"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
i love the $1.99 transfers from S&K mfg personally. Very rich colors and fast turn times.As far as troubleshooting, buy some heat transfer tape and work slow. If the transfer sheet moves as you open the press you will ghost the image and it will ruin the garment. Biggest issue I have seen by far.
Brandt- There are at least a couple of places you can order sublimation transfers online. Since you've already got a heat press, I suggest ordering some sample transfers & various poly & poly/cotton blends, and doing some tests that way. You can get a feel for the process with very little investment. (One we've used: http://mytransfersource.com/)We've done this, and tried selling some, too, to see if we want to get all the way into this. We have yet to generate enough interest to justify getting all the way into it. So we just order in transfers for the random odd job where it's a good fit. We're pretty much in the same spot as mimosa^^^. (In fact, the main people we do this for is personal friends who want 1 or 2 shirts - people I hate to say "no" to. I rarely make money on it.)And since you asked for noob advice, I'll say this: dealing with sublimation ain't like printing - or even pressing normal transfers. It requires learning another skill set entirely. I found the fabrics to be way more finicky - trying to avoid press lines is really aggravating. And transfers like to curl, which makes it hard to keep them in position. You can spray them with tack, but if it doesn't mist perfectly, and "spits" instead, you'll get little dots in your print. And the list of little things to overcome goes on.I found that unless someone needs a tiny quantity of shirts, I'd rather print 4c process, and can make more money doing it. It seems to me that with dye sub, it's best to either go small, or go really big: either do kiosk-style one-offs that have a huge markup; or get all the way into it & be able to do full garments, and establish yourself with clients who want that & are willing to pay for it.That said, I'd love to hear from people who've succesfully integrated this into their shops, & how they've done it.
Quote from: mimosatexas on August 26, 2016, 12:45:43 PMi love the $1.99 transfers from S&K mfg personally. Very rich colors and fast turn times.As far as troubleshooting, buy some heat transfer tape and work slow. If the transfer sheet moves as you open the press you will ghost the image and it will ruin the garment. Biggest issue I have seen by far. Minimums on that?
the issue you guys are having is with the sheet moving is paper the transfer is printed on. We use a paper which has a little bit of tack in it when it is heated. this allows for the paper to stay where you want it rather than having to use spray tack and it will not move when you raise your heat press. not sure what paper you get with your transfers but it should not have any curling either. better paper and paper with a tack is the best option. for the crease lines you can get a rubber pad from stahls which for us goes under the teflon protection cover on the platten. this allows you to minimize the crease as the edge of the paper is absorbed by the rubber pad.hope this helps and does not confuse
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on August 26, 2016, 01:06:09 PMQuote from: mimosatexas on August 26, 2016, 12:45:43 PMi love the $1.99 transfers from S&K mfg personally. Very rich colors and fast turn times.As far as troubleshooting, buy some heat transfer tape and work slow. If the transfer sheet moves as you open the press you will ghost the image and it will ruin the garment. Biggest issue I have seen by far. Minimums on that?No minimums
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Topic: Sublimation (Read 4952 times)
