[Rowan]

Hey,
A group of my friends and I have begun a clothing company: As we are students our available pool of money is quite small (to say the least) and we are interested in investing in a heat-press to get the job done. I've heard mostly great things about it and it looks obviously far more ideal to start with as opposed to screen printing given our company will be dealing with small orders at present.

I have one question i did not manage to find an answer to on these forums however, how long will a heat-transfered image last on a T-shirt? also, if it is a matter of slowly degrading image quality, what happens to the image as it slowly degrades? I'm afraid of people buying clothing from our company and a couple of months down the track returning to us complaining that the designs are flaking off or ripping apart.

Thanks alot guys, this forum is honestly a lifesaver.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Rowan.

 

[Twinge]

The main factor in how well they last is the quality of inks and paper used. If you use quality supplies - and follow proper methods when pressing - they last pretty well. I still have some shirts I even just did with an iron over 3 years ago that are still alive, and a heat press will beat that.

So, you'll want to make sure you do the following:

• Use a good paper. Generally, this will be Transjet II/Magic Jet paper or IronAll/MiraCool paper.
• Use pigmented inks. Usually, Durabrite or Magic Mix inks.
• Trim designs before pressing them. Cut up close to the design, roughly 1/8" away from the design.
• Pre-press. This means pressing for a few seconds (3-10 or so, generally) with just the shirt to remove excess moisture.

Probably other things that could be added to the list as well, but that's a good start anyway. Plastisol transfers (as Motoskin mentioned) are a good bet for use with a heat press as well, though they won't work in all cases.

As far as the effects of aging goes, it's generally pretty slow, and not drastic. The colors may start to fade a bit over time, and very small areas may flake off a little bit after quite a while, but it shouldn't really crack very much, and certainly should not peel if applied correctly.


Also, do note that I'm talking only about regular transfers here - NOT opaque transfers for dark shirts. Opaque transfers don't last as well, and will tend to peel and have problems a lot sooner.

 

[dayn83]

Will the transfered image be ruined if i accidentally ironed the image?

 

[DFras]

Will the transfered image be ruined if i accidentally ironed the image?

With most transfers, yes, there could be damage. The IronAll/MiraCool transfers are suppose to be able to handle this. It is stated that you can iron over transfers made with this paper. I have used the paper(like it) but, I have not tried the iron test.

 

[Twinge]

Will the transfered image be ruined if i accidentally ironed the image?

One should be careful, but then again I've also seen screen printed shirts that recommend you do not iron over the printed image as well, so this isn't necessarily only for heaty transfer.

If you accidentally go over the design briefly, it shouldn't be much of a problem. The iron will tend to sort of "stick" to the design a bit, but unless you leave it there for an extended period of time it probably (probably, not definitely) won't harm it much.