[amayausers] Re: Airwaves transfer instructions?
- From: "Roland R. Irish III" <signman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: amayausers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:57:24 -0500
Veena, I've been doing transfers for almost 30 years-from back in the
stone ages when it was all reverse printed screen ink...to
sublimation and printed vinyl now. Irregardless of what any
directions say, I have never had one work at less than 8-10 seconds.
Usually I run 8-10 seconds on the new 'poly' printed vinyl from my
Roland Versacamm, to 15 seconds for cadcut Specialty films.
Sublimation decals take 12-14 seconds.
That said, before someone else slaps me for being wrong...I WILL say
that I have NEVER doublechecked the timers on my heat sealers. So
that alone, being off by 2-3 seconds can account for the difference.
And, if the HEAT is off by 25 degrees, that makes a difference. I'm
just not able to cough up a couple hundred $$ to buy the laser
electronic heat tester doohickey.
By trial and error I have a chart next to the presses that I wrote
down what temp and time work for what type of decal I'm using.
One thing I DO know is consistant-preheat the garment before putting
the decal on! You don't need 'full pressure' , just drop the platen
for half the usual imprint time and then lift it up, place the decal,
and let it go. Many times in cool weather (learned this with
screenprinting) the fabric absorbs moisture from the air...that
moisture turns to steam under the platen and prevents the image from
sticking. Preheating dries out the garment and also heats up the
fabric UNDER the transfer and gives a better bond.
I always rub (with a 'chalkboard' eraser) over the vinyl imprint
transfer tape before removing it from the machine. Don't do it on
sublimated images-will smear them.
Keep a stack of reject teeshirts handy for testing, and write down
what settings work for you!
Roland
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