Neoprene Stubby Cooler printing

[bmhdg1976]

Evening all (well it is in Australia at the moment)...

We have done a couple of stubby coolers of late (some people call them koozies I think) and have found a bit of an annoying feature? of sublimating onto Neoprene...
With the neoprene expanding we are finding a ghosting effect starting to occur.
Mainly notice it on our ones with plain black text onto the white substrate.

I am assuming that some of you will have come across this issue and was wondering what you do to minimise it from happening.
On the ones we have done it has given a nice shadow effect so are happy that it is there, but ongoing not so much.

We tape the paper onto the cooler as we haven't been able to source the spray adhesive here in Aus (like they show in the Conde videos etc).

Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated.

Regards

Brendan

[socialgiraffe]

Never sublimated this sort of thing, however I would recommend placing something rigid inside to keep the material at a constant size. Get a piece of flat wood (hardboard for example) and cut it to slightly over the width of the internal measurement so it keeps the neoprene at a good tension but not stretched to much that the image distorts when at normal size.

Sublimate, remove paper and then remove wood from stubby

Ghosting can also occur when the temp is too hot and the paper is moving as you lift the press. Try placing a good quality (i.e. heavy) teflon sheet on top of the item before pressing. That will keep the paper in place when the buzzer sounds and its time to life the platen.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[ArferMo]

Could also try a light spray of scotch-weld 75 to help avoid accidental ghosting.

[Andrew]

Giving it a slight stretch like Social says could work well. We did many of these years ago. As the neoprene is quite thick it spreads under the pressure of the heat press so the print area moves slightly. Making sure it is taught when taped and not having too much pressure on the press were key.