Just how long will a plastisol transfer last?

Transfers should last longer than that, our supplier won't give details so good luck and keep looking! The buck has turned too many into qty folks vs quality selling at the big boys price with lower over head cost so who really is helping you out? They will say what do you expect out of a $3 tee, but put that same transfer on a $60 jacket and expect only the same? Good equipment doesn't make them a pro, food for thought!

Properly printed cold peel transfers should last untill the shirt becomes tattered.

I have some shirts that have been washed 100s of times and still look okay...

One of my son's favorite shirts was done with plastisol and the print still looks good but the shirt looked like one of my shop rags. Once I finally got it off him, I trashed it as the shirt was clearly falling apart. He keeps asking me have I seen it and I keep replying "Clean your room I am sure you'll find it" but since I know that will never happen, he will never know I trashed it. I would have to agree that if done correctly plastisol can outlast the shirt.

It's easily possible for plastisol to outlast the shirt but as we've discussed before, realistically it comes down to ink thickness. A thin layer is not going to be as resilient as a thick layer. You can stretch a print and prove that in a second. I have shirts that have fallen apart and the ink still looked great and I've had shirts with a soft hand that started cracking after a couple of years but I worked in those shirts weekly. I've also had bad transfers that didn't survive more than a couple washes. Fabric will age even if you don't wear it, albeit slowly. Personally I believe wearing is tougher on plastisol than washing. All that adds up to this: you can't really give a number in wash cycles and I wouldn't advertise that your prints will outlast the shirt or you're just begging for trouble.

Looks like a stuck record for those older enought to know what a record was. More ink, less ink, mine last forever, mine are got for 30-60 washes, dryers kill transfers, wearing if harder than washing, .... have I offended everyone yet? Sorry if I did but I'm just repeating what has been said on a couple of different post on this forum over the last few weeks. You guy/gals making transfers, can you make them last until the shirt is 75% shot then? What do you have to do different? Who's seen nice smooth designs on worn shirts then no long later those poor transfers show up, give me my old worn shirt with a good transfer anyday. Quality, pride, it use to be the American way!

Too many variables to provide a 'number' to the life of a transfer, the shirt, a screen print, an automobile, a carpet, a pair of shoes, a human life, etc., etc., etc. Take good care of any of them and they will probably be around a lot longer. Get the picture?

This subject reminds me of "the 3 little pigs" homes. If you don't start with quality then what do you expect when someone blows hot air at you! If your shirts are like the straw house and you just know when the wind blows you got to replace it, then that's all you expect. You think that's as good as it get's and are happy until the you see the big bad wolf at the brick house. I'm saying, if you need to charge more for a quality transfer that will/should last 100's of washing so be it vs selling cheap straw houses, enough said.

Got T, it isn't that simple. Today people want a very soft hand and the only way to get that with plastisol is a thinner layer of ink.

I used to do a lot of garment dyeing in commercial laundry equipment, because of the way we set the dye we had to clean our equipment at the end of the day with severe (caustic) soap/cleaner so I gave the girls a shirt with a transfer on it and told them to mark it every night and give it back to me when the design just up and fell off or cracked and peeled.. I forgot about it but remembered a couple of a months later.. They had forgot and had turned the shirt into a cleaning rag.. When I found it, it had 50 marks on it.. worn, tattered and the design had faded badly but no signs of cracking or peeling. I also have pressed transfers that were 4-5 years old with pretty good results but I try to control my room temp and humidity.. I have had others that after a couple of years will hardly press at all.. luck of the draw (or company I guess)
dlac

I have been buying solid white transfers for black shirts from Dowling Graphics and Silver Mountain Graphics and have wash tested them extensively. Results are excellent and have bettered some screen printed shirts tested. These are hot peel plastisol transfers. Customer service, price and shipping times from both are excellent.