Full Front Discharge on Kissing Zipper hoodies... 10/15

[DCSP John]

Hi Everyone..

We do  fair amount of discharge printing on both tees and fleece, but have never printed discharge across the zipper.
We don't have specialty platens for zippys..., nor do we have neoprene on any platens.
 Will be printing on Indy Trading Co. Full Zip. Kissing zipper.

Any sage advice? Loose screen, increase pressure? I don't anticipate much hassle, but figured I would
throw this out there to gleen any advice I can get.

Thanks.

John @ DCSP

[blue moon]

Hi Everyone..

We do  fair amount of discharge printing on both tees and fleece, but have never printed discharge across the zipper.
We don't have specialty platens for zippys..., nor do we have neoprene on any platens.
 Will be printing on Indy Trading Co. Full Zip. Kissing zipper.

Any sage advice? Loose screen, increase pressure? I don't anticipate much hassle, but figured I would
throw this out there to gleen any advice I can get.

Thanks.

John @ DCSP

get some foam and put it on the platen(s). shouldn't be more than few bucks each.

pierre

[DCSP John]

Hi Pierre...

Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?

Thanks Pierre...

John

[TCT]

Hi Pierre...

Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?

Thanks Pierre...

John

I'm not Pierre, but here is one of the things we have used:
http://www.uline.com/BL_857/UPSable-Industrial-Rolls

1/8" or 1/4" works nicely, sometimes the 1/4" is a bit much though.

[blue moon]

Hi Pierre...

Any leads as to where can I buy this foam to which you are referring?
Or, rather, what type of foam?

Thanks Pierre...

John

sorry, contractually not allowed to answer that. any foam will probably do.

pierre

[ZooCity]

Doing this exact thing right now.  I've been using closed cell neoprene, it gives but is firm.  Only thing is the stuff I have is too thick, 1/2", and requires a bunch of fandangling to get it work on press with the increased height. 

Print wise the only difference is using a little more pressure than usual as you want to find the sweet spot with the sq pressure where the foam compresses enough to even everything out. 

Tough part for us is finding a good line with saturating the outside lip of the kissing zipper fabric.  It seems pointless to fill that area completely since it's basically a fabric "hinge" but we still try to.

Pierre, tell Rick to get in touch with me, I'm still down to pay him to learn more tips on this. 

[brandon]

Done a fair amount of across the zippers. On specialty platens, foam, and believe it or not just straight up normal platens with no foam. That was due to be printed on those supper thin AA hoodies and we didn't need anything. But I recommend the foam or specialty platens for sure. You can customize the zipper channels per design and hoody easily. But discharge for sure and in this case I usually use statics. Statics that I am not to to concerned about. But it really depends on the design as every one is a different approach to time and materials involved.

[DCSP John]

Good stuff.

We have some some extra exposure unit neoprene.
Should provide enough 'give' for the zipper.

We'll apply some high strength spray glue on top of a masked platen or two and see what the results are.

Looking forward to it. Will post images.

Thanks guys.

John

 

[TCT]

We have some some extra exposure unit neoprene.

That will work even better, we have some stuff like just a bit more rigid that that works wonders. I just couldn't for the life of me remember where I got it from to give you a link. You are on the right track though!

[Rockers]

OK so how does it work with the foam? You cover the whole pallet or just the center where the zipper runs. if you cover the whole pallet you still put glue on the foam? I`m trying to visualize it as I have a job like this coming up very soon.

[Inkworks]

Here's what we do: Spray-tac generously (or whatever you use) the platens, put down a full platen covering of Neoprene or whatever foam you're going to use, premask/platen-tape the top of the neoprene and fold the edges over to the bottom of the platen to help secure it and keep the edges from lifting, then spray-tac the pre-mask like normal.

[Rockers]

Thanks

[ScreenFoo]

To add the only bit of my experience no one's mentioned--those Indy sweats seemed to print better for me with no channel cut, just a 1/8" firm neoprene pad. 

Jealous though--that print Zoo posted is beautiful.  I always get stuck printing crappy old plastisol on these jobs.
Sheesh, like they were too easy to start with...   

[blue moon]

we printed these yesterday. One screen, two strokes on a manual (just sampling).

the black hoodie had the contrast adjusted in photoshop so it's easier to see it (the background material).

pierre

[DCSP John]

Nice!

We just cut out two test pieces of  neoprene that we are about to attach to a few platens on
our fleece press.  We will run test print tomorrow.. although testing on $20 zippys is never much fun.


John