Special Effect Textile Binders

The Clear Binder is a translucent water based screen printing medium that forms the basis of our AquaScreen range. Add our colourant’s to the binder to achieve your own custom colours and shades of your choice. The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and light coloured fabrics. When printing onto dark grounds use our Aqua Screen Opaque Binder. The print becomes wash-fast and resistant to dry-cleaning when heat or chemically cured. (See AS 1234 Aqua Screen Cool Cure)

The Pearl Binder is a translucent water based screen printing medium. You add small quantities of colourants to make pearlescent colours and metallic effects. The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural , synthetic, white and dark coloured fabrics. The base fabric colour may alter the final effect. The Pearl Binder can also be printed without the addition of colourants to give a shimmer effect. The print becomes wash-fast and resistant to dry-cleaning when heat or chemically cured. (See AS 1234 Aqua Cool Cure Additive)

The Opaque Binder is a water based screen printing medium. This binder permits the screen printer to print water based colours onto dark grounds without the base colour showing through. Add our colourants to the binder to achieve your own custom colours and shades of your choice. N.B. Adding white colourant to this binder will not give as good a result as the pre-mixed AquaScreen Opaque White (AS 150). The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and dark coloured fabrics. The print becomes wash-fast and resistant to dry-cleaning when heat or chemically cured. (See AS 1234 Aqua Cool Cure Additive)

Our Suede Binder is a ready to use water based printing paste. When printed onto textiles it can achieve suede/mock flock effect. The Binder has a soft hand with good wash and dry cleaning fastness. You can Colour the suede binder up to 6% with our Colourants. Not enough heat/time and the ink will not raise, too much and it will melt back down, maximum dwell is 3 minutes at 150ºc. The Suede Binder performs better with coarser mesh counts (32 - 43).

The Aqua Cool Cure Additive when added to Aqua Screen, Aqua Screen Clear Binder, Aqua Screen Opaque Binder, Aqua Screen Gloss Binder and Aqua Screen Pearl Binder (0.5 to 2%) will cure the ink in seven days without fully heat curing the print. When the print is dry the catalyst needs a small amount of heat to start it working. This can be done by ironing or heating for a few minutes in a tumble dryer. The seven day time scale can be shortened with prolonged heat application. Once the catalyst is mixed into the ink it will remain effective for approximately 8 hours. Any remaining ink can be reused later with another addition of catalyst. The maximum is 3 additions before a saturation point is reached and the ink will no longer cold cure (It will still heat cure) N.B. The Aqua Cool Cure Additive cannot be used with the AquaScreen Puff Binder, Suede Binder, Metallic Binder or Glitter binder. These binders MUST be heat cured.

Our Metallic Binder is a water based screen printing medium, to which you add our metallic colourants (Pure Metallic Powders). The Metallic Binder is very transparent with a gloss finish. The addition of the metallic colorants can produce a shiny metallic effect. To achieve the brightest results the metallic powders should be mixed into the binder on the day of printing. Any remaining left-over ink can still be used but will gradually lose its brightness over time. The smoother the fabric the better the metallic effect. The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and dark coloured fabrics. The print becomes wash-fast when heat cured. The Aqua Cool Cure Additive cannot be used with this binder.

The Glitter Binder is a water based screen printing medium, to which you add glitter flakes (some times called metal jewels). The Glitter Binder is 100% transparent with a gloss finish, when the glitter flakes are added, it will produce a shiny and sparkly effect. Mesh count will depend on the size of glitter flake. Usually a 10 mesh will be needed. The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and dark coloured fabrics. The print becomes wash-fast when heat cured. The Aqua Cool Cure Additive cannot be used with this binder.

The Puff Binder is an opaque water based 3D screen printing medium. You add small quantities of SCS colourants to colour the binder, you will only be able to produce pastel shades as the binder itself has a white colour. The Puff Binder can be used without the addition of colorants and will have a matt white finish. The 3D effect on fabric is achieved when heat is applied at the curing stage. You must control dwell and temperature to get the best results of this binder. Not enough heat/time and the ink will not raise, too much and it will melt back down, the maximum dwell is 3 minutes at 150ºc. The Puff Binder performs better with coarser mesh counts (32 - 43). The resulting inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and dark coloured fabrics. The best results are achieved when the textile is cured through a tunnel dryer.

The Gloss Binder is a highly transparent water based screen printing medium. You add our colourants to the binder to produce a coloured glossy print. The gloss level is improved when printing through courser mesh counts (21 - 43). The Gloss Binder can also be used as an over print varnish to give gloss effects to matt prints and will dry completely transparent. The Gloss Binder can also be used to achieve high build prints with the use of a thick stencil. The Gloss Binder is very flexible and can be printed onto stretchy textiles such as lycra. The resulting coloured Gloss inks will be suitable for both natural and synthetic, white and light coloured fabrics. You will not be able to mix opaque colours with this binder. High Build Gloss inks, due to the density of their print, can be used on dark fabrics to achieve great effects. To maintain the gloss effect the prints should be heat cured as soon as possible after printing. The best results are achieved when the textile is cured with a tunnel drier. High Build prints will take longer to cure..

The Foil Adhesive is a water based screen printable glue that accepts metallic foils when heat pressed together. The design is screen printed onto the fabric and then semi-cured i.e. touch dried. The fabric is then placed in a transfer press and the foil positioned over the printed area and heat pressed together. After cooling the foil backing is peeled off leaving the printed design covered in foil.