We just bought a 4800 printer and a heat press to do sublimation transfers. We have a request to do 12 teams of soccer uniforms. The uniforms are 100% polyester, but each team has a different color scheme. Each shirt will have a sponser name on the front and numbers on the back. 10 of the 12 teams can use black ink for the sponser's name and numbers. So the question is, can we do this with black sublimation ink on colored shirts, such as red, yellow, green...? The second question is how do you do two-sided sublimation transfers? The third question is what can we do for the 2 teams that have dark color shirts and need to use white ink for the sponser's name and numbers? Any help in these matters will be greatly appreciated..Thanks!
Hey Doug, I sub on the vapor shirts in diff colors all the time,,, the black looks really great,,, you might want to test a sample shirt,, but I dont see why not,,,, as to press on two sides I do it all the time,,,, make sure you use a teflon sheet on top and bottom,,,, sone times I place heavy card like printing paper between the shirt for ghosting,,, but I normally dont have the problem,, but better safe than waste a shirt, the most important thing is the teflon sheets..
You can't Dye Sub white ink, no such animal. You can either sub out to a screen printer or use white vinyl on those shirts.
You might want to consider using vinyl on all the shirts. Much cheaper and does a wonderful job. I use vinyl all the time. I like it better than Dye Sub.
Hi Doug,
Just as Roger said - no problem sublimating on yellow, green providing it's not dark bottle green) and red.
For white prints - I know Stahls has sets of letters and numbers in variety of styles to press onto sports shirts. Stahls Pacific in Australia carries "Ezy-breathe" film numerals - very light and perforated for breathebility.
To press double-sided shirts I put a paper insert between back and front and use teflon sheets like Roger - works for me too.
Unlike anything else sublimated prints do not impare breathibility of sports shirts.
I use dye sub and vinyl both for the soccer uniforms with no problems. dye sub is quicker and easier, no weeding. You do need to be carefull around the other logos and lettering though. On some shirts if you touch the numbers to the heat press it will really mess them up. I use mousepad material and build the area I'm pressing up so nothing else touches. You may also get a lot of bleeding from the dyes in the shirt already so I always use a blowout sheet to minimize it as much as possible.
When I do both sides I put the shirt on the press so I am only pressing the one side and the other side is underneath the press, so it doesn't matter which side you do first.
black dye sub ink on a color shirt 
