Water Based Screen Printing: Best Practices with Danny Gruninger | SGIA Water Based Printing Camp

Danny Gruninger from Denver Print House is a water based screen printing legend. He’s a wizard at specialty printing - particularly with water based ink. Danny has devoted a lot of time, energy, and money toward research and development. He’s got an engineering background, so his curiousity with technical, chemical, and process-oriented research in screen printing is a natural extension of his skills.
Danny spent a lot of time discussing the transition from plastisol to water based in his shop. They went entirely water based, and the process was extremely time-consuming and difficult. On one of their very first runs with water based ink, they didn’t adequately cure more than 800 hoodies - so all of the ink came out when customers washed their new merchandise.
That kind of printing disaster is exactly why the professionals at Matsui, Virus Inks, Ryonet and even Danny himself are all very open about their experiences and totally willing to help. You should reach out to them if you need help or have questions - they really want to help water based inks make progress and be part of more print shops.
Matsui: www.matsuicolor.com
Virus: www.virusinks.com/
Ryonet: www.screenprinting.com
Danny at DPH: denverprinthouse.com/
What do you need to know before you start printing with water based inks?
Very carefully examine your shop’s current setup. Fans, dust, and uncontrolled airflow are all enemies of water based printing. You don’t want ink to dry in your screens.
Keep your ink room like a kitchen. It should basically be clean enough to eat off. Water based ink requires a more intensive process for mixing, organizing, and storing inks. Remember: always mix ONLY what you plan to use immediately!
Create an optimal environment for water based inks. You need to craft a “bubble” for your shop - Danny even keeps his shop at 40-50% humidity (in dry Denver!).
Work with your art department to deal with dot gain. Halftones don’t show up as well, they stopped using gutters for underbases, and several other art adjustments were required. Recall that water based printing typically has less dot gain than plastisol printing - which changes how you’ll engineer your artwork.
Screen mesh. Danny only uses about 3 screen meshes in his shop. A 150x48 thin thread screen for white water based inks, a 220x40 screen for general color printing, and a 122x48 screen for blocker bases. This lets them print similar designs across different fabric colors.
Emulsion. Danny gets around 20,000 impressions per screen. Emulsion will break down under printing with water based ink, so the goal is to get as many impressions as possible from one screen. Danny is focused on durability and detail with his emulsion - so exposure times, EOM thickness, and a variety of other important variables have to be carefully controlled for long-lasting screens.
The ink kitchen. The legendary blog The Ink Kitchen nails it: your ink room should be clean enough to eat in. No more throwing ink in a container and walking away - this will likely become a full-time role if you switch entirely to water based printing. Keep it clean. No loose lids. No residues on shelves or tools.
Press setups. Your presses need to be meticulously maintained regardless of which type of ink you’re printing, but with water based ink your maintenance and cleanliness become mission critical. “You shouldn’t be spending more than 5 minutes setting up each screen, especially with tri-loc or DTS,” says Danny.
Spray bottle with retardant and softener. This is a mission critical tool for success in screen printing with water based ink. They spray their screens before they apply ink.
Keep your pallets at 135-140 degrees F. Use a flash to heat your pallets up. This acts like a “soft flash” for water based ink, so you can print multiple colors without blending. This is actually a HUGE “secret for success” with water based printing.
Reach out to Danny on Facebook if you'd like to talk shop. He's a friendly, open, and highly charitable part of the screen printing community!
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About SGIA’s Water Based Printing Summit
SGIA hosted an incredible two-day event about water based printing in Sacramento, CA in September 2019. Sponsored by M&R, Ryonet, MHM, Bella + Canvas, Virus Inks, Matsui Color and more - nearly 100 shops from across the world traveled to learn from world-class screen printers in a state-of-the-art contract printing facility.
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[@JonnRamaer]

super!! thanks Bruce. Wish I could give 1,000 likes.

[@printavo]

Awesome! Glad you liked it.

[@josephray9695]

Is this discharged waterbase?

[@printavo]

Yes, discharge ink is water based - hope that helps.

[@justindarnell448]

I thought Danny used cryocoat by green galaxy

[@printavo]

Danny is always experimenting, refining, and trying new things. This is just what he told us at the camp!

[@Tim.McElheny]

Is that Next Level long sleeve?

[@printavo]

Yep!