RE: OT? T-shirts.

["Nikola Kasic" <nikola@xxxxxxx>]

I used to work with that 5 years ago. My brother is still running that
business, but not in the UK.
Technology for those transfers improves all the time.
Basically, you print in mirror, place paper on textyle and press with
heat press.
Handheld iron would not produce proper results, because as you pass over
paper with it, you tend to smear the image.
Also, heat press has thermostat and timer, and different combinations
are needed for different types of fabric.
We had thermal wax printer (similar to dye sublimation) and colour
photocopier.
Thermal wax was better, because you could wash such T-shirts on 60 deg.
Celsius, while the ones made with photocopier could be washed on 40 deg.
max.
Bear in mind that the fabric must be white. Also, the smoother it is,
the finer details will be visible.
If you need it on dark clothes, then you transfer image to special white
textile, which is cut later and thermally transferred to T-shirt. Such
thing is not thin so we were not too happy with the results.
For the larger series, another technique is used. Screenprint, but with
special paints which don't dry on room temperature, so you need
heaters/dryers, which most of the print factories don't have. It's
applied to special paper and you get an image on paper (in mirror) which
you transfer with heat press.
It's very thin, elastic, goes on both white and dark textile, but you
need higher volumes to justify the cost.

Embroidered logos are the most wash, scratch etc. resistant, but
obviously, you are restricted with the number of colours you can use
(depend on the machine). And no photos with any machine.

Cheers,
Nik
-----Original Message-----
From: mark_harrison_uk2 [mailto:mph@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 06 March 2003 11:33
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] OT? T-shirts.



At UKHA2002, a number of you were wearing garments with the logos of
your HA sites / products / companies on them.

Does anyone have a good supplier of such things:

1: A garment with a small embroidered logo

2: A garment with a big printed picture sufficiently clued up to
accept the picture on a JPG?

The word "garment" is meant to include T-shirts, polo shirts,
rugby
shirts and the like :-)

Regards,

Mark