Permaset

Finally! Organic Approval by the Soil Association for our Permaset Permatone range

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:34:00 GMT

We're thrilled to announce that we have just been granted Approval by the Soil Association in the UK for our Permaset Permatone range of textile screen-printing inks, having successfully met the requirements of the Global Organic Textiles Standards (GOTS) for non-organic chemical inputs for use in organic textile processing.

The products covered by the Approval include the Permatone colour matching range: Permatone Black, Permatone Blue, Permatone Extender, Permatone Green, Permatone Magenta, Permatone Orange, Permatone Red B/S Carmine, Permatone Red Y/S Scarlet, Permatone Violet, Permatone White, Permatone Yellow G/S Primrose and Permatone Yellow R/S Golden Yellow plus SuperCover First Down White.

We’re incredibly excited to receive this Approval from the Soil Association as we are absolutely passionate about supporting the environment and committed to the continuous improvement of our environmental performance, hence our creation of Permaset Permatone Inks. These inks are 100% solvent free, yet still deliver really pure, vibrant colour, an exceptionally superior soft handle and excellent durability. This is the first range of textile inks outside the UK to obtain this Approval.

Here at Colormaker, we employ a number of measures to reduce the environmental impact of the surface coatings we produce, including an increasing focus on the development of products that are water based, solvent free or both. The Permatone range in particular is an outcome of significant ongoing investment in Research and Development.

We’re also committed to working with our customers to minimise any adverse effects and maximise the positive effects of our activities on health, safety and the environment.

Textile printers wishing to declare themselves ‘organic’ would need to be using inks that have successfully met the requirements of a standard such as the Global Organic Textiles Standard (GOTS) for inputs used in certified organic textile processing.

ULTRAMARINE

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:44:00 GMT

Great blog post by Textile Design Maker Kathryn Sanderson on her recent visit to the ultramarine pigment factory 'Holliday Pigments' in the town of Comines on the French / Belgian border with our own David Stuart.

http://kathrynsanderson.com/2011/08/31/ultramarine/

Permaset features at London Fashion Week

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:43:00 GMT

A great marker of how the UK fashion industry regards the ethical fashion movement is the seasonal reaction to the Estethica exhibition, which showcases ethical and eco labels.

Estethica has found its way into the spotlight this season, opening London Fashion Week with Noir's catwalk and the launch of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan. The bar has most definitely been raised in design terms as well, with some very forward looking collections on show from hot new fashion talent. Unquestionably three of the brightest stars are Christopher Raeburn, Ada Zanditon and Mark Liu.

This season Mark Liu (a zero waste champion with his innovative approach to pattern cutting, eliminating any possibility of offcuts) continues to innovate this time with an amazing new dye technology called Permaset Aqua, a new water based pigment manufactured by Australian company Colormaker Industries. The pigment's microscopic particles bond with the fabric obviating the need for toxic mordent chemicals.

Appropriately Liu's AW09 collection is called 'Singularity Point', which he explains is a phenomenon where "a system becomes aware of its own limitations and eventually rewrites its own rules to take control of its own destiny." We're definitely impressed by the way Liu's work is rewriting the rules, combining technology + creativity to show us the future of fashion.

For full details of this article, please see http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/lfw-estethica-talent.php

Permaset SUPERCOVER Fabric Inks- Unsurpassed!

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:47:00 GMT

Review of Permaset SUPERCOVER inks from Print Cut Sew
The soft hand feel is not the best thing about Permaset; the best thing is the SUPERCOVER line of opaque pigments.
How many of you have had to add opaque white base to your pigments and had to use so much pigment just to get the colour saturated it ended up costing five times more than a regular colour would have? Or have had to do more than one coat to get an opaque colour on dark fabrics? Well, you’re going to love these.
Permaset SUPERCOVER pigments are ONE COAT coverage over black. Amazing.
I’ve demo’d some of the SUPERCOVER inks on black with the standard cover pigment to show you the difference. To view the demo’s simply click here…

Technical Tips from Phillip Newell

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:48:00 GMT

Phillip Newell of Newell Graphics, Iowa, USA recently sent through some useful technical tips for working with Permaset - many thanks Phillip. See below for Phillip's comments...

Curing is one thing I had a little issue with when I first got started with Permaset. I use a small electric dryer that is 8' in length and has a 4' chamber. What I realized is you have to slow the belt down enough so that the shirt remains in the chamber for 45-60 seconds. I also turn the heat up a little higher when printing on darks so that the shirts are hitting 375-390 as they exit the tunnel. Since I've adjusted this, I don't have any problems with the images washing out. Of course light garments have a much thinner ink deposit, and so require a little less time and temp.

The other key is air circulation. Once the moisture escapes from the ink, it needs somewhere to go. Otherwise is just sits in the dryer and impedes the drying of the other shirts. Fortunately, my dryer (Lawson Encore) came with a forced air option. I also added another inline duct fan (about $40) to the exhaust stack as it exits the building to help draw the moist air out of the dryer.

Permaset in the Big Apple

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:07:00 GMT

Metier Fashion Designer Magazine
December 2008

TEXTILE TURNING POINTS

Fashion would be nothing without the textiles from which it is made. Pressure on designers to hit a standard of proper manufacturing as well as sustainable fabrics and eco-conscious finishing treatments are more and more intense as the entire globe looks at how to help the environment. The design industry is not going to get a break from the political end of the spectrum. Businesses that refuse to make adjustments will continue to be scrutinized where as those that make manufacturing breakthroughs will prosper.

A fur loving, luxury tote toting, private jet flying editor was over-heard at dinner the other evening asking whether their tablemates scarf was made of organic yarn. And with that the “movement” was proven to be a revolution.

The largest complaints as far as editors and consumers go is how to make eco-friendly garments luxurious in terms of these three things: color, pattern and texture. They feel they do not want to give up their beautiful Bordeaux chiffon and burn-out velvet cocktail frock for the holiday season. What designers need to remember is that many of the most luxurious fabrics came from the days of Pharaohs and Kings before there was mass production and chemical ease.

It might be easy for a designer to find un-bleached natural cotton… but who wants to use a cream color palette season after season. Chemical dyes are derivatives of a chemistry-lab reaction of coal tar/petroleum ingredients which equals more demand for petroleum needs globally. Halting their use is one step to lessening the world’s dependence. The fashion industry can make a huge impact on that since about 99 percent of the population globally wears some type of clothing. People are aware that dyes with toxic compounds can enter the popular water systems. These rivers and lakes are what second and third world countries use for bathing, drinking and cooking. If designers and editors put this information out there the consumers will take the time to make more educated decisions.

“Organic pigment inks utilize pthalate-free components. Its counterpart, plastisol ink is a soft rubber product made from petroleum, and as recent press has highlighted--soft plastics must be removed from infant products due to leaching and proven ill effects on human and animal endocrine systems. By using this printing process the air quality will improve as well as the end product of the clothing,” says Maia Andersen of PROPHETIK.

Patterns become a more complicated issue. A designer with a conscience to do well would have had to show plain colored collections until the past couple of years. Research and Development teams at the TED project in Chelsea’s college of Art and Design have been dealing with ways to get around the traditional method of screen printing.

“Digital print is considered more 'friendly' as it does use much less water. Here at TED Project, we are the first ones to digitally print onto sustainable base fibers, such as hemp and organic cotton, which is really exciting new development,” advises Clara Vuletich, research assistant at TED.

”There is also actually an Australian product called Permaset (www.colormaker.com.au), which is a 100% solvent-free screen printing ink for textiles, which is the only one on the market, It is ideal for textile printers who print their own fabrics,” adds Vuletich.

And then there is the ever present question of texture, but of course a well-rounded research team has answers for that as well. Andersen and her team at PROPHETIK are secretly working on a non-chemical, naturally produced organic burn-out fabric. Vuletich turns to her colleagues Becky Early and Kate Goldsworthy for the finishing touch. They have collaborated in a project called 'Twice Upcycled'. Taking a second-hand polyester blouse which is stained and unwanted, Becky overprints it with an eco-friendly exhaust print technique, and then Kate (who is exploring new technologies such as laser welding on re-cycled materials), 're-surfaces' the shirt which gives it a kind of 'sequined' effect, and then they refashion the garment to extend it's life. At the moment, it is purely a research project producing one-off garments, but there are plans to scale it up for commercial production.

“Sourcing eco friendly a fabric is a very tricky area, there is so much interest from consumers and designers but the textile manufacturers have not caught up - mainly because it takes so long to research and develop new fabrics! therefore, most young sustainable fashion labels find it very hard to source the fabrics they want. There is no 'one-stop-shop' to sourcing, we basically say you have to get out there and be a great researcher,” says Vuletich. “The more people that network and share knowledge the better. That is how sustainability works! Or you can hook up with a young textile designer who is producing one-off bespoke fabrics and do collaboration together!”

Frequently Asked Questions

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:51:00 GMT

Hello again. It’s Pete from ‘I Dress Myself’ here. I get quite a few questions from people regarding many aspects of printing, using the Permaset range of inks. I thought I would address some of the more frequently asked ones in this here blog.

What is the best way to dry the inks?

There are two things you need to dry water based inks successfully and they are heat and air. This can be achieved in a whole manner of different ways. I have heard of people using a hair dryer and an iron or fan heater and a spot curer. When I first started using the inks, all I had was a spot curer and it took about two minutes to dry each tee!! I very quickly introduced a stand up office fan into the equation and this dramatically reduced my drying times to about one to one and a half minutes. Still quite a while I hear you say!

Well.. yes. That is why we decided the cost of a drying tunnel (to our own specifications) was definitely worth it. The drying tunnel we now have was planned with the help of Nottingham Universities Environmental Technologies Department, where we were invited to run tests on the drying capabilities of medium wave ultra violet quartz elements on drying water based inks.

The tunnel is just over one metre long and the conveyer belt around two metres. It has six sets of two heating elements that start off at 800 w at the front of the dryer, to raise the temperature of the inks quickly, 600 w in the middle and 400w at the end. It is fitted with three fans at the front of tunnel which constantly blow air through the dryer and an extractor at the end of the tunnel to expel hot air and any steam to come off of the inks. It now only takes between about 40 seconds for supercover ink and one minute for aqua ink to dry and cure. The big energy saving part of this dryer is the fans. It means the temperature of the heating elements can be turned down and a motor driving a fan uses a lot less energy than a heating element.

Why are my inks bleeding when I print?

Bleeding is when the inks kind of splurge over the edges of the design on the garment you are printing. This can happen for the reasons outlined below.

Your squeegee is too soft! When printing on softer garments e.g. thick tees and sweaters, try using a harder squeegee and make sure the pressure you apply is firm and even.
You are holding the squeegee at too horizontal an angle! I find holding the squeegee at about a 25-30 degree vertical angle with the blade angle sheer to the surface of the screen works well for me.
You are pushing too much ink through the screen when you are flooding it! Try to flood the screen in one fluid movement, without pressing too hard on the screen.

My inks are drying into the screens HELP!

This is probably the biggest problem for people who start using or change over to water based inks. When I first started I used a mist spay of water every few prints to maintain the moisture in the inks. Lots of people swear by this method. I found it quite useful but I don’t use it any more. The most important thing I find is to flood the screen with a really thick layer of ink and to keep the ink moving. If a screen seems like it’s been sitting around doing nothing for a while, pull a print from it onto a scrap tee or piece of fabric.

If the ink does start to dry in the screen a little don’t panic! Just pull a print on a test piece, so that as much ink is clear from the mesh as possible, take a wet rag and clean either side of the design and then dry it off with another rag. There we go. Easy!

Mesh count is often a factor too. The higher the mesh count, the quicker the ink will dry.

I tend to use a 43t yellow mesh for most garment printing. If you get yourself a good emulsion, which is combatable with water based inks and maintains its integrity, you can still get some good detailed results even with a coarser mesh.

My inks are deteriorating the emulsion and coming through onto the garment!

As most emulsions are water based, this is fairly common. The answer is very simple.

You will need to use emulsion that is specifically designed for water-based inks. I personally use Kiwo SR-X as it retains its integrity very well for the more detailed work. ( If you are based in the UK, I get mine from a company called Screen Machine Supply. They are based in Milton Keynes and are awfully nice.)

When developing this emulsion, I tend to expose the screen enough to wash out the design and then re expose it to harden up the emulsion (this is cheaper than using screen hardening liquid).

Well. I hope this has been helpful and you didn’t fall asleep. But I suppose if you are reading this then you haven’t yet! And yes I am aware that two of the questions are actually statements.

Happy Printing!

Peter Conway

Permaset in the UK

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:10:00 GMT

Greetings from I Dress Myself
We are a small screen printing and design company based in the UK. Over the last six months or so we have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Permaset to try out their range of inks, which we now use exclusively.

People here have been really interested in using an environmentally-friendly screen printing alternative and we have been inundated with print orders since moving over from plastisols. It took me a little while to get used to the properties of the ink, especially with multi-coloured printing on dark fabrics but after a bit of perseverance, I have worked out a system that works for me in this department; mainly semi-drying between layers. It's definitely worth it though as the inks are very opaque and have a much nicer handle/feel than plastisol inks.

We have also been experimenting with using the inks on transfer paper so we can transfer print onto the 'fiddly' bits on garments. Initial tests have been very positive.

Please ask questions on this blog so we can create a discussion about the inks. I am keen to hear from people who have/are using the inks so we can share tips on these inks and other screenprinting matters.
Cheers,
Pete

Peter Conway
I Dress Myself
ECO-FRIENDLY SCREEN PRINTERS
32-40 Carrington Street Nottingham NG1 7FG
tel: 0115 947 4140
email pete@idressmyself.co.uk
skype: idressmyself
AIM: hanidressmyself
http://www.idressmyself.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/idressmyself_uk
http://www.myspace.com/iwanttobeacircle

Permaset Aqua

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:03:00 GMT

Permaset has been the leading brand of fabric printing ink in Australia since its inception 40-45 years ago. It currently holds a market share of 50-70%. 15 years ago, there was a strong move away from “water based” inks (so called even though they contained White Spirit/Distillate levels of 50% and above) to Plastisols. However in recent times, we have seen a world wide shift back to water based.

The new PERMASET AQUA is 100% SOLVENT FREE and yet demonstrates a combination of properties unheard of even with normal textile inks that usually contain 10, 20 or even 30% white spirit. The first, most obvious benefit of the new AQUA product is the low odour. Take a lid off the jar and smell.

Typically however, historically, when people changed from a solvent containing to solvent free system, they lost colour intensity. So the choice was either environmental/ OH&S responsibility OR colour yield; you couldn’t get the 2 together. However, with the new AQUA, we have been able to achieve unsurpassed colour yield and brightness, partly through clever formulating and partly through a rigorous pigment selection process.

The next most obvious benefit is the softness of handle. This printing ink product displays excellent drape and handle properties due to the exclusive adoption of world leading polymer technology. Related to this but less obvious is outstanding adhesion, even to synthetic and stretch fabrics.

Wash & Wearability
Typically, a soft print displays poor wash properties, showing significant deterioration even after 1 or 2 washes. A durable print on the other hand typically feels as stiff as a board, which is uncomfortable for the wearer. Colormaker has exclusive access to a polymer that is at once both SOFT & incredibly STRONG. Permaset AQUA prints on cotton lycra have been tested to 30 commercial wash cycles @ 60’C, a test so severe that it caused significant fibre breakdown in the unprinted area; the printed area however was actually protected by the polymer and exhibited virtually zero change.

In the Print Shop – no additives required!
Further on adhesion, the unique polymer allows Permaset AQUA to achieve excellent adhesion on a full range of synthetics and stretch fabrics without additives. The benefits of such capability are obvious to any print shop owner. Typically, one operator puts in one additive for one job, and then returns the tub to the shelf. The next operator puts in another additive for the next job and so on. The ink in the tub drifts further and further from its virgin state, nothing is recorded and the risk of messing up a job or having to throw the ink out (waste) increases. How much easier to know that PERMASET AQUA performs on cotton, Lycra, full synthetics, stretch fabrics, even wool! All with good softness, adhesion, rub and wash-fastness and all with no additives.

To summarise thus far…….
PERMASET AQUA gives exceptional softness, incredible adhesion to a full range of natural and synthetic fibres, excellent wash + dry clean and virtually eliminates the need for additives in the print shop.

Colour
Pigments have been through a rigorous selection process. For light fastness, all pigments >/=6 on the Blue Wool Scale (goes up to 8). All pigments are wash & dry-clean fast (note detail on 30 x @ 60’C wash details above).

Pigments/colours selected to be on edge of colour wheel; that gives maximum cleanliness/brightness, so if dirtying off is required, end user can do that, but colour range offers maximum gamut of colours to be mixed from smallest range.

Pigment particle size also considered on evaluation process. 10um particle is coarse enough to be felt by human hand; this has a number of effects. First, it makes the print feel rough. Second, it’s like trying to stick lumps of gravel to a flexible substrate with a thin layer of glue; the gravel can be easily removed by simple abrasion, there are gaps between the lumps of colour (which translates as lower colour yield for the same weight of pigment laid down) and the size of the particle contributes to opacity, which has the effect of making the colour slightly dirty. By going to 1 micron and indeed sub-micron particle size, the feel is instantly improved, the lumps of gravel above are replaced by a layer of sand (to continue the analogy), the same layer of glue binds the colour much more permanently (hence better launderability), the colour yield is higher and the increased transparency has the effect of making the colour cleaner and brighter and allowing the base substrate to “shine through”, conferring a greater vibrancy to the finished print.

The finer particle size also confers further commercial benefit; finer particles can fit through a finer mesh screen (we’ve had the std colours through 120T and SuperCovers through 90T), while the increased colour yield allows lower ink lay-down to achieve the same colour. Result? Better ink mileage (lower cost) and again, softer print. Also, the lower ink lay-down means less ink to dry out, so faster through-put in drying tunnel, hence greater productivity and lower environmental impact.

Open time
This product cannot compete with a Plastisol where you leave a screen @ 5pm on a Friday, start again @ 7 or 8 on a Monday, do a couple of test pulls and you’re away again. However, we have actively worked to improve the open time of this product and held a key-line on 62T mesh for >1 hour @ 28-30’C (Aside: most water based is printed through 43T, and the Super Opaques through 34T; the lower the count, the coarser the mesh. 62 + 70T represents a significant advance in water based product).

All products have upside and down-side and Plastisols are being seen increasingly as environmentally unfriendly (they contain PVC and phthalate plasticisers). When we re-address the comfort, feel and natural feel of a water based print + the virtual elimination of need for additives, the comparison should be well made.

Testimonials
We have worked closely with Signature Prints in Sydney (check out their web-site) who do haute couture fabric and furniture, wall paper, curtains (harsh UV), intimate apparel, lingerie, swimwear and fashion for leading designers. Over the past 3 years, they have produced AUD $3-4 m worth of finished products exclusively using Colormaker water based inks.

by David Stuart, MD, ColorMaker Industries

Finally a new range of Water-based inks

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:04:00 GMT

After years of hating the smell and wondering why water-based ink couldn’t quite make the grade with its colours and “washability” I’d almost given up on Permaset and the like.

They were banished to the bottom shelves to gather dust and we reached an impasse where my nostrils lived in peace and we plowed forward almost entirely with Plastisol inks.

Giving up the use of water-based inks has not been entirely ideal. Environmental concerns are a great concern in all printing and I’ve always felt that water-based should be a better solution than it has been. As well there is always a need for better garment/print feel on many fabrics.

Over the last month we’ve had the opportunity to road test the new range called Permaset Aqua*. The first difference is the lack of overpowering smell.

The first test was a baptism by fire where we simply replaced the plastisol inks from a seven colour print on medium-dark fabric with direct Permaset Aqua replacements. These were all printed through 120T screens except the white hi-lights which was printed through a 61T. To be honest I was startled. It was an unfair test but we managed to get it very close to the finish desired on the dark fabric. We also ran a test with the same screens onto white fabric and after several washes they are still looking great.

We have now run a major job with Permaset Aqua printing 5 colours through nothing coarser than a 61T and the results are fantastic. No smell, easier to use and the colours were perfect.

Test pieces of the print were kept and we have run some through the washing machine several times and dried them in full sunlight and without any doubt the difference between the washed and unwashed is better than any water based ink I have ever seen!

by James Carter
The Fabric Printer WA
www.fabricprinter.com.au