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Get the Most Out of Your Dye-Sub Printer
Posted on by Shellie Terry Posted in Tips & Tricks
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Get the Most Out of Your Dye-Sub Printer

Adding a whole new technology to your wide-format toolkit can be daunting, but the versatility you gain with dye-sublimation transfer printing can open all new opportunities. With the Epson SureColor Production printers, you can get into it with an initial investment starting around $7,ooo for the F6200 ($14,000 for the F7200 and $25,000 for the F9370) for a 44- or 64-inch system. Once you’re up and running, the creative and money-making possibilities are only limited to your imagination.

Dye-sublimation transfer is particularly favored for textile printing since the ink from the transfer adheres into the fabric, rather than sitting on top of it, as it does with other ink technologies. Once sublimated, the ink won’t crack, fleck or scratch off, making it an ideal option for knitted textiles, particularly high-performance athletic wear. (Bonus: Dye-sub fabrics are also washable!)

Metal photo panels by ChromaLuxe, available at LexJet

In addition to garment fabric, textiles printed for soft signage perform extremely well with dye-sub transfers. Backlit displays, tradeshow graphics and flags are two of the top applications for dye-sub, as they fold and travel easily and are cheaper to ship than films or vinyl often used for similar signage.

Dye-sub is a great complement to your other wide-format printers, allowing you to get into high-demand print products like the popular metal photo panels, ktochkees like coasters, cups and more, and customized décor, like pillows, window blinds and upholstery.

In addition to the printer system, you’ll also need transfer paper. The LexJet InFuze line provides four transfer papers for all needs, including textile, apparel, rigid substrate and multi-purpose. You’ll also need a heat press to sublimate the image to your final substrate. LexJet offers a full line of options, from a 16×20-inch table-top swinger heat press for small jobs, to a 112x48x53-inch heat calendar machine.

If you’re ready to master the world of dye-sub, visit our LexJet.com/dyesub page to learn about more applications and watch some of the how-to videos to learn all the ways to make dye-sub work for you and your business. Here’s a quick look at how to create an all-over print for t-shirts:

InFuze® Transfer Paper “Well Above” the Competition, Customers Say
Posted on by Shellie Terry Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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InFuze® Transfer Paper “Well Above” the Competition, Customers Say

For Fort Myers, Fla.-based Bella Signs and Designs, the key to great dye-sublimation output is a high-quality transfer paper that minimizes ghosting — the shadowing effect that commonly happens during a dye-sub transfer.

Earlier this year, we brought the dye-sublimation market four new LexJet InFuze® transfer papers created for specific applications with a microporous ink-receptive coating that provides exceptional performance. Our LexJet InFuze® Apparel Dye Sublimation Paper was just what Bella Signs and Designs was looking for.

“We look for a high-value paper with a tacky surface to ensure minimal ghosting,” says Bella’s Jennifer Fineran. “We also look for a paper that has a quick ink drying time. The InFuze® paper worked very well, as it has reduced the amount of ghosting we have experienced. The quality of the tacky surface is well above that of other paper brands we have used.”

Dye-sub printed t-shirt from Bella Signs and Designs, using LexJet InFuze® Textile Dye Sublimation Paper and Epson SureColor F6200

Bella uses dye-sublimation transfer technology for printing onto polyester t-shirts with Florida-centric fishing and fun-in-the-sun designs.

“In the past, we have outsourced all of our dye-sub printing needs,” Fineran says. “Since purchasing our own printer (the Epson SureColor F6200) and using the InFuze® paper, it has greatly increase our production rate of dye-sub projects.”

Bella offers its customers a wide variety of digital printing services, including vehicle and boat wraps, signs of all kinds, custom apparel and promotional products. The team has used dye-sub specifically for the shirts.

“Dye-sub is definitely becoming more and more common since it provides bright colors and a soft print that is not heavy on the shirt,” Fineran says.

LexJet InFuze® is available in four options:

LexJet InFuze® Multipurpose Dye Sublimation Paper for flexible fabric or rigid substrates, like mugs, promotional items and banners

LexJet InFuze® Textile Dye Sublimation Paper for flexible polyester fabrics for fast fashion, sportswear, banners and soft signage

LexJet InFuze® Apparel Dye Sublimation Paper for elastic-type textiles, like moisture-wicking, quick-dry performance sports apparel

LexJet InFuze® Rigid Substrate Dye-Sublimation Paper for metal panels used for wall art, table tops and high-end photo art

2016 SGIA Recap: Print Everything!
Posted on by Shellie Terry Posted in News & Trends
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2016 SGIA Recap: Print Everything!

Our team at the SGIA Expo met with hundreds of attendees at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this month. It was a lively show covering 272,700 square feet (the largest in SGIA history), featuring all of the latest technology and trends in the specialty imaging marketplace. More than 24,000 people registered to attend the event featuring 562 exhibitors on the sold out Expo floor.

IMG_6940
Steve Webster displays the Canon PRO-6000S printer at work with Sunset by Fredrix Matte Canvas.

In the LexJet booth, attendees were introduced to the latest printer technologies from Canon, HP and Epson. The LexJet team provided lots of industry knowledge along with details on popular products and workshops featuring canvas wraps with GOframe, adhesive photo panels and HP PVC-free Durable Smooth Wall Paper.

Continue Reading…
Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles, Tips & Tricks
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How Corporate Apparel and Printing Streamlined Screen Printing with Inkjet

Oberon Printing, based in River Falls, Wis., recently acquired a local screen printing shop to expand the company’s capabilities and product offerings. Adding the new division, Corporate Apparel and Printing, gives the company’s customers a full range of print and promotional products from which to choose.

LexJet Instant Dry Clear Polyester
Corporate Apparel and Printing, a division of Oberon Printing, River Falls, Wis., found a large-format inkjet solution to boost the quality of its acetates used for burning screens for screen printing with crisp renditions on LexJet Instant Dry Clear Polyester.

“When the corporate apparel business came up for sale it really fit well with everything else we do. We were missing that piece, so it helps us fill out our portfolio and provide our customers with more options, like printed apparel,” says owner Rob Payne.

The trick was to bring the screen printing process up to the level of print quality Oberon has built for its inkjet applications, which includes everything from commercial graphics to fine art and photo printing.

The answer was simple: find a better way to make film negatives and positives so that the screens created in the four-color screen-print process would burn clean and true.

“The old way of doing photo negatives and positives was using laser technology. The screens weren’t very dense and black and the exposures were low-quality, plus a lot of the emulsion would stay in the screens after we washed them out,” explains Payne. “We tried clear acetates on our Epson Stylus Pro 9900 to create color separations, but the optical sensors on the printer would not read the presence of the film.”

Carey Masera, Payne’s printing specialist at LexJet, recommended LexJet Instant Dry Clear Polyester as a possible solution.

“With the Instant Dry Clear Polyester the printer picks up the slight blue tint of the film right away; it doesn’t have any issue seeing it. The clarity of the ink deposition is just beautiful; the blacks are super dense. It’s instant-dry, so we don’t we have to worry about smudging or streaking like we would with other inkjet acetates we tried in the past,” says Payne. “The quality of our final product has improved tremendously because everything is so crisp and black. It has really impacted our process, not only in our quality, but in our speed out the door. We couldn’t be happier.”

Payne adds that they often had to print two or three acetates for one color separation and line them up to get the density needed to burn the screen. With Instant Dry Clear Polyester, Payne says they only have to print it once and it’s ready.

“Carey helped us a lot with just this product recommendation. He’s the only one who really follows up and seems interested in our business. We don’t get that level of service from other vendors, and we’ve been very happy with LexJet in general,” adds Payne.

The majority of the screen printing at Corporate Apparel and Printing is done on t-shirts, hats, jackets and other apparel, with a smattering of high-volume banner and poster printing, as well as the more industrial application of printed circuit boards.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Making an Impression, Leaving a Trail at Muddy Feet Graphics

Advertising with bus graphics

Muddy feet certainly do leave an impression and the muddier the feet the more impressions you leave. That’s Todd Dofflemyer’s philosophy, figuratively speaking of course, where the mud his company gets its feet dirty with is the diversity of products it offers its customers.

Dofflemyer, owner of Muddy Feet Graphics in Harrisonburg, Va., has an extensive history in the commercial printing world; he was instrumental in bringing one of the world’s largest commercial printers into the digital world from analog back in the 1980s. When he struck out on his own less than two years ago, he combined his experience in innovation with a studious view of trends in the graphics market that has helped Muddy Feet Graphics grow quickly in a short time.

Advertising with fleet graphics on vehicles
Muddy Feet Graphics used Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl, laminated with Simple Flo Wrap Gloss UV Laminate for an easy and ecomonical fleet project.

“We call ourselves a graphics company and not a sign company since we can put a logo on just about anything,” says Dofflemyer. That’s why printing t-shirts is an important component of Muddy Feet Graphics’ business. Though it represents only about 20 percent of the company’s production, it feeds the large-format graphics and sign side of the business and vice-versa.

Muddy Feet Graphics does not screen print, but instead goes direct-to-shirt with an AnaJet direct-to-garment inkjet printer. This process allows short, on-demand, custom runs that t-shirt printing has been trending toward over the past few years.

“I’d rather find a hundred people who need ten shirts, rather than ten people who need 100. People don’t want to keep a lot of inventory and potentially waste shirts, so we can customize their order so they don’t keep as much in stock,” says Dofflemyer. “When someone comes in to pick up a banner they see us making t-shirts and vice-versa, so the more things you have that are similar but not the same, the more opportunity you have.”

Another area where Muddy Feet Graphics is making inroads thanks to its logo-on-everything approach is vehicle graphics. Vehicle wraps have been slower to arrive on the scene in Virginia than hot spots like California and Florida, but once local customers saw the advertising value of it, more jobs began to roll into the shop.

“If it’s $2,500 for a vehicle wrap and you spread it across four years, the average lifetime of a fleet vehicle, it comes out to about $50 per month. Then, compare that cost and the overall effectiveness of a moving billboard to other media with less visibility and the price is easier for the customer to accept,” explains Dofflemyer.

Another trend that Dofflemyer has noticed and responded to is the more temporary nature of the requests that come through the door. For a recent bus wrap, Muddy Feet Graphics used a removable vinyl for the body of the bus and LexJet Simple Perforated Window Vinyl (60/40) for the windows.

“We used a removable vinyl for the bus project since the message will change regularly, and we used the LexJet window perf because we were having problems with the other window perf we were using.

Printing wall murals for bedrooms
Todd Dofflemyer, owner of Muddy Feet Graphics, says he's found the perfect wall mural material in LexJet Simple WallCal (6 Mil).

No matter how long I let it sit it was transferring to the unprinted area of the window perf and we found the LexJet material applies easier and I don’t have a problem with the ink drying,” explains Dofflemyer. “Now it seems that everybody wants a message that’s tailored to today that could change tomorrow.

You used to see a lot more metal real estate signs, for instance, but you’re seeing more step stakes. In this economy, that house will sit there for awhile so they want to change the message a lot. Everybody needs to be more aggressive so that message needs to change more.”

And that’s good news for everyone in the large format graphics market. Additionally, Dofflemyer has noticed that clients are including a QR bar code on more of their printed pieces to take advantage of smart phone technology. A banner can serve a dual purpose of getting a quick look-at-me message with a QR code that takes the curious to a website with more in-depth information.

“Digital graphics can be distributed in all kinds of ways and we’re finding that more and more of them are simply avenues to your phone,” says Dofflemyer.

With its focus on blending printed and purely digital technologies and being ever cognizant of what its customer base needs as progress makes its forward march, Muddy Feet Graphics is poised to make good on its tagline: Make an Impression, Leave a Trail.