Can I Use Digital Heat Transfers On Black Tee Shirts?

[Catspit Productions]

Standard computer generated inkjet and laser transfers are not going to work on black or dark shirts. There are some made for dark garments but they are not high quality. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN9qXUavoxU

The problem is that ordinary home and office computer printers do not print white ink. Without white ink the image will not show up properly on the garment. And the inks or toners used in these printers do not have any opacity and therefore soak right into the dark tee shirt fabric upon transferring. So standard heat transfers for light colored garments will not work on black or dark shirts. You would have to look for a heat transfer made specifically for dark garments and there are many available today.

I do not sell any heat transferred tee shirts myself, except for Thermo Film from Stahls. There are a lot of commercial grade papers available on the market today. But because I do not work with them commercially, I don’t really know which one to recommend to you for best results. If you are just making them for friends and family, then I have achieved very good results with the readily available Avery papers for white shirts. The limitations are pointed out in the videos. But they do last a long time when made with a heat press and the color and quality is pretty good. Ultimately custom made plastisol heat transfers are the best for starting a business with heat transfers.

Read the articles in this section of my website to learn more about heat transfers and working with them.

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/sc ... icles.html

Good luck and feel free to ask questions anytime!

[sdbordeaux]

Siser's Color Print media line has many options and the opacity to print and be applied to dark substrates. The only draw back the is telltale "white" boarder that is around the image. Easy fix....set a very small contour to the inside of your design and place registration marks...this way you can print your design then use your vinyl cutter to cut (if your cutter has ARMS(Graphtec) or Optic eye(Roland).

[BoydRiver]

Hi Catspitians,
There is a way that I have been thinking about since reading this post today.
What if you designed a Black frame in your design software to place around your digital transfer, then inverted it so that the space inside the frame was dark.
Exposed to film you could flood coat in an off white colour then when dry press the digital design on top.
Of course Jonathon has probably tested this idea already and maybe done a video so I will wait for his opinion.

[Catspit Productions]

If you mean to screen print a white under base for the transfer then no I have not tried this. The reason being is that I would question the bonding ability between the transfer and the ink especially plastisol. Also heating plastisol inks in the heat press will cause them to become tacky and might create a blurred of fuzzy transfer.

But the bottom line is I have never attempted such a thing so you would have to test that out.

[BoydRiver]

I have Permaset Water based inks Jonathan (so far)
Once we get over this freak weather I will get back out in the shed and give it a go and report back.

[Catspit Productions]

Awesome, make sure to start a new topic and thread for that one. I think we'll all be very interested in your test results

Good luck!

[Casams]

Stahl's has several digital products that will work on dark garments. However, these digital transfers can be expensive if you are doing small quantities. If you are doing the larger quantities screen printing offers greater profit potential. For more information about heat press transfers check out Transfer Express & their sister company Great Garment Graphics.