3D foil

[tonypep]

Playing with it. Almost there.

[KevWilso]

How did you keep the heat press from flattening out the HD print when applying the foil?

[3Deep]

Like he's going to us that in public LOL

darryl

[KevWilso]

LOL.  Well either way it is a cool effect.

[Rob Coleman]

One way to not flatten is to use a high density base. Wilflex Sculpture or Rock base. Rutland certainly has one or two as well, I just don't know the names of the top of my head.

[KevWilso]

The heat press won't smash those into the shirt?

[kingscreen]

Anyone else follow this guy on Instagram?  https://instagram.com/madspecials  His prints are crazy!

[KevWilso]

Anyone else follow this guy on Instagram?  https://instagram.com/madspecials  His prints are crazy!

Those are pretty nuts.

[ABuffington]

3D foiling is very easy.  We printed a ton of this back in the 80's and 90's for Vegas and Disney.  The puff will regains it's loft when you put the shirt back through the oven.  This gives a textured reflection vs the mirror look of flat.  Applying foil by hand after a flashed gel will maintain mirror and provide dimension to the print.  Here is a link to a newsletter I wrote on how we did this.  Combine with discharge, wb, or foil resist for color + foil.

http://murakamiscreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/3D-Puff-foils.pdf

The mesh used for the foil adhesive on top of the glue needs to be coarser than you would think.  By using a 60-86-110 depending on details the glue will melt in the oven and flow around the puff ink to cover it completely.  Taking the texture art to bitmap and using threshold in PS provides excellent black white texture images from a lot of the stock textures in PS.  Size of the texture is important.  Small details will merge, large details won't accept the foil correctly.  A 50/50 mix of ink to shirt keeps the valleys of the texture open.  The glue image was often a solid print over the puff.  We used Insta Graphic presses, they seemed to provide consistent pressure with their floating head design.  Pressure was as low as we could put it and still get coverage. We also used thicker EOM on both the puff and glue, 20-30%.  Cap film would have helped looking back.  One other key is foiling on puff inks is much better when you foil while the shirt is hot right out of the oven.  Once the print is cold the foiling is inconsistent.  We had an extended oven belt at the end and 4 heat presses next to the belt so one person could operate 2 foil presses.   This all my company ever printed!  We did discharge puff foil for Disney and others, much easier than it sounds.

Al

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

My only problem is with the "hills" being so tall, the "valleys" won't reliably take foil. It leaves a variegated look that the wimmens in the front really like. Not me....

I can see it though. It's sort of "distressed" and has definitely has a use. So far, I just can't get the Gold Nugget effect that Al talks about. I just want what I want when I want it. And if I WANTED "dirty" gold nuggets I'd be happy as a lark.

I'm overlaying the Puff (P.F.P.) pass with various Photoshop textures. Then a smooth PFP of Wilflex Clear HD Gel.  Non-Foiled elements are WB Discharge. 1st pass through the tunnel is aiming for a full cure of the Discharge, Then Foiling @ 60# (Hotronix Air Swinger) @330 for 10-12 seconds, and another trip through the tunnel to re-puff what has flattened out in the heat press. It washes beautifully.

Still playing with it.

[tonypep]

3D foiling is very easy.  We printed a ton of this back in the 80's and 90's for Vegas and Disney.  The puff will regains it's loft when you put the shirt back through the oven.  This gives a textured reflection vs the mirror look of flat.  Applying foil by hand after a flashed gel will maintain mirror and provide dimension to the print.  Here is a link to a newsletter I wrote on how we did this.  Combine with discharge, wb, or foil resist for color + foil.

http://murakamiscreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/3D-Puff-foils.pdf

The mesh used for the foil adhesive on top of the glue needs to be coarser than you would think.  By using a 60-86-110 depending on details the glue will melt in the oven and flow around the puff ink to cover it completely.  Taking the texture art to bitmap and using threshold in PS provides excellent black white texture images from a lot of the stock textures in PS.  Size of the texture is important.  Small details will merge, large details won't accept the foil correctly.  A 50/50 mix of ink to shirt keeps the valleys of the texture open.  The glue image was often a solid print over the puff.  We used Insta Graphic presses, they seemed to provide consistent pressure with their floating head design.  Pressure was as low as we could put it and still get coverage. We also used thicker EOM on both the puff and glue, 20-30%.  Cap film would have helped looking back.  One other key is foiling on puff inks is much better when you foil while the shirt is hot right out of the oven.  Once the print is cold the foiling is inconsistent.  We had an extended oven belt at the end and 4 heat presses next to the belt so one person could operate 2 foil presses.   This all my company ever printed!  We did discharge puff foil for Disney and others, much easier than it sounds.

Al

Doing it much differently. The garment does not need to go back through dryer

[ABuffington]

Sure you don't have to put it back through the dryer, but it does give a better textured gold nugget look and more raised areas.  This also is how all foil will look after washing so we did it to pass the JC Penney wash test as well.  You can experiment with the rubber base on the heat transfer machine.  We found a softer rubber that allowed 3D with mirror look, but sales mostly happened with the oven technique.  This method will create more handling ($).

Al

[KevWilso]

Very good tips Alan; I will keep those in mind.  I have more and more customers using foils now, and the resist helps it from sticking to colors you do not intend the foil to bond with, but it does not work 100% without some other techniques you just mentioned.  The pressing while the garment is fresh out of the dryer is a tip I had never heard.  Great info.

[ABuffington]

One of the main things we found was the glue needs to be solid vector art, we used IC Foil Adhesive, but there are others.  We also printed through a 60 mesh screen, even for a .5 millimeter line.  This did place a thick layer of glue on top of the puff.  When cured in the oven it flowed around line work or the textured look.  We often bordered solid textured prints with a 1-1.5 millimeter line and a thin line knocked out between the outline and the texture.  This helped clean up the image so that it wasn't bumpy along the outside.  We also used puff colors that matched foil color as close as possible. We found large solid areas of plain puff impossible to foil consistently. The texturing provided the best solid area result. 

Al

[tonypep]

When heat sealing we tend to consider three main variables: Heat/pressure/time. However there is a fourth