Paper and film to produce transfer by screen printing
There are different techniques and process to make a transfer printed by screen printing, depending on the end use of the garment or the available means. For this reason, we must choose well the type of transfer paper that we are going to use or if a polyester film is more suitable due to centering or dimensional stability requirements. For this reason, there are different types of Ibeslab transfer paper and with the necessary technical information for your choice.
Each type of paper and transfer design requires a suitable choice of the products that we are going to use for screen printing (inks, adhesives, additives, etc.) as well as a wide range of types of paper and plastic film support – by chemical finish and grammage – suitable for each application.
Uses of transfer paper by screen printing:
- With plastisol ink, cold peel off.
- With plastisol ink, take off hot (Hot split).
- Water decals and tattoos.
- Offset-screen printing inks combination.
- With vinyl ink or screen printing textile
- Work clothes.
- Sportswear.
Transfer, the indirect system
Transfer paper is used as a medium to reproduce an image in negative and to be printed on different types of material. One of its most common uses is for printing T-shirts or work clothes, although they are not the only uses of this printing technique.
The transfer paper process is very simple, an image is printed with screen printing ink on the transfer paper, since this printing system offers opacity, color intensity, resistance to washing and sunlight than other systems, such as printer inks digital, they don’t allow. A final adhesive is applied to most prints to improve adhesion to the fabric or to give it some feature such as relief or white background.
Once the process is finished and with the inks well cured, we proceed to the stage of transferring the printing to the garment that you want to personalize. At this stage, heat presses or plates are used. Through temperature (between 150 and 200 º C), pressure and time (generally between 5 and 20 seconds) the ink passes from the paper to the material on which it is placed, transferring the image.
Different finishes with ink and adhesive
In the case of a digital printer and the use of homemade plates for the transfer of the image, papers and products of another type are used that are not those that we commercialize.
However, when an industrial use of transfer paper is to be carried out with offset or screen printing techniques, then other very important factors must be taken into account, such as using a type of ink suitable for the material on which it is going to print. It will also be necessary to choose the type of paper depending on whether the transfer is hot peel or cool peel. This variable is also related to the type of ink we use and the gloss or matte finish we are looking for in the garment.
The type of paper also has its importance in the transfer. Not all transfer papers are the same due to their dimensional stability in the printing process and the curing of the inks, due to the level of silicone that they incorporate on the surface or due to the ability to fix the inks during the printing process.
Guarantee and Quality
The type of adhesive, usually white or transparent, is very important to achieve the best performance in the final print. There are thermal adhesives (plastisol type) or water-based adhesives that dry at room temperature. The choice of them is conditioned by the curing equipment that we have in the workshop, as well as the substrates that we want to mark.
An industrial transfer manufacturing process is complex due to the variables that exist and hence it is recommended to buy them from a supplier capable of ensuring quality, diversity and offering the screen printer advice on the type of paper they need and the relationship with the other elements.
