super fine detail or print through a higher mesh, adding FN-INK Curable Reducer to FN-INK Gold is a great idea. FN-INK Curable Reducer is a low cure additive designed to lower an ink’s viscosity (its thickness), making the ink easier to print. It’ll help you print a thick ink easier, and in the case of printing FN-INK Gold, will help the gold flake pass through a high mesh screen.
RELATED: TAKE CONTROL OF THICK INKS WITH FN-INK™ CURABLE REDUCER
There’s still more to be done with FN-INK Gold. Next, Huggins talks about adding color to the gold ink.
“The bottom line of adding color to Gold is that you can do whatever you want,” Huggins said.
The amount of color you add depends largely on the ink color you’re working with. More translucent inks—like magenta—allow you to add more color to FN-INK Gold. Adding too much of a color will eventually cover the gold pigment, reducing or eliminating the gold effect.
Huggins references a T-shirt design of a bull. Every color in the design has FN-INK Gold added to it. The shimmer effect is epic.
QUESTION: WHAT COLORS LOOK GOOD WITH GOLD?
When mixing colors into FN-INK Gold, the color of the Gold flake will influence the end result. Say you’re adding red to gold. The gold already has a little bit of a red-ish tint (gold is made up of yellow, red, black, and white). This will tint the red color you’re adding to it, and create a tinted red color like brown. Adding orange or magenta to FN-INK Gold will create a bronze color.
Experimenting with colors and testing them out is the best way to realize which colors look good with FN-INK Gold. Play around with the inks on your shelf and find color combos that you (and your customer) like.
It’s time to move on to printing another metallic ink: FN-INK Silver.
PRINTING SILVER
Huggins starts by printing the FN-INK Metallic Silver logo onto a black shirt, just like he did with FN-INK Gold. This shimmery silver ink prints like butter, and can go through pretty much any mesh count. After just one pass, the FN-INK Silver shows up vibrant and bright. The smoother the print surface is, the more the design will become chrome or mirror-like.
Pro Tip: Metallic inks are designed to reflect heat. Because of this, flashing FN-INK Metallic inks can take a bit longer to flash and cure (more on this later).
RELATED: ADD A SPARKLE OR CHROME EFFECT TO SCREEN PRINTS WITH FN-INK™ METALLIC SILVER PLASTISOL INK
QUESTION: WHY DOES SILVER LOOK DULL AFTER WASHING?
Because FN-INK Silver is an aluminum flake (sorry to everyone who thought it was real silver), it can tarnish in the wash when exposed to some detergents. The easiest solution? Do a wash test to make sure the flake isn’t tarnishing and dulling out the print. If this happens, you can print a clear ink like FN-INK Extender Base overtop so the aluminum flake isn’t directly exposed to the detergents while in the wash.
QUESTION: CAN FN-INK SILVER BE USED AS AN UNDERBASE?
The short answer to this question is yes. Huggins references a design where FN-INK Metallic Silver has been printed as the underbase and color added on top. While the effect wasn’t exactly what he had hoped, it still looked pretty realistic.
Because the flake size of FN-INK Silver is so small, it passes through high mesh screens without difficulty. Huggins prints a design of a woman’s face to showcase how much detail can be resolved with this metallic ink.
QUESTION: CAN YOU ADD COLOR TO SILVER?
Adding color to FN-INK Silver is much like adding color to FN-INK Gold. Depending on the effect you want, you can add as much color to FN-INK Silver as you need. You can also add this silver to another color as a tint.
One thing to keep in mind when adding color to FN-INK Metallic Silver is that it has a gray value, which will affect the color’s look. Do you want to mix silver and a bright royal blue? It will produce a gunmetal shade, which has a gray tone to it.
When in doubt, test it out! If you’re adding a color to FN-INK Silver, make sure you’re happy with it before you head to production. A great way to test your colored inks without committing to a large batch is to make a small sample—50 to 100 grams—to use for testing. That way, you’re not wasting precious ink.
Now that the inks have been printed, it’s time to talk about an important factor when printing metallic inks: curing.
CURING QUESTIONS
Both FN-INK Silver and FN-INK Gold are low-cure inks. This means that they cure once the entire ink layer reaches 260°F. However, since metallic inks are designed to reflect, they also reflect heat in the dryer.
To ensure the entire print reaches full cure, increase the dwell time (retention time in a conveyor dryer) or increase the temperature you cure at. Perform a wash test to ensure the print was properly cured. If the print washes out or the ink cracks, then the print is undercured. Adjust the dryer settings, cure another test print, and have it undergo another wash test until you find optimal results.
RELATED: THE LOWDOWN ON LOW-CURE PLASTISOL INK
QUESTION: CAN YOU CURE FN-INK METALLICS WITH A FLASH DRYER?
If you use a flash dryer to cure inks, don’t worry. These metallic inks can cure just fine with a flash dryer. Like Huggins mentioned before when talking about flashing FN-INK Silver, flash and cure times will take a little longer. Make sure to test cure times with a wash test to make sure the ink has fully cured.
QUESTION: DO I NEED TO WORRY ABOUT DYE MIGRATION WITH METALLIC INKS?
Dye migration is defined as the movement of dye from a dyed material (like the threads in a t-shirt) to another material in contact with that shirt, like ink. This means that the dye from polyester fabric is moving—or bleeding—into the ink printed on top of it.
When printing any ink not specifically formulated to be low-bleed, printers need to take dye migration into account when printing on polyester or poly-blend garments. To stop dye migration in its tracks, use a dye blocker base like FN-INK Barrier Black.
RELATED: WHAT IS DYE MIGRATION AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT MY PRINTS?
QUESTIONS ABOUT PEARL
FN-INK Pearl is the third metallic ink in the FN-INK specialties line. This specialty ink is perfect for adding a little shine or a pearlescent effect to prints. While it’s possible to print FN-INK Pearl directly to fabric, it won’t produce a smooth finish. The rough texture of the garment and shirt fibers will poke through the print, hindering the shimmering effect of the pearl ink. To let that pearl shine, you need to matte down those shirt fibers with a smooth ink deposit like an underbase or another color.
Huggins answered some questions about this shiny ink.
QUESTION: CAN YOU ADD COLOR TO FN-INK PEARL?
FN-INK Pearl is a very light ink. It doesn’t have much color on its own, so you can get amazing effects by adding color to it. All the same rules of adding color to metallics like FN-INK Gold and FN-INK Silver apply here as well.
Adding too much color will cover the pearl pigment, which will reduce or even eliminate the pearl effect. Also, specific colors like white, black, or inks with a lot of white or black in them will cover the pearl flake after even a small addition of color.
Pastel shades will be the easiest to work with since they’ll allow the pearl flake to shine through the most. It is recommended to add 5% - 20% of FN-INK color to FN-INK Pearl. Play around with it to discover what looks best for the job you’re working on.
QUESTION: CAN YOU MIX FN-INK PEARL WITH FN-INK GOLD?
Now, it’s time for an experiment. Huggins adds a dollop of FN-INK Pearl to a small mixing container, then a dollop of FN-INK Gold. He tries to keep the amounts of each ink similar. He then mixes it well and shows the camera.
The result is an interesting shimmery mix of gold flake and a pearlescent shine. Huggins makes a note to print it on a shirt in the future.
Notice the shirt underneath the mixing container? It’s printed with FN-INK Pearl transitioning over FN-INK Gold. This T-shirt design includes all the FN-INK specialty inks. Huggins printed a white underbase in a couple of places: underneath the FN-INK Pearl and under the banner and block text printed with FN-INK Gold. Awesome, right?
Printing with specialty inks can be an awesome way to level up your designs creatively. With FN-INK Metallics like Silver, Gold, and Pearl, you can make your prints as subtle or as loud as you want.
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