THE QUICK ANSWER IS YES… BUT…
Cold cure additive can be a life saver for small screen printing businesses and home printers. Having the ability to fully cure your garments without heat can save money and space in your studio, but how effective is cold cure additive really?
Before you ditch the tunnel dryer and heat press, here are a few pointers to help you get the most out of your cold cure additive. We have outlined the pros and cons of using the product so you can choose whether using cold cure additive will work for your studio set up.
WHAT IS COLD CURE ADDITIVE
Cold Cure Additive is a catalyst that you can put into your water based ink which will allow your ink to fully cure without the need of heat.
You can purchase Amex Cold Cure Additive along with the Amex water based inks at Screen Print World and you can use our discount code : CRP5
HOW TO USE COLD CURE ADDITIVE
For best results, mix 5-10% of the catalyst directly into Amex water based ink before printing. Screen print your garments as usual and place them on a drying rack or around your studio to allow the ink to dry. Once the garments are printed you need to leave them to dry for 48hours before stacking to allow for a full cure.
Note that once your cold cure additive has been mixed into your ink, it has a shelf life of 8 hours.
WHAT INK CAN BE USED WITH COLD CURE ADDITIVE
We advise using Amex water based ink in conjunction with Amex Cold cure additive. The Amex range of water based inks is smooth to print with and has great overall results.
If you want to get your hands on some Amex water based inks, we suggest getting the starter pack from Screen Print World. Use our DISCOUNT CODE : CRP5
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF USING COLD CURE ADDITIVE?
The benefit of using cold cure additive is that you don’t need to invest in large drying equipment such as tunnel dryers or heat presses. It is the perfect stepping stone for new screen printers who want to build their studio equipment slowly.
Cold cure additive can also be used by screen printers who use small tunnel dryers. In general, most water based ink needs to be cured for up to 2-3 minutes. .. using cold cure additive could help reduce that time.
WHY IS COLD CURE ADDITIVE NOT GOOD?
If cold cure additive is so good, why are the big studios not using it? In reality, using cold cure additive will slow up production. You need to leave your garments laid out for 48 hours before you can stack them. If you don’t have a designated drying rack, this will clog up valuable workspace.
Another negative to using cold cure additive is that it has a shelf life. Once your ink has been mixed, you have 8 hours before the additive starts to become ineffective. While 8 hours is a good amount of time to complete a print job, you will find yourself wasting lots of ink in the meantime.
SHOULD I USE COLD CURE ADDITIVE?
If you are new to screen printing, using water based ink and only printing small runs of t-shirts – Cold cure additive is the perfect stepping stone for you to enjoy screen printing while creating some good quality prints.
We would highly recommend adding some cold cure into your inks to achieve the best washability possible.
However… if you are wanting to print commercially or on a larger scale, we would suggest looking into purchasing a tunnel dryer for the most professional results. We recommend investing in the Big Buddy Tunnel Dryer, this can be purchased at Screen Print World. Use our DISCOUNT CODE : CRP5
DOES COLD CURE ADDITIVE WORK?
To put Amex cold cure additive to the test, we printed a batch of shirts using 10% additive with Amex water based ink. After leaving the shirts to dry for 48 hours we put them in a 30 degree machine wash.
You can see in the photo below that there is a very slight fade in the ink but this is still cured to a very acceptable standard.
We believe that you can achieve a slightly more vivid result with a tunnel dryer however when weighing out the differences, we think that cold cure additive is a good alternative when used in the correct setting.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I DON’T CURE MY INK OR USE COLD CURE ADDITIVE?
We completed a wash test on an uncured t-shirt to see what the results would be. The results were more drastic than expected and you can see a huge amount of fading in the ink.
I think it’s safe to say, we should all be curing our water based ink. Whether you choose to splash out on a new tunnel dryer or stick to the cold cure additive, any option is better than not curing your shirts at all!
CHECK OUT OUR LATEST YOUTUBE VIDEO
Different ways to cure water based ink:
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