Vinyl rippling on application?

[mimosatexas]

It's kind of hard to explain, but basically the backing plastic is rippling and skewing parts of the actual vinyl during application.  Look at the bottom of the lettering.

Tried applying at everything from 300 to 375 for between 5 and 12 seconds.  Wasted a bunch of hats this way...

I'm using easiweed vinyl.

Any ideas? I'm new to this...

edit: oops!  pic is now attached.

[Frog]

Had you meant to post a pic to show what you are taking about?

[mimosatexas]

Posted a pic of the results.  Lemme ruin another hat and take a pic before i remove the backing.

[Frog]

first off, 300 at 10-15 seconds.

I have never had the film release from the carrier sheet during application.
Do you have enough pressure? That could help hold it all together while adhering.

If you don't want to waste any more hats, perhaps you can reuse some of these with the lettering further down.

I'm assuming that all else is in order and your temp is fairly accurate, and you have a platen that is not somehow distorting the hat.

For that matter, is the hat snug against the platen? Not raised way up in the center? Tension bar or clip or whatever on the the bottom/back of hat pulling it down fairly tightly?

[royster13]

That looks like a large piece of vinyl for a cap...I generally keep my stuff at 2" or less.....Unless the cap is real high....Then you can go a little taller..,.

[Frog]

I go up to 3" with the right platen on the right hat
As I kinda' asked Mimosa, is the platen the right one for the hat? (and as you now mention) is it big enough for the design?

[mooseman]

just a thought it almost looks like the goofy pieces have been pushed or dragged out of place. Just a thought how does your press close on the hat?
Possibly is the hat & cover sheet showing some relative movement as a result of the press closing or hat reforming to the press platen when loaded?
Otherwise I am clueless as usual.
mooseman

[Frog]

I have another possibly crazy question.
Is there any chance that this happened already during weeding and not during pressing?

[tonyt79]

I have another possibly crazy question.
Is there any chance that this happened already during weeding and not during pressing?

That's what it looks like to me also

[mimosatexas]

meant to get back to this.  It was not due to weeding, platen works fine, etc.

Frog's suggestion of lowering the temp and upping the pressure mostly fixed it, but I also am closing the press as quickly as possible, which has made it pretty much go away completely.  I'm figuring out that hats with vinyl are just a little tricky I guess...

[Frog]

one more trick, though it adds a few seconds, is a couple of pieces of heat tape to help keep it in place during the closing and clamping.

Some clamshell presses are notorious for heavy pressure in the back first, and I suppose that that could add to your woes, though, most of us have never seen stuff only partially creep like yours. The usual problem is more of a movement of the entire design.