Foil Printing

[3Deep]

Got a question, we have customer that is looking for a foil job, problem I facing and needing an answer for is the job is multi color gold foil, shimmer gold and green.  We've printed a little foil but it was the whole print, so how do we print this without the foil sticking to the other print,oh and the print won't let me cover the other inks while I press the foil, here is my setup on the print...  Advice!! all ears here

green
shimmer Gold/ f/pf
foil glue
then to the heat heat for Gold foil

[zanegun08]

A picture is worth a 1000 words in this instance as we could be more helpful.

However without knowing any details, for the green if printing on 100% cotton you could do with discharge which the foil should not stick to.

For the shimmer gold, you'll need to either add foil resist, or do an overprint of foil resist which is an additive.

However this is pretty finicky in practice, I personally would try to talk them out of foil, and into a water base gold, but that's my personal preference, but I'd hit them with all the cons of foil (breakdown, tarnish in the wash), additional price, and quote them at a full screen printed price and make it look more equitable than the headache above.

But that is just my two cents, people with lots of foil experience would have no problem with this, however we sometimes have foil stick to discharge which it shouldn't, and I personally print metallic gold under foil so that when it breaks down it is gold showing under rather than just shirt color.

[Colin]

Yup, what Zane said.

The majority reason why some discharge inks will stick to foil:  You still have ink on top of the fibers. The resins on top of the fibers are gripping the foil pulling off little specs. You see this primarily on flashed colors or colors towards/at the end of the print sequence.

[3Deep]

We want be using any discharge inks all plastisol inks and I did check out the foil resist, might be what we will try to use or at least test it first.  This job is for an upscale business, cost not a problem, they just want a really nice print that match there business card, the print they left with me was nowhere near what they ask for, knocking this out could open some new doors to some higher end clients.

[blue moon]

your best bet is to find somebody with an inline foiler. get it done, impress the customer and take their other work.

pierre

[zanegun08]

your best bet is to find somebody with an inline foiler. get it done, impress the customer and take their other work

That's not a bad idea, however with inline foil, the foil goes though the dryer which tarnishes the foil, and takes away the wow bling of it.

Once again, I prefer the tarnished look as I don't even like foil, but if the client wants bling then inline foil will not be "true foil" in my opinion. 

Also the other downside is for plastisol, I prefer it to be heat pressed, which will happen when you foil it, but with inline foil the plastisol will not be pressed smooth like when doing a post print foil.

Either way, get ready for a big pain in the ass, price to compensate for a big failure rate as foil is finicky, that's why you see a lot of distressed foil designs because then if one portion doesn't stick it lends to the design.

A lot of the Gen-X shirts with foil are actually vinyl transfers as that is more forgiving, and that is something you could look into as well if the design would allow for it but without seeing the design we are just guessing.

Could look into https://cstarintl.com they can do multicolor / effect transfers that may suit the need.

Good luck!

[3Deep]

Thanks for all the great advice

[tonypep]

All good advice. I have been bashed about the tarnishing issues in the past. More importantly "what are you charging?" The cost of foil is relatively inexpensive but........It has to be cut, placed, applied, cooled ,and peeled.
Guess what? That's a lot of labor and a dollar a shirt does not cut it for me.