Impressions - November/December 2009 - (Page 72)

HANDS ON >> SCREEN PRINTING >> HANDS ON TECH TIPS HANDS ON HANDS ON For Screen Printers Only SCREEN PRINTING HANDS ON TECH TIPS HANDS ON >> Decorate Performance Apparel With Heat-Applied Graphics All polyester performance apparel — especially the super-popular compression garments for athletes — can present decorating difﬁculties. Here’s how to do it right. The time for performance apparel is now. Oh wait a minute — I meant to say that the time has been here for a while now. Hopefully, you’ve spent the last couple of years reading through the pages of Impressions, learning about the latest in performance fabrics and constructions. You should be familiar now with terms such as moisture wicking, anti-static, anti-microbial, loose ﬁt and compression. There’s no doubt that your customers are asking for performancewear. The market is on the rise and experts expect the performance and technical textiles sector to increase 18% to 20% during the next four to six years. To capitalize on this increase and get your piece of the current market, you need to know how to decorate these fabrics. ration from the sign business. CADCUT is a trademark of STAHLS ID Direct, which manufactures transfer materials, as well as cutters and cutter/printers. (Editor’s note: The author is an executive at Stahls’ CADCUT, where he developed his expertise in this area.) formance fabrics may release dyes that will migrate through your embellishment. Do you have the right combination of garment and embellishment to prevent this from happening? • Stretch and recovery: Most performance fabrics stretch. Will your embellishment technique stretch without cracking and recover to its original form without warping? • Effect on moisture-wicking: Is a decorating technology affecting the moisture-wicking of the garment? What is the tradeoff, and how important is it to your customer? • Melting: If your embellishment technique requires heat, will the garment be adversely affected by the heat? • Reaction to water or extreme temperatures: Is the garment going to be worn in any extreme conditions or under water? If so, how will your embellishment react? TYPES OF PERFORMANCEWEAR For the purpose of this article, we will deal with two basic performancewear constructions: loose-ﬁt and compression. It’s important to know the differences between these types of performance apparel and what the differences mean to decorators. Compression wear ﬁts snug to the body and is worn by athletes to help to prevent muscle pulls and strains. The whole beneﬁt of compression wear is that the garment stretches and recovers, and it also helps protect muscles during athletic activity. Compression garments also provide a slight edge when it comes to moisture wicking, as the garment presses against the skin and pulls more moisture away as it is released. These reasons make compression garments the choice base layer fabric of athletes in many sports. All sales projections expect this type of garment to continue to gain momentum in the team marketplace. Loose-ﬁt performancewear is just what it sounds like; garments that ﬁt loosely on the body and can be compared to a T-shirt in look, but not in performance. Loose-ﬁt apparel has many performance advantages over standard cotton garments. Loose-ﬁt’s popularity grows as an alternative to a Tshirt for daily wear, an option for athletes, or an alternative to a classic polo shirt for casual wear. CHOOSE A METHOD There are four common methods of custom decoration for performancewear: screen printing, screen printed heat transfers, sublimation (direct-to-garment or via transfer) and CAD-cut technology. For the purpose of this article we will be focusing on customizing all colors, varieties and constructions of performancewear, and we’re choosing to focus on CAD, which can handle all types of substrates. The other processes have their strengths in certain applications. Sublimation can produce striking full-color prints, but only on light-colored garments made of all polyester or a high poly-content blend. Screen printing (direct or via transfer) is the most cost effective for large-volume runs of repetitive designs, and that’s a less practical approach to performancewear jobs of 48 pieces and less, which are common in any shop with team clients. Thus, we will focus on CAD technology for customizing performance apparel. CAD-cut (computer aided design) is used generically to describe making custom heat transfers out of rolls of vinyl and other material by using a vinyl cutter — or combined digital printer/cutter — a process that was transferred to apparel deco72 Impressions >> November/December 2009 UNDERSTANDING CAD There are two basic CAD techniques. The best choice for a particular job is not necessarily dictated by the fabric type, but rather the design type or, more speciﬁcally, the number of colors intended for the embellishment. For one-color jobs, decorators select CAD-cutting. For multi-color or four-color process embellishments, the logical choice is what we refer to as CADprinting — or print and cut. CAD-CUTTING WORKFLOW • Select a roll of heat-applied ﬁlm in the color that you want the embellishment. • Load the roll into a vinyl cutter. • Send a vector version of the graphic from the design software to the vinyl cutter. • The machine cuts the design in mirror image. • Weed away the excess ﬁlm, which leaves your design pre-spaced on a mylar backing. impressionsmag.com DECORATING CHALLENGES • Adhesion: The most basic question to answer before selecting a decoration option is whether or not it will adequately adhere to the fabric you are working with and be durable? • Dye migration: Polyester-based per- http://www.stahlsid.com/ http://www.impressionsmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - November/December 2009

Impressions - November/December 2009
Contents
First Impressions
FYI
Product Gallery
Decorators Peer Into the New Year
Recession Strategy: Survive And ThenThrive
Performance Delivers
Production
Graphics & Design
Online Directory
For Screen Printers Only
Business to Business
Classifieds
Ad Index
On Design

Impressions - November/December 2009