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lben · July 15th, 2008

I'm brand new at this, so tonight I was practicing with the different inks and paper and I discovered some big differences. So is it normal?

With regular transfer paper and plain old printer ink (inkjet) almost all of the ink was transferred onto the shirt. When I tried the Chromablast ink & paper the same thing happened. Nearly the entire print was transferred (just a faint image remained on the paper afterwards).

Now with my sublimation ink & paper just the opposite is happening. Nearly the entire image is left on the paper (yes I'm printing on the correct side). I do get an image on the substrate, but I still have a vivid image on the paper, which does do additional transfers, though not as clear.

So what gives? Is it normal for the sublimation image to stay on the paper or am I doing something wrong?

Any and all suggestions more than welcome.

I was printing on old T-shirts, and new (sublimation) blank mouse pads.

Lnfortun · July 15th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by lben


	I'm brand new at this, so tonight I was practicing with the different inks and paper and I discovered some big differences. So is it normal? With regular transfer paper and plain old printer ink (inkjet) almost all of the ink was transferred onto the shirt. When I tried the Chromablast ink & paper the same thing happened. Nearly the entire print was transferred (just a faint image remained on the paper afterwards). Now with my sublimation ink & paper just the opposite is happening. Nearly the entire image is left on the paper (yes I'm printing on the correct side). I do get an image on the substrate, but I still have a vivid image on the paper, which does do additional transfers, though not as clear. So what gives? Is it normal for the sublimation image to stay on the paper or am I doing something wrong? Any and all suggestions more than welcome. I was printing on old T-shirts, and new (sublimation) blank mouse pads.

Sublimation does seem to leave a lot of ink on the paper. What you are seeing is the dye carrier. The dye is actually turned to gas when heated, transfered to the substrate and bonds with subtrate molecules (must be polyester substrate) and return to solid again. Hence the image is transfered. To get the most of the dye transferred is using a good type of release paper. Sublimation does not require polymer coated transfer paper.

DREAMGLASS · July 15th, 2008

Hi. Having a vivid image left on sublimation transfer paper is normal.

Whether you print on fabrics, ceramics, glass, or plastics, you always have a vivid image left on the transfer paper.

Even though the remaining image looks complete, you can only use sublimation transfer paper once. The active chemicals have already been transferred.

lben · July 16th, 2008

Thanks, that really explained a lot. I'm using the sublimation paper and ink from BestBlanks. Actually, all of my inks and paper came from there. I'm glad I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wish this was all explained somewhere, but this forum is awesome. Especially for beginners like me.

lben · July 16th, 2008

I agree, they should only be used once, but I did get a faint image off of a couple of them on the ruined practice samples that I had sitting around. I didn't really think anything was wrong until I made my first transfers with the inkjet and Chromablast and noticed that their images were almost completely gone.