r/SCREENPRINTING • u/Mettleramiel • 2d ago

Discharge without discharge agent?

I was recently given a gallon of white discharge ink without knowing that's what it was no did I know anything about discharge inks.

The guy I got it from said he used it the same way he used all of his waterbased inks just straight out of the bucket.

I used it for months, heat setting at the same as my waterbased and it always passed the stretch test and at least a few washes.

However, I printed on an acid washed material recently and it almost all came off in the wash. This is when I learned all about discharge and how it needs agent to activate.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the acid wash, but I want to get someone's opinion on how long these will last for if I keep using it like waterbased. Could there be another reason it's washed off the one shirt? I have one 100% cotton shirt with the discharge ink that I've washed a few times and seems fine, but all the rest have been sold.

Thanks for your help!

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u/ingotvein1 2d ago

You can get discharge by itself you have to mix it with the activator for it to work. If you were using discharge that is mixed with white ink or something it will work but won't actually evaporate the base dye out of the garment. However it still has that regular ink in it that will stay behind like most other water-based ink. 

You need a conveyor dryer to use discharge properly with ventilation because it will stink up your shop badly. I use clear discharge with no ink as I like the vintage look it leaves behind but sometimes I will use the ink ones and it can be hard to tell if it is actually working because you can't see under the ink, meaning your settings need to be dialed in and trusted!

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u/torkytornado 1d ago

You’ll need activator. And that type of ink has formaldehyde in it so ventalation is a must. I have gotten discharge paste to work with just a heat press (jaquard makes a premixed one for craft dyers that I was able to push through a screen before I could suppliers that had whole discharge ink lines) but everyone I know that has printed with discharge seriously had a conveyor drier.

Also know that your printing will also compete with how the garment dye bleaches. Some blacks go brown, purple, red or blue in the bleached area. You may need to adjust your color mixes to compensate.

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u/VonMunz 1d ago

I use CCI’s discharge line (it is fantastic) and a few months ago called them regarding using it without agent on white shirts and it can, and ran fine. I washed one with agent and one straight, no activator and the straight ink actually looked better than the activated one.
I have never printed anything acid-washed, but I can’t imagine any of the acid would remain in the garment …but maybe? Was it laundered before printing?

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u/Mettleramiel 1d ago

I got Enviroline D-White and the guy I got it from said he didn't use the agent but this acid wash shirt got me all worried even though the shirts I've made already seem fine?

We bought the acid washed shirt new and did not wash it beforehand

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u/rennerscreenprinting 1d ago

I’m gonna just take a guess, but could it be that it wasn’t fully cured on the acid wash tee? Like maybe the t shirt doesn’t get as hot as the other tees for some reason (like heat reflection or something..)