High production heat seal/foiling

[tonypep]

The heat seal department is almost finished. Six heads, one shuttle and an air op shuttle on the way. Production orders coming in already. Many multiple side foils which present some unthought of issues but they have been solved. One thing I am glad I decided; the entire department is modular. Allows for different configuations for cutting, applying, cooling, peeling etc. Its a reasonably interesting study in ergonomics and proceduralization. Also realizing some smart ideas on getting the most real estate of raw product by having rolls pre-cut by mfg. Now working on examining new formulas for adhesive that will speed things up with regards to time/temp/pressure. Sales is pushing discharge foil combination which appears to have extremely strong appeal.
Fun stuff

[Underbase37]

That all sounds like a lot of fun & stress doing all the R&D. Hope things all go as excepted in production & look forward to some pics if you get the time.

Murphy37

[TCT]

Tony have you tried the adhesive from Virus Inks? It is hands down the best we have used. Handles high temps and damn near everything we could throw at it! If you have not tried it, for the small cost of a gallon with what you have going on and invested I think you will be pleasantly surprised...

[tonypep]

Haven't looked at their products. Who carries their products?

[TCT]

Haven't looked at their products. Who carries their products?

There are like US 4 distributors that are about to be made public. But you can usually pick a gallon up from the people at Amagic(the foil company) in CA. If you want PM me and I can get you in touch with who you would need to talk to to buy direct from Italy, or I have the company in Mexico that sells it.

[tonypep]

Thanks but those locals are a deal breaker. What we've come up with works quite well its an off the shelf product one day away. Just trying to tweak to see if it can be faster. Adhesion washfastness= awesome

[tonypep]

Finished time studies on 500 pcs nape and f/front foil. Heat seal throughput with one person on a air shuttle is 1,200 to 1,500 and double that for the two. The math is working. Definitely worth doing even if its only a few orders a week. Just had to spend $100 to run air to the rooom. Everything else was laying around. And our receptionist loves peeling foil. The program we designed it for hits in 250, 500, and 1,000 pcs. Hard part was configuration and the other things mentioned in the OP. Now anyone can do it.

[ebscreen]

Everybody just use a paper cutter to chop foil? That's how we've always done it, is there a better way?

Cutting up purple today, we use high density tinted to foil color. Works great.

[tonypep]

We have a custom built  48" serrated cutter with a gridded cutting board for accurate sizing. Much much faster, safer, and accurate. Allows for maximum real estate. Needed too speed up all aspects of foil application. Permanently attached the teflon sheets to the transfer heads. Removes the 2 extra steps of placing and removing the sheets.

[ebscreen]

Permanently attached the teflon sheets to the transfer heads. Removes the 2 extra steps of placing and removing the sheets.

I'm going to go do that right now! Thanks for the tip!


Crown will slit however you want with a minimum order. Doesn't do much for you if you have leftovers though.

[ABuffington]

Couldn't resist jumping in on this one.  Back in the 80's and 90's our company did a ton of foiling for Disney and major brands.  We did a technique we called puff foiling.
Flat foiling is fine, but getting a textured 3D effect adds so much sparkle to the design that we never had many request for flat foil after showing it.  Here is a link on how to do it:

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

The key is air pressure and when you apply.  We had an extension at the end of the oven with 6 Insta Machines, 3 on either side, so we could foil as the shirt came out of the oven when the puff was soft and pliable.  Do not wait til the next day with this technique!  Best done when the ink is still warm. Just enough air pressure to adhere the foil,  peel cold.  When you run it back through the oven you have instant gold nugget look.  Did a ton of these for Vegas back in the day.  Thick gels right out of an oven can have foil applied by hand.  The key is to flash the puff ink enough that it doesn't transfer to the hand and still stays flat.  A 60 mesh with IC foil adhesive (plastisol) worked very well.

If you don't have a slitter or some other device like Tony's you can cut stiff chipboard or plastic 1" over desired width.  Make sure the width sides are parallel.  Used a 1.5" dowel in the center of the foil and rested it in a cradle so it could spin.  Place foil edge square to the board and just flip the board over and over to 50 turns. With a sharp single edge blade or box cutter place on the inside of the foil wrap at an angle and when cutting keep it firmly pressed to the wrapping board.  Hold down opposite side so it can't move.  Run the cutter up inside the foil on both sides of the board.  Very quick way to cut foil.  One guy cut enough for the production of 4 autos a day with this method.  Save the board with the foil size for future use.

Al
Murakami Screen

[tonypep]

Used to do it for Nike. Fast flash the puff and finish it off on the heat seal. Reminds me of the old puff underbase technique most people probably don't know about.

[ABuffington]

I show my age once again!  We did a ton of puff foil with discharge, it was easily our best selling print method.  The other technique we used was to print a colored base to match the foil with stretch additive added, flash, hit with a non imaged screen to flatted fibers, then foil adhesive to achieve super mirror look that was flexible and stretchable. Stretched too much however and the mirror look gets textured.  It is also possible to gang up designs and print the foil like a transfer.  For small images we would take a 20x24" sheet of foil, lay down the foil adhesive, cure, cut out pieces and apply to difficult areas like sleeves and back neck prints to keep the press open for the main design.  Printing onto the sheet brought out better details that were lost when the adhesive soaked into the shirt fabric.

Al

[Zelko-4-EVA]

We have a custom built  48" serrated cutter with a gridded cutting board for accurate sizing. Much much faster, safer, and accurate. Allows for maximum real estate. Needed too speed up all aspects of foil application. Permanently attached the teflon sheets to the transfer heads. Removes the 2 extra steps of placing and removing the sheets.

tony!

do you have any pictures or could you explain the 48" serrated cutter a bit?

we have 3800 pcs to foil and we are looking for a more efficient and less wasteful method for cutting foils.

[tonypep]

Hi Duane. The cutter is usually available from Uline or perhaps Staples. Primary purpose is for packaging and gift wrapping. That will yield best real estate. That will usually will give you a better start. Final cuts on a plotter/cutting mat such that you and Eric have used will get the final results. Yes it can be fun and exciting in the beginning but at those numbers quite tedious. Guess what? It is all about the labor and multi tasking.
In most cases with mid to large shops, it is often that other employees have to be brought into the process. Not always good. If you are doing yourself it is most likely more profitable. It is a six step process in most cases