DSF

Hi guys

Yesterday a customer dropped off 25 YOKOTEX HiViz 100% Poly Polo Shirts - they are VERY yellow

I've not printed to these before and I wonder if any of you guys have experience with them?

My customer wants us to print text using a NAVY colour and possibly green.

Is it possible to use sublimation for either of these colours on the yellow or would it be better to use vinyl and will I need to use something like a blocking vinyl to avoid colour bleeding through?

Thanks

John

I've never done hi-viz before John but it seems obvious that the yellow will affect the colours. I think you're going to need to print off a blue and green colour swatch and press it onto one of these, then pick suitable production colours from there.

I think your probably right - it's been an age since we sublimated yellow/orange hiviz and on that occasion I believe we used black and it covered very well - Navy & Green might be a bit different.

Maybe I should just go with vinyl - with a block or not?

Navy will just show as a naff black/dark colour. I have achieved some good greens by knocking out the yellow channel ( to compensate for garment colour) and increasing the saturation to maximum in the Epson 1500 colour controls.

Problem you have is that on customer supplied goods you have little margin for error.

If you have to go down the vinyl route then make sure you charge more for messing about with weeding two colours.

You're going to get colour bleed so I would use a blocking vinyl or a thick flock vinyl.
I had a job to print onto a black softshell with a neon yellow vinyl. It bled through over night. I ended up with using neon flock and that worked a treat.

sub block or soldark block?

Also be careful of the yellow coming off onto your platten or teflon sheet and them next time you go to use it on something else you get a yellow hue. This happens with hi vi vests. I would use a sheet just for hi vi garments.


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Hi John

I print hundreds (if not thousands) of hi vis every week, here are a few tips...

Either vinyl or T.one for colours. There is a very limited colour palette that will work with sublimation and hi vis. T.one is the nuts for this sort of thing

Make sure you sleeve your shirt on the platen. Garments are quite thin and you can often get the image transferring on to the inside of the reverse of the garment if you don’t sleeve (if sublimating).

If using your normal heat press make sure you ventilate well and use lots of Teflon or grease proof paper. Hi vis thread gets everywhere and can contaminate future pressing if you are not careful.

Ghosting is very common on sublimation and hi vis

Hope the above is of use and if this is a one off job I would recommend using vinyl as there is far less that can go wrong.






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Also, I never use a block vinyl and never had an issue using TMT 123 flex or Printable Soldark


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Thanks for the tips guys.

I've decided to us vinyl as I can't afford to cock any of these up

It was my fault choosing two colours! Originally the customer wanted just navy and as I was thinking embroidery (fleeces) I created a pattern with navy for the business web address and green for the rest of the text, green equalling 'environmentally friendly, ethical' and all that - they thought it was a good idea!!

Cheers

John