DSF

Hi
I was printing 20 t-shirts for a local band, using Vanilla polyester tees with Sawgrass ink and printer. 205 C for 45 seconds. The shirts have a quite heavy black logo on the back and then there was to be a different, smaller left chest logo. So I printed all the backs first, with a piece of butchers paper inside the shirt to protect the front, then left the shirts overnight with the paper still inside. Next morning, there was a faint but visible yellowish outline of the back logo on the front of every shirt, where the ink must have passed right through the butcher's paper and then the front fabric. Gutted, to say the least!

Apart from writing this off as an expensive and time-consuming noob mistake, I'm wondering what others use inside their shirts when doing front and back prints? Also, is there maybe any way of salvaging the shirts by using a diluted bleach spray or something similar? Any info or tips gladly received!

Cheers
Fraser

Thread the shirts onto the platen so that only one side of the garment is being heated at any one pressing - don't just lay the shirt on the palten and hope for the best. If your press won't allow you to thread the garment then double up on the paper and as soon as you finish each shirt remove the paper and give the shirt a good shake to cool it. Sublimation ink already on the garment will continue to sublimate until the temperature drops to below 160c (ish) even if the transfer has been removed.

Thanks pw66. I can't thread the garments, so I'll definitely follow your advice and both double up on the paper and discard it immediately after pressing. Being lazy / saving pennies on re-using paper was probably not such a great idea... Fortunately it's a friends and family job, so I'll just take it as a lesson learned and move on!

Fraser;152678 wrote:Thanks pw66. Being lazy / saving pennies on re-using paper was probably not such a great idea...

That is your problem there in a nutshell. The ink on the paper is sublimationg when you reuse it.