Are you a textile screen printer who’s looking for a new product to sell or a way to increase your profits in some of the jobs you’re printing now? Heat-applied plastisol transfers may be exactly what you’re searching for. They can increase sales and profits and they’re cheap and easy to make. Although plastisol heat transfers are not for the complete novice, they’re simple enough that any textile screen printer who regularly prints with plastisol should be able to make them.
The basic process for producing heat-applied plastisol transfers is uncomplicated. You print a design with plastisol ink, but instead of printing it directly on the garment, you print the design on special paper. The paper is then passed through a conveyer dryer where the ink is heated until it has gelled just enough to be dry to the touch. It’s important not to cure the ink too much.
The resulting print, called a transfer, can be stored until needed. When you want to apply the transfer to a T-shirt, place the garment in a heat transfer press, put the transfer on top of the garment, ink side down, and close the press. The heat and pressure applied by the press will force the ink into the garment and finish curing it. When the press is opened and the paper is peeled off the shirt, the ink remains behind. When done correctly, a heat-applied plastisol transfer will be as permanent as a direct print and under some circumstances nearly indistinguishable.
Why Use Transfers?
Why would you want to print transfers that require extra materials (the paper), extra labor (the transfer application process), and more equipment (a heat transfer press) when you can print directly on the garment? There are several situations where plastisol transfers are actually more efficient, economical, and profitable than direct printing.
For example, suppose you have a contract to provide decorated T-shirts for a once-a-year event but you have no way of knowing in advance how many shirts will be sold. If you prints too few shirts, you will unnecessarily limit your sales. If you prints too many shirts you’ll take an expensive loss on the unsold shirts. However, if you print the design on transfers, you can take the transfers, a transfer press, and a stock of blank shirts to the event and decorate the shirts to order. At the end of the day you have some unsold blank shirts, which you can put back in stock to sell another day, and some surplus transfers, which only cost you a few cents each so you can afford to throw them away. Sales are increased and waste is reduced.
Plastisol heat transfers may also be the most profitable decorating method when you have to reprint a design frequently, but in small quantities. Let’s assume that you have a design that you print four or five times a year, but each order is for a small quantity of shirts. The labor involved in setting up the press each time will significantly increase the cost of the job. If you print an entire years supply of transfers in one press run, you can store them, then quickly and inexpensively apply them to blank garments as each order comes in. Job costs are considerably reduced and the shirts can be decorated in minutes.
Plastisol heat transfers are also a popular method of decorating baseball caps. Baseball caps are difficult to print well because of the complications involved in printing on a curved surface. Transfers for baseball caps can be printed very quickly because the design is so small that you can print several on one sheet of paper. Applying the designs is also quick and easy with a special cap transfer press that automatically wraps the transfer around the curve of the cap.
Another factor in favor of plastisol transfers is that, for beginners at least, only simple, inexpensive equipment is necessary. Although large transfer companies that produce millions of transfers a year use complicated and expensive production equipment, for printing small orders or to get started in heat transfer production, a simple press, easily manufactured by the screen printer, a conveyer dryer, and a heat transfer press is all that is required.
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Printing Transfers
Tags ceramic transfers, custom ceramic coffee mugs, custom silk screen, glass transfers, printing on glass, printing transfers, silkscreen printing
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