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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: ericheartsu on January 13, 2016, 06:44:41 PM
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What brand of foil is everyone using?
We use Amagic/Klaser, but i'm wondering if there is something better?
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I think amagic was the consensus "best" last time this topic came up. I use crown usually due to availability, but it has issues from time to time...
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my understanding is that Crown is actually the best and Amagic a very close second. I've heard of ppl switching from Crown to Amagic due to better pricing and and an insignificant impact in performance.
We use Crown, but did not test anything else. . .
what's the problem with it?
pierre
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Since we do inline foil on the roq oval compared to heat pressing our results might be different but we have found these to be the best in this order
1. Crown Roll Leaf
2. Infiniti
3. Univaco
4. Amagic
Out of the above 4 amagic has been the least desirable for me to use on our machine here. They offer lots of cool foils but I've found they don't release as well as the others. They do make an easy release(not sure what they call it) that I have not tested yet so that might be better.
For us one of the most important parts is the actual glue we are using. Without the right glue foil can be a bear to do correctly. We've found the virus waterbase glue to work the best followed by HD clear plastisol
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http://www.bing.com/th?id=WN.gSTPm%252boHZ4bhQGrdkTc3zg&w=520&h=292&c=7&rs=2&qlt=90&pid=1.7&rm=2 (http://www.bing.com/th?id=WN.gSTPm%252boHZ4bhQGrdkTc3zg&w=520&h=292&c=7&rs=2&qlt=90&pid=1.7&rm=2)
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For us, Crown also releases the best. We use Amajic too, but only when we can't get what we want from Crown.
As a side bar, Silver foil seems to be hard to get to release from the liner perfectly. We use waterbased Virus adhesive for Silver whenever we can. It performs better for us, but we foil in a separate step. We also use Wilflex Clear Gel for some colors of foil.
All PFP'd, cured in the tunnel then out to the heat press.
I've seen Danny's rig. Wow!
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Silver was always a pain for us as well, and the Amagic has actually performed best in that color.
I think, not unlike white inks, that any of them will work, but technique must change to fit the material.
We like HD clear tinted for visibility.
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Since we do inline foil on the roq oval compared to heat pressing our results might be different but we have found these to be the best in this order
1. Crown Roll Leaf
2. Infiniti
3. Univaco
4. Amagic
Out of the above 4 amagic has been the least desirable for me to use on our machine here. They offer lots of cool foils but I've found they don't release as well as the others. They do make an easy release(not sure what they call it) that I have not tested yet so that might be better.
For us one of the most important parts is the actual glue we are using. Without the right glue foil can be a bear to do correctly. We've found the virus waterbase glue to work the best followed by HD clear plastisol
Danny, which supplier are you using to purchase the virus adhesive. I've uses the Matsui in the past, but I hear the virus is great stuff.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
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Virus is awesome. we love it too.
we get it from kevin at river city!
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Since we do inline foil on the roq oval compared to heat pressing our results might be different but we have found these to be the best in this order
1. Crown Roll Leaf
2. Infiniti
3. Univaco
4. Amagic
Out of the above 4 amagic has been the least desirable for me to use on our machine here. They offer lots of cool foils but I've found they don't release as well as the others. They do make an easy release(not sure what they call it) that I have not tested yet so that might be better.
For us one of the most important parts is the actual glue we are using. Without the right glue foil can be a bear to do correctly. We've found the virus waterbase glue to work the best followed by HD clear plastisol
Danny, which supplier are you using to purchase the virus adhesive. I've uses the Matsui in the past, but I hear the virus is great stuff.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
In the past I have purchased it from Amagic but knowing Kevin has it and is only a 2 day ship I would check him out!
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didn't mean to spread any misinfo, and I may have been reading about the silver like eb mentioned.
My issues have mostly been with gold in the crown, and it is mostly related to irregular releasing. I usually pfp with 135 or 110 using clear base as others have mentioned. It is somewhat random, but occasionally there will just be issues where the final "print" looks almost like light grungy, with spots missing hear and there, while the next one will be a completely clean release. Could be issues with specific shirts, maybe a specific flood or print stroke, or irregularities in the foil itself. Honestly it isnt enough of an issue for me to have tried to pinpoint it.
I will say, I have not tried the virus adhesive but have heard it is awesome. I also see foil prints in stores and being worn on occasion that look MUCH smoother than I have ever been able to get. Usually my foils seem to pickup a bit of the texture of the shirt, while I have seen foil that looks pretty much perfectly smooth, almost like vinyl, but with the softer, thinner results you see with foil. Any ideas on how to get the smoother finish?
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Virus is awesome. we love it too.
we get it from kevin at river city!
Nice I'll have to give him a call. Kevin is great.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
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<snip> I also see foil prints in stores and being worn on occasion that look MUCH smoother than I have ever been able to get. Usually my foils seem to pickup a bit of the texture of the shirt, while I have seen foil that looks pretty much perfectly smooth, almost like vinyl, but with the softer, thinner results you see with foil. Any ideas on how to get the smoother finish?
PFP'ing Wilflex HD Gel II through a 110 (110-80) mesh gets us the smoothest foiled effects. YMMV. I've done some 135-48 and can't really tell much difference. Crown Gold foils perfect for us using it, but it doesn't have as nice a feel as the waterbased Virus adhesive. With silver, I ALWAYS use the Virus, regardless of the desired hand.
And on a personal note, my new vacuum platen (Mimosatexas Style ;) ) works great! I want to try to print some HD Gel on transfer paper for foil. Just to see how it works. I might try 83 mesh and powder adhesive, cold peeled, and want to see if PFP'ing is still necessary. THANKS!!
@ Ericheartsu, I didn't realize Kevin @ River City sold the Virus adhesive. I can highly recommend using the retarder too. The adhesive "rolls up" in front of the floods and squeegees like butter. I use it on my manual too. Good stuff!
Anyway problematic foils get the Virus treatment for us. Otherwise, Wilflex Clear HD Gel II.
I suspect that the precise dialing in of temps, times, and pressures at the heat press have nearly as much bearing on success as what happens on the print floor. An air operated heat press sure helps with repeat-ability, since it eliminates one more squishy variable.
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Just put an order of adhesive in with Kevin! Keeping my fingers crossed it can ship today(did you hear that Kev LOL) :P
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Thanks Danny! I did get it and it will ship today. I will send you tracking shortly.
Thanks again.
Kevin
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Thanks Danny! I did get it and it will ship today. I will send you tracking shortly.
Thanks again.
Kevin
Just got tracking, holy cow that was fast! Kevin you rock dude! That service was flawless ;D
Two thumbs up for River City
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Thanks Danny! I did get it and it will ship today. I will send you tracking shortly.
Thanks again.
Kevin
Just got tracking, holy cow that was fast! Kevin you rock dude! That service was flawless ;D
Two thumbs up for River City
You are very welcome thanks again. Also Eric Thank you for the nice product referral!
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I definitely feel spoiled being a five minute drive from Kevin...
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<snip> I also see foil prints in stores and being worn on occasion that look MUCH smoother than I have ever been able to get. Usually my foils seem to pickup a bit of the texture of the shirt, while I have seen foil that looks pretty much perfectly smooth, almost like vinyl, but with the softer, thinner results you see with foil. Any ideas on how to get the smoother finish?
PFP'ing Wilflex HD Gel II through a 110 (110-80) mesh gets us the smoothest foiled effects. YMMV. I've done some 135-48 and can't really tell much difference. Crown Gold foils perfect for us using it, but it doesn't have as nice a feel as the waterbased Virus adhesive. With silver, I ALWAYS use the Virus, regardless of the desired hand.
And on a personal note, my new vacuum platen (Mimosatexas Style ;) ) works great! I want to try to print some HD Gel on transfer paper for foil. Just to see how it works. I might try 83 mesh and powder adhesive, cold peeled, and want to see if PFP'ing is still necessary. THANKS!!
@ Ericheartsu, I didn't realize Kevin @ River City sold the Virus adhesive. I can highly recommend using the retarder too. The adhesive "rolls up" in front of the floods and squeegees like butter. I use it on my manual too. Good stuff!
Anyway problematic foils get the Virus treatment for us. Otherwise, Wilflex Clear HD Gel II.
I suspect that the precise dialing in of temps, times, and pressures at the heat press have nearly as much bearing on success as what happens on the print floor. An air operated heat press sure helps with repeat-ability, since it eliminates one more squishy variable.
Why not do everything in the virus? Cost?
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@ IntegriTees, the water based adhesive is a little more fiddly. Not much....but some, and for some shops the opposite could be true. The Virus adhesive being waterbased, wants to be cleaned up NOW or teensy weensy artifacts of dried-in adhesive can survive washout and reclaim. Again, in someone else's shop, it might not be an issue.
Cost isn't much different. But with the gel adhesive the "mirrored" effect that Mimosa mentioned is possible. If I just want near-perfect release, I do reach for the water-based adhesive, ESPECIALLY on large solid areas. We did a silver volleyball once that would have been MUCH better with water based adhesive.
We did a job later that included some little specs almost like droplets of water that used gel adhesive PFPFP'd and they were almost like little mirrors.
Having said all that, we LOVE the Virus Adhesive, so long as we add their 3-5% retarder. I used to use Jantex waterbased adhesive until her formulation wasn't available any longer for some reason. I didn't care for the next iteration, and jumped ship. NOthing worked as well for us, especially when we needed to print it manually...until we found Virus.
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Oops. Double Post. I can't find how to delete it.
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Here's a quick(really crappy quality) video of us doing some inline foil using the virus adhesive. This adhesive for us is head and shoulders better then anything else, just requires a quick flash before our foil machine. We have it going pretty slow here as we were just dialing it in but one operator will run this at 450 pcs per hour once we are dialed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdsYjJdibmQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdsYjJdibmQ)
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What brand of foil is everyone using?
We use Amagic/Klaser, but i'm wondering if there is something better?
In my shop here we use A-Magic foil with Matsui waterbase and Matsui Foil adhesive, I print over 100k foil jobs a year, we heat press at 290 degrees and anywhere from 6 to 10 seconds. I have found A-Magic foil to be superior to Crown, crown foil takes more heat and longer times to press for me in the past, I have been using A_Magic now for at least 4 years, all different colors, and Silver and Gold foil always foils better then any color I have came across. The picture enclosed is of a 30k foil job we just finished with zero issues.
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Awesome, are you guys doing inline foil or using heat presses?
Did you see our video how we do inline foil on the roq? Sounds like with that type of foil volume you NEED an inline solution!
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Awesome, are you guys doing inline foil or using heat presses?
Did you see our video how we do inline foil on the roq? Sounds like with that type of foil volume you NEED an inline solution!
We are using about 15 heat presses. When you inline foil how fast does the job run? Does inline foil tarnish the bling of the foil?
Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
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Awesome, are you guys doing inline foil or using heat presses?
Did you see our video how we do inline foil on the roq? Sounds like with that type of foil volume you NEED an inline solution!
If that video is any sign of how slow that press goes there is no way I can use that method. We are running about 4500 units a day on a waterbase foil job.
Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
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Awesome, are you guys doing inline foil or using heat presses?
Did you see our video how we do inline foil on the roq? Sounds like with that type of foil volume you NEED an inline solution!
If that video is any sign of how slow that press goes there is no way I can use that method. We are running about 4500 units a day on a waterbase foil job.
Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
We are gearing up to expand our in line foil by adding 3 additional machines. When we have 4 machines going our production will be capable of 2400 pcs per hour..... That is not slow by any means.
Currently we have 1 in line setup which 1 operator( yes only one person, can produce approx 500 per hour. In a single shift two weeks ago we produced a 2,500 pcs order..... No heat pressing, 1 person doing the entire job.
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Danny is right, if you do a lot of foiling on a consist basis, it is kind of a no brainer. Your ROI is very fast and extremely easy to figure out.
How many employees are running the 15 great presses?
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Danny:
If I understand correctly, Ttwo can't tie up his presses producing at your rate. I am assuming he is running much faster and its cheaper for him to foil afterwards while his presses are freed up to keep spinning.
Although I would look at cost of employees doing foil vs money coming in on the presses spinning.... Must be really slim.
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Danny:
If I understand correctly, Ttwo can't tie up his presses producing at your rate. I am assuming he is running much faster and its cheaper for him to foil afterwards while his presses are freed up to keep spinning.
Although I would look at cost of employees doing foil vs money coming in on the presses spinning.... Must be really slim.
I have some ROI numbers on inline foiling on roq vs printing on an auto then foiling on a heat press..... I'll post it up once I can find it
There's many ways to skin the cat but we have a repeat foil job that is 6k pcs on every order and for us we would not do it any other way then with our roq foil machine. When we used to get the job prior to going roq inline we would absolutely dread the process, the extra people we had to bring on, etc.... For us inline has allowed us to be profitable with foil where before we struggled. Not to mention and I'm not saying this happens to everyone but we've had instances where prior to going inline we had issues with the adhesive which in turn gave us hundreds to thousands of rejects. There's nothing like getting halfway through a stack of shirts your doing heat press foil on only to realize something went wrong on press or with the ink.
But producing 500 pcs per hour per machine for me is pretty profitable with the upcharge of foil.
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Here's some actual data from another company prior to us doing our ROI...... Our ROI is much more attractive then this as we are doing many more pcs per hour then the company who did this study.
Des. 7167 x 1,500pcs, printed on S-Roque machine vs. the same design printed on an automatic press + Hoss transfer station
(The same loader printed 1,500pcs of this design at different times: on the S-Roque and also the automatic)
S-Roque
Labour cost: $0.13 each imprint
Calculation: 3 workers x $12 x 5.45hrs = $196.20
Automatic Press w/ Manual Foil
Labor cost: $0.31 each imprint (2 step process)
Step 1: 3 workers x $12 x 2.12hrs = $76.32
Step 2 (transfer presses): 4 workers x $12 x 8.0hrs = $384.00
In Step 2: 4 workers produce 3 garments/minute, i.e. 180/hr
Total cost: $460.32
Our historical records of production rates for this foil design on the S-Roque are:-
Robert x 180pcs
Kim x 251pcs
Zhe x 275pcs
14 color automatic (adhesive only)
Zhe x 708pcs
Savings S.Roque vs. Manual.
$.13 per garment vs. $.31 per garment.
* 238% increase of productivity.
* 58% margin increase per unit
* 42% of the labor required to produce
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Savings S.Roque vs. Manual.
$.13 per garment vs. $.31 per garment.
* 238% increase of productivity.
* 58% margin increase per unit
* 42% of the labor required to produce
The inline foil is pretty cool, but I just don't see how when running it through the dryer it isn't getting duller. Anytime we run foil the the dryer it gets dull, no matter if it's A-magic, Crown, ect.
Also, keep in mind, I doubt that ttwo0603 is in the US, so his labour cost could be 15 workers running heat presses 8 hours a day for $196.20 total, all while their presses are rocking out 1000 pieces per hour, and the press isn't tied up running 30k pieces at the fastest below of 275 pieces per hour, or 109 hours non stop to complete the order.
What makes sense in the US, is totally different. The benefit in the US is you can turn this order in 10-15 business days, and ordering overseas could take 4-6 weeks.
Different market, while the inline foil is rad, if labour costs is not such an issue, then inline foil takes away from production since you loose the opportunity to run another job faster, and be making money in two places.
Does the inline foil fit on any of the round presses, or only the oval presses? Anytime I see an oval running, it looks like it is running so slow!
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The foil attachment fits on any press. If you do put it on an oval and say you are only doing a single color foil you could actually run multiple foil attachments with multiple operators loading and unloading garments. I'm planning to do this if I land some large scale foil opportunities and just print as many pcs on one machine per hour as possible, stack all garments then have a night crew come cure all the garments through the dryer. I figure between a crew of 8 total we can do over 14,000 pcs per shift. You would have a person loading garments at each station on the machine and followed right after the foil attachment you would have an unloader so each 2 person crew should be able to do 500 pcs an hr easily. Four crews on one machine and that's 2,000 pcs/hr. If you have the business which some places out there swim in foil my point is doing it both ways inline with machine nets us so many more pcs in a day on big jobs with less labor for my shop it's worth it. With the right adhesive and curing technique the foil dulls only slightly but improves the wash by a ton compared to a heat pressed foil. We explain this to the customer if they question samples we show them and it's never been an issue but most of the foil prints we make are lines that we develop the art for and sell to retail so it's not as much of an issue. But what use to take multiple people a week to do is now done in a couple days with just a couple people now lol inline for us
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I'm pretty sure ttwo is in the states. Ohio I believe
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Savings S.Roque vs. Manual.
$.13 per garment vs. $.31 per garment.
* 238% increase of productivity.
* 58% margin increase per unit
* 42% of the labor required to produce
The inline foil is pretty cool, but I just don't see how when running it through the dryer it isn't getting duller. Anytime we run foil the the dryer it gets dull, no matter if it's A-magic, Crown, ect.
Also, keep in mind, I doubt that ttwo0603 is in the US, so his labour cost could be 15 workers running heat presses 8 hours a day for $196.20 total, all while their presses are rocking out 1000 pieces per hour, and the press isn't tied up running 30k pieces at the fastest below of 275 pieces per hour, or 109 hours non stop to complete the order.
What makes sense in the US, is totally different. The benefit in the US is you can turn this order in 10-15 business days, and ordering overseas could take 4-6 weeks.
Different market, while the inline foil is rad, if labour costs is not such an issue, then inline foil takes away from production since you loose the opportunity to run another job faster, and be making money in two places.
Does the inline foil fit on any of the round presses, or only the oval presses? Anytime I see an oval running, it looks like it is running so slow!
I am a Midwest print shop in OHIO, Go Bucks! But like mention above any time I have seen foil go down the dryer it gets tarnish, My customer wants bling and a bright foil look. Every time I seen videos or at ISS shows the inline foil press is moving so slow or even double hitting, I have yet to see a mass production foil job where they are flying thru it. I just did a foil job a few weeks ago on a dark garment that required 3 flashes and 9 colors, I don't know how this would fit or work on a inline, But like I said when we are running a foil job we are averaging 4500 pieces a day,for a 30k job, 2 size grades set ups, I need to get that press back open ASAP, that takes me about 7 days to print, then at the same time as fast as I can print the shirts I have my press department pressing foil on, with 15 presses some of my employees I can assign one person to two presses and they move very quickly, once again with A-Magic foil I am able to foil some jobs at 6-8 seconds, that's a lot of shirts that get done very quickly. We do wash test and never had one failed wash test. And the whole time I am running a foil job I always have someone testing it to make sure all is going like it should, but really our foil jobs run so good its never ever a issue , A-Magic and Matsui work very well together.
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Here's some actual data from another company prior to us doing our ROI...... Our ROI is much more attractive then this as we are doing many more pcs per hour then the company who did this study.
Des. 7167 x 1,500pcs, printed on S-Roque machine vs. the same design printed on an automatic press + Hoss transfer station
(The same loader printed 1,500pcs of this design at different times: on the S-Roque and also the automatic)
S-Roque
Labour cost: $0.13 each imprint
Calculation: 3 workers x $12 x 5.45hrs = $196.20
Automatic Press w/ Manual Foil
Labor cost: $0.31 each imprint (2 step process)
Step 1: 3 workers x $12 x 2.12hrs = $76.32
Step 2 (transfer presses): 4 workers x $12 x 8.0hrs = $384.00
In Step 2: 4 workers produce 3 garments/minute, i.e. 180/hr
Total cost: $460.32
Our historical records of production rates for this foil design on the S-Roque are:-
Robert x 180pcs
Kim x 251pcs
Zhe x 275pcs
14 color automatic (adhesive only)
Zhe x 708pcs
Savings S.Roque vs. Manual.
$.13 per garment vs. $.31 per garment.
* 238% increase of productivity.
* 58% margin increase per unit
* 42% of the labor required to produce
Am I reading this correct you have the average pay of a 3 team press crew making 12 dollars a hour? That clearly isn't happening in my shop! And definitely not getting 12 dollars a hour to heat press anything
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Re read I said those numbers are from another company. I have not put ours together yet but like I said inline works for us, maybe not all though. A while back we did a 9 color plus foil using 5 flashes on our oval. It ran 400 pcs per hour with one person on press and one person at the dryer catching.
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tt- how many employees do you have on 15 heat presses?
And round about wages there?
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Looks like TT's shop is primarily contract and goes through A LOT of volume. So the question is: Does he make more money by running his presses while other employees are foiling with a heat press Vs. running inline foil. We would need to know his shops numbers.....
Also, his customer could be THAT picky and he is getting a good price for his method.
Danny is combining multicolor art and foil (for most foil jobs). I would personally want to avoid having to use a foil release additive to foil the prints he does. Looking at his prints and how he has managed his finances/charges, I see his chosen path as being very profitable. Imo, sounds like a different type of customer base.
2 different businesses, 2 different approaches that make each shop money.
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Looks like TT's shop is primarily contract and goes through A LOT of volume. So the question is: Does he make more money by running his presses while other employees are foiling with a heat press Vs. running inline foil. We would need to know his shops numbers.....
Also, his customer could be THAT picky and he is getting a good price for his method.
Danny is combining multicolor art and foil (for most foil jobs). I would personally want to avoid having to use a foil release additive to foil the prints he does. Looking at his prints and how he has managed his finances/charges, I see his chosen path as being very profitable. Imo, sounds like a different type of customer base.
2 different businesses, 2 different approaches that make each shop money.
Most of our foil jobs are multi color art. And yes we are a contract print shop that prints in high volume. And I put zero foil release additives in my colors, when printing foil jobs I use Matsui waterbase inks, they do have a top coat screen(foil release) that prints before the adhesive screen., its only one screen and that prevents foil sticking to the image. And sometimes if I am not using colors with a lot of pigments in it, I don't even need to use a top coat screen when printing.
But back to our process , I can run a average of 4500 a day on the press in print, and working with 10 to 12 heat presses I can foil 6500 to 7000 shirts a day, in less then 7 days I can print and foil 30k units. I have foiled 8k in a day on 10 presses before. That is the record for us.
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I don't want to change the post but if do that many foiled shirts per hour then how many regular plastisol prints can you do per hour?