puff or 3d ink on plastisol heat transfer?

[IntegriTees]

is there a way to print a plastisol heat transfer that can be pressed onto a shirt and after pressing...it have some dimension to it?
I'm wanting to have a "simulated" stitch over a fabric appliqué but I want it to have some "feel".

I know heat pressing normally flattens out any kind of hand that the transfer normally has.  Just seeing if anyone had any suggestions.

[SI]

Call springhillwholesale.com. They are local to me and have been doing stuff like that for over 30 years. They supply a lot of transfers to the heat press type vendors and I know they have some puff transfers

[IntegriTees]

was hoping to do them myself.  I just didn't know what ink I needed to purchase to make it happen?

[tonypep]

Or if you're set up to direct SP the old selective puff underbase technique (forgotten by many including me) is pretty cool. Thinking about bringing that back. Best to use a closed cell puff ink.

[mimosatexas]

the only way to get this with transfers would probably be to do separate pressings which would be hell to line up depending on the design.  Print the stitch with high eom on low mesh and press with as low a pressure as you can on top of the other ink.  that would give it dimension...

Direct print you have more options obviously, but there may be some way to do puff on the transfer and then heat it post pressing to let the puff do its thing by hovering the heating element or something.  in my experience, the initial heat press will make everything the smooth and the same height so you wouldnt have any physical puff on the stitch layer.

[tonypep]

Not if you have an off contact setting on your heat seal machine. Used to do raised metal HD foil (Aerosmith wing logo ex) in this manner

[mimosatexas]

It isnt about off contact/pressure adjustment when it comes to something like this using a single transfer and pressing.  All of your ink is being printed onto a piece of paper and that paper is flat.  Then, you are pressing that already flat film of ink using a giant flat piece of metal and that metal must contact the whole image to properly transfer.  The only way to then have certain areas raise would either be to do separate transfers layered with different off contact/pressure settings, or some kind of puff in one of the colors that you then heated up after the initial pressing and removal of the paper, though I don't think it would work terribly well, or at least the effect would be muted much more than direct printing with a puff ink.

edit: From what I have seen of puff foil like you described (only online admittedly), you are pressing the foil, then doing a second heating either with no pressure (heating element hovering) or back through a dryer, which lets the ink puff after the foil has been pressed.

[tonypep]

You can use the puff underbase technique mentioned in another post but in this case, the wings were printed with HD ink (not clear!) and kiss foiled using precise adjustment on the heat seal off contact setting

[IntegriTees]

Transfer Express is offering puff screen printed transfers.
https://transferexpress.com/heat-applied-transfers/puff-screen-printed-transfers

the pic that shows the "puff" isn't that great so I'm wondering if they're just using hi density.