Screen Printing - October/November 2013 - (Page 24)
Sublimation
Printing
James ortolani
Stahls’
Use this overview to familiarize yourself
with dye-sub printing and decide whether
the technology is right for your shop.
Photo courtesy of Stahls’.
Photo courtesy of Stahls’.
S
ublimation is defined as the conversion of a solid to a
gas without going through the liquid state. The solid in
the case of decorative graphics is sublimation ink that
has been printed and dried onto a specially coated transfer
paper. Applying the graphic to a substrate by using a heat
press at a temperature between 400-425°F causes ink to shift
from a solid to a gas and transfer onto any polyester surface.
24
screenprinting
The quality of the transferred image depends on several
variables: the type of printer used, artwork, ink, paper, heat
press, and the substrate. It sounds a little daunting, but sublimation printing really is easier than it sounds—especially
now that our industry has matured and many companies
teach end users how to be successful with sublimation inks
on a wide variety of substrates! A great place for beginners
to learn about the process is to go online and start researching companies that sell sublimation inks and supplies and,
of course, by watching some YouTube videos on the subject
before buying a system. Industry trade shows are another
great place to learn about sublimation.
My first encounter with a sublimation transfer was
in the early 1980s. I was so impressed by the vivid colors
and the soft hand that my first reaction was that sublimation
printing would replace screen printing altogether! Of course,
that never happened, because there wasn’t a good method
to print sublimation inks in house at that time, polyester
substrates were limited and expensive, and sourcing the
inks was difficult. But by the late 1990s, all of these issues
started to rapidly change with the discovery that sublimation
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Screen Printing - October/November 2013
Contents
Screen Printing - October/November 2013
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