Transfers - transfer powder a must?

[Admiral]

We use transfer powder and I have seen the benefit of it...the plastisol can't peel or scratch away at all...is there a way to make transfers without the powder though?

It's a lot of extra labor and we have to wipe off the transfers once they are out of the dryer to make sure powder not on the plastisol doesn't mark up shirts.

I assume transferexpress and other companies have a better method.

[BorisB]

If you apply transfers to T-shirts 100% cotton & some polyester blends you don't need powder. What you do need is good control over gelling temp in dryer and printed ink deposit. Powder is fixing this issues but takes more of your time.

Boris

[Admiral]

If you apply transfers to T-shirts 100% cotton & some polyester blends you don't need powder. What you do need is good control over gelling temp in dryer and printed ink deposit. Powder is fixing this issues but takes more of your time.

Boris

currently do transfers through our sprint 2000 at 235F.  I still would feel that powder = better transfer.  Do the transfer companies - versatrans, transferexpress, use powder on all of their plastisol transfers?

[Sbrem]

the transfer express 2 color numbers we buy are powdered; what I'd like to know is how they get rid of the excess powder that sticks to the paper then transfers to the shirts. Compressed air?

Steve

[ericheartsu]

in my experience, it's night and day. Use the powder, it helps adhere to the garment

[Sbrem]

So, has anyone tried mixing the powder into the ink? Or using Heat Transfer inks from the manufacturers?

Steve

[ericheartsu]

So, has anyone tried mixing the powder into the ink? Or using Heat Transfer inks from the manufacturers?

Steve

we have and we found it is better to coat it then to mix it in. the powder can cause weird blocking issues in the screen

[Frog]

the transfer express 2 color numbers we buy are powdered; what I'd like to know is how they get rid of the excess powder that sticks to the paper then transfers to the shirts. Compressed air?

Steve

If it's anything like when I ran Thermograph (fake engraved, raised letter printing with plastic powder) the conveyor has a hopper that shakes it on, then a vacuum which removes the excess.

[GaryG]

A larger company I worked at, we used Wilflex Printable Adhesive.
A little more extensive needing to be printed like a regular color; last screen down
kind of a reversible under base. It was crazy, artists used to send us up to 14 colors to
print 6-up on 25X38" on coated paper. We had a heat holding "room" for jobs that weren't
completed at days end and housed for the next day. Humidity and temp controlled, along with
heated rolling boxes at each press.

At least look at the PDF.
http://www.polyone.com/en-us/about/businessgroups/Inks/Literature/Wilflex%20Epic%20TFX%20Printable%20Adhesive.pdf

Powder is nice insurance, but otherwise, enough heat and pressure will bond specific "transfer" inks appropriately.
Hopes this helps~

[Im-Magic]

We do thousands of transfers and if they do not have a white as last down we use Printable adhesive. Allow yourself a little bit of overbleed to allow for shrinkage. The other thing we did was get a Powder coating machine that shakes the powder on and then blows off the excess. Took a while to design and I would like to do it again but it works. A lot of larger companies doing transfers blow of the excess usung compressed air but you have to be careful you do not use too much pressure as you can move the ink. I have seen a company sucessfully use a vacuum cleaner on blow and their transfers had no residue.

[TCT]

We use the Excalibur transfer ink. Works pretty well once you get the dryer set right. It was tricky for us to get it just right.
The powder makes it SO easy, but is kinda a pain. We had a little application "process" with a pizza box set up and some tissue paper that worked well for getting the powder on and saving the excess. I'll look in the basement tomorrow and see if I can find it and post a pic.

[BorisB]

So, has anyone tried mixing the powder into the ink? Or using Heat Transfer inks from the manufacturers?

Steve

we have and we found it is better to coat it then to mix it in. the powder can cause weird blocking issues in the screen

You can mix it in ink. But particles of powder need to be smaller then mesh opening. Powders are mostly  sold as 0-80 microns for finer grade and 80-200 microns for coarse grade. We used to use powder this way and addition of 10-20% helped a lot. We used 80 tpi mesh.

Boris

[BorisB]

the transfer express 2 color numbers we buy are powdered; what I'd like to know is how they get rid of the excess powder that sticks to the paper then transfers to the shirts. Compressed air?

Steve

If it's anything like when I ran Thermograph (fake engraved, raised letter printing with plastic powder) the conveyor has a hopper that shakes it on, then a vacuum which removes the excess.

When you are serious about powdering you need to  invest in machine from www.sunraise.com or www.permapress.se which is investment of $25k+, once you have it setup and running correctly it doesn't slow down production much. Ours can powder     400 sheets 50x70cm per hour.

Boris

[larryk]

We never use powder on our transfers and we do hundreds every week. Correct dryer settings and proper transfer inks are a must. Be careful on your artwork that has finer detail or halftones as they will cure faster than the larger deposits of ink and will not adhere to the garment..... we always do test samples during the run to make sure things are working the way they are supposed to, especially with multiple color jobs.

[GaryG]

Good Point Larry K~
Correct dryer settings and proper transfer inks are a must.
If too much heat, it will drive off too much moisture/binder?
And they will have a hard time adhering no matter how much
time/temp on the heat press.