Plastisol transfer numbers

[tonyt79]

We are printing football uniforms again this year for the local city. We did cad cut vinyl last year. Very time consuming. Its roughly 575 jerseys and I was thinking abot printing my own transfers. I have never printed any before so not sure if it is really that great of idea. I have looked into purchasing them before but the league allows the teams to pic their own colored numbers. Some teams do an upgrade to 2 color numbers, so purchasing them did not seem to be an ideal way to go. Any thoughts on the idea?

[Frog]

If one doesn't mind the feel of vinyl, how about die cuts?
They are cheaper than cad cut, and obviously save the time of cutting and weeding.

On the other hand, if one is going to do these quantities, they may want to look into one of the direct printing methods which range from paper stencils on conventional manual screens and press, to dedicated printers with their own interchangeable screens.

[Orion]

Check in to these transfers...

http://www.transferexpress.com/content/exported/pdf/whybuy/Why_Numbers.pdf

[mimosatexas]

for that many numbers I would probably just buy them and apply them vs doing it in house with either vinyl or plastisol transfers.  It will take a lot of setup time, especially with multiple colors and styles, to print plastisol transfers, and like you mentioned, weeding vinyl at that quantity will take a while and cost you quite a bit in materials as well.  I think you will save TONS of time and thus make the job more profitable to purchase pre-done numbers, assuming you can find the colors/styles you need.

Does anyone have experience with those paper number stencils?  I have never tried them as they just seem like it would end up with a huge mess and a crappy finished print.

[Frog]

Does anyone have experience with those paper number stencils?  I have never tried them as they just seem like it would end up with a huge mess and a crappy finished print.

20 years ago I inherited some boxes of them and used them all of the time. I had screens dedicated with openings for single and double digits, and away I went.
The worst thing I did was print a number backwards on a customer-supplied jersey. There was no fixing that!

btw, when I printed flat stock, we often used paper stencils.

[aauusa]

we print our transfer numbers all the time and they are very simple.  If you want give me a shout and I can tell you how we do it.  easier to speakit rather than type it.

850-729-1205
dan

[mimosatexas]

simple, but time consuming.  Depending on the size of the numbers you will likely need multiple screens to cover all the digits, and you will end up with lots of overages on less common numbers.  Then if he is doing multiple colors there is all the time cleaning screens for ink changes.  At that quantity it seems like the time savings would more than cover the cost of purchasing pre-done numbers.  For smaller single color orders I also print them in house, but I wouldn't do it for almost 600 units unless I was in a crunch.  Every shop is different of course...

Frog: Are the edges crisp?  Opacity good from a single pass?  Any issues with the stencils moving or whatever?

[Frog]

I had no issues with edges not being sharp, or stencils moving as the ink keeps them pretty well stuck down. but I honestly don't remember my experience with p/f/p whites and gold. Too long ago for this old mind.

Get yourself some transfer paper and cut a number or two and try it out.

Biggest pain was removing the centers but something like a toothpick helps that.

[aauusa]

simple, but time consuming.  Depending on the size of the numbers you will likely need multiple screens to cover all the digits, and you will end up with lots of overages on less common numbers.  Then if he is doing multiple colors there is all the time cleaning screens for ink changes.  At that quantity it seems like the time savings would more than cover the cost of purchasing pre-done numbers.  For smaller single color orders I also print them in house, but I wouldn't do it for almost 600 units unless I was in a crunch.  Every shop is different of course...

Frog: Are the edges crisp?  Opacity good from a single pass?  Any issues with the stencils moving or whatever?

it really does depend on how you set it up to do it.  We have alot of manual screens which we have dedicated to numbers and it is not very difficult at all.  We make transfers for all of our teams and leagues no matter how big the league is or how many colors.  we have a league of about 400 jersey going through right now and they are a 2 color number front and back very simple if you gang your screens correctly for the transfer paper.  It took about an hour for one guy to do all the number printing and the about 1 hour to clean screens and about 1 hour to cut the numbers apart.  3 hours labor and minimal cleanup cost.   could not have ordered  a stock transfer as all customer want there own color combination and never to they want a stock color combination that can be purchased unless it is a special order and we know when special is in the job description cost is  higher.

[Sbrem]

When we do one that large, we simply buy the numbers from Transfer Express...

Steve

[Maxie]

We print all our own numbers.     Years ago I built a simple vacuum table that holds the paper down.
We have a screen for each number and print as we need them.
Really easy to do and hardly costs anything.     We use the same set up for printing hat transfers.

[Frog]

For those interested in Maxie's idea, I have this which has made the rounds on forums for years.