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Cold Peel Transfer Paper Bubble Problem

2916 Views 6 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  personalazeit, 
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I have been having great luck with the cold peel paper, for some reason, hit and miss, on the numbers (I'm doing names and numbers on the backs of Ts) I'm getting this weird bubble effect in the paper. I'm trying to lower my temperature to 365 degrees right now as I've always had luck with all my transfers at 375 degrees. This is my first time doing cold peel. None of my tests had this problem, which is leading me to believe my temperature is too hot as it only starts happening after I get really rolling. It just had an odd effect on the ink on the shirt, not enough to worry me, but enough that I don't' want this happening.

I am making my own transfers, so as far as how I got to this point... screen the white ink onto the paper, then apply powder glue, then gel cure, then pre press for 6 seconds and transfer press for 10 at 375 degrees. In the meantime any input would be appreciated. I will followup here shortly with how it went at 365 degrees.

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lben
Are you running the paper through your conveyor or flash dryer first to dry and shrink the paper? Is this picture of a before applying ink or afterwards? It appears to be water drops. Or maybe something under the press that is lifting the paper up or down in that area. Do you have any ink on the heat platen? Anything else there that would be on the platen?

After re-reading your post for the 5th time, I'm thinking your bottom rubber mat might be getting so hot that it's sinking down around the glue that is holding the mat to the bottom of the press giving a crater like effect. Or possibly a cold spot on the platen.

Maybe slow down to give the press a chance to recoup it's heat and cool off where it needs to cool off.
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Hmm, I've never read to run the paper through the flash before printing on it so I'm not doing that, only to gel cure the ink after I've applied the ink to the paper, then the glue, then gel cure.

The photo is after the actual press.

My platten has all kinds of stuff on it! :) But this only happens on the ink, not in the same spot.

I will try to slow down.
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lben
I'm so confused. Is the picture of the paper or the ink already on a shirt? If it's the ink, it might not be completely gel cured before pressing creating a wet blob of ink that smears outward. It might be a thick spot of ink and that stuff that's all over your platen is pressing into it.

The reason you pre heat the paper is so that if you are doing multiple color transfers the paper won't shrink between colors of ink (which would throw off your registration) because it's already been shrunk beforehand.
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Oh, sorry! The picture is immediately after the press onto the shirt. I have not yet peeled the paper off because I wanted to capture what I was seeing in the photograph. In between these messages... one thing I noticed is a lot of steam coming off the shirt when I am doing the 6 sec. pre press. So, I just increased my temp back to 375 and increased my pre press time to 10 sec because if it happens to be a moisture accumulation issue from the shirts sitting, hopefully that's the culprit.

Good to know the pre-shrink on the paper. I'm not advanced enough yet to do multi colors!

The reason I don't think it's my platten is because this issue travels and sometimes happens and sometimes isn't happening, very sporadic. So, because it does look like a water patch, I'm just really really really hoping pre-pressing for longer will help. I'm doing that right now. Will log back in with my results.
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lben
It might very well be moisture in the shirt. Or possibly moisture in the paper. I just had to toss 100 sheets of 11x17 sublimation paper out because the humidity got to it and warped it so bad it wouldn't go into my printer.
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Well, I'm getting mixed results still... I upped my pre-press to 30 seconds, then the regular press at 10 with a temp down to 365... not happening as much but still happening. The moisture pocket is definitely in the paper, but only occurs "randomly" in ink locations, and only on my number transfers, when everything was all made at the same time, same ink, same paper, but the sponsor names are always coming out perfect. I'm wondering if my pattern was somewhat different when I made the numbers??? This is just bizarre. I have to stop for the day, I'll resume tomorrow and update my outcomes.
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