Hey friends, Dave here from Transfer Express and today, we're getting stretchy with some
tips for using your heat press to decorate on spandex (also commonly known as elastane or
the brand name Lycra). Spandex is definitely one of those synthetic materials that's popping up
more and more in garments these days because of its incredible stretch and elasticity,
giving soft premium garments a little bit more give and made really popular in recent years
by athletic wear now a lot of decorators will just completely avoid these synthetic materials because
of heat sensitivity or print durability issues but have no fear we've got some heat transfers that
are exactly what you'll need for some effortless application on these more than stretchy garments
so are you ready let's get right to it if you are new to transfer Express we are the world's largest
supplier of custom screen printed and digital heat transfers heat presses free customizable designs
wholesale apparel and expert advice to help grow your t-shirt business if you haven't already
subscribed we are kicking out new videos like this one every single week so there's two great heat
transfer options that you could use for printing on spandex here from Transfer Express and they're
both full color transfers now that means that the price stays fixed regardless of the amount of
colors photographs or detail in your designs which one you use will depend on just a couple variables
the size of your design and what quantity you need now for low quantity decoration Ultra color Max
is going to be your best bet this direct to film heat transfer offers Limitless color and detail
along with no minimums in a low temperature hot peel heat transfer priced at just six cents per
square inch you could purchase any size single image or gang sheet up to 22 by 22 inches now
there is no clear outline around the transfer and has a sharp edge with opaque colors and whites
on any color garment making it a very popular choice these days for apparel decorators even
if you're printing on stuff other than spandex now for higher quantities Ultra color stretch
provides industry-leading stretch ability in the print itself allowing for that extra movement
that spandex Fabrics have now available on an 11 and a half by 18 inch gang sheet you have great
durability on a variety of stretchy materials now one great feature of ultra color stretch is that
it is available with an optional die blocker to prevent dye migration on sublimated garments if
you're printing on those two so those whites will stay very bright and white and no dies are going
into your inks so enough talking about it let's head on back to the heat press and show you how
both of these apply right at that 290 degrees come on in now because we are going to be printing on
these leggings today they do have I believe a 13 spandex or Lycra content in them these are
the sport Tech 3 quarter length rise leggings so these are as you can see are very very stretchy
polyester dominant but we do have that spandex in here because we are choosing to use pants today
I'm going to go ahead and Swap this platen out for our leg and sleeve platen so we could isolate our
praying area one of the best features of these hotronix presses of course is these quick change
platens right here now with this one we're going to be doing a long print down one leg right here
straight on down for a vertical print now these seams do lay pretty flat so I'm not too worried
about them interrupting our pressure here now anytime I'm reducing the surface area
of a platen here like I just did with my leg and sleeve platen I want to back the pressure off to
ensure that we're not going to be over pressuring on it now when our hotronix Auto clam is reading
out our pressure it's assuming that it has a full 16 by 20 print area so when we're reducing
the printable area we're actually increasing the pressure per square inch because we have a smaller
surface area so I'm just going to go ahead and increase our pressure until we hit about a two
to three here on our pressure readout so the first step to any application is going to be a pre-press
so we're just going to hold this down and kiss the fabric because it is so polyester dominant we
don't have to worry about too much moisture being trapped here in the Garment now our first transfer
that we're going to use is going to be our Ultra color Max our Ultra color Max is that direct to
film printing option no cover sheet needed and it's a true hot peel so we're going to go ahead
and put this one right here on our leg and sleeve platen making sure we're on the platen and then
just close the press and press our transfer Ultra color Max applies in that 15 seconds for a nice
smooth confident and quick single step application now Ultra color Max is a hot peel so as soon as
the Press opens we can peel the carrier away nice and smooth leaving behind an absolutely incredible
print now that we've got our Ultra color Max decorated right here on our first leg let's go
ahead and switch over to our other leg and show you how Ultra color stretch is going to work
now Ultra color stretch does have a water-based adhesive which helps it adhere to those fabrics
and the synthetic fibers that are maybe a little bit trickier to decorate on we're going to want to
make sure that we're right in that two or three range the pressure now we're going to go ahead
and grab our Ultra color stretch transfer now Ultra color stretch is going to be a cold peel
all right so what we're going to do to reduce any static buildup that this carrier is going
to want to stick to our platen up here we're just going to grab a paper cover sheet now these paper
cover sheets are included in your order so they're not really going to block too much heat getting to
the transfer but to help break the static from the pet carrier right here so this does not peel
early because what we're going to do is after we print we're going to remove this from the Press
let it cool and then when it's completely cool to the touch or room temperature is when we'll
go ahead and peel it so the same application settings here 290 degrees for 15 seconds
now once our press opens we'll remove our cover sheet and you can see that it did exactly what
it was supposed to and you can even see that this one's nice and adhere too now once our transfer
is completely cool to the touch we'll peel away and one smooth even motion look how great that
looks all right so let's get some stretch test here as you can see after the moisture kind of
soaked back into these we have zero heat Plus or platinum Marks here on our spandex just an awesome
looking print so let's go ahead and grab our Ultra color Max right here and give it a stretch
look at that wow stretch and right back no puckering or anything with that print
nice and great and I mean I'm stretch I'm giving this the stretch look at that
that is at least a good 60 percent and there we go recovers very very nicely right with that
fabric let's see how these Fine Lines handle it now this feels like it's not even there
see how those Fine Lines take it look at that no cracking no distorting and it bounces right back
to absolutely perfect now let's go ahead and see how our Ultra color stretch does
right here wow look at that absolutely incredible stretch and rebalance see if it stretches this way
too right about as far as the fabric goes and you can see it goes right back to where it needs to be
some great elasticity and stretch and rebound and that's it that is how you can easily apply your
heat transfers to spandex without any worries now as always be sure you subscribed to our
Transfer Express YouTube page right here stay up to date on all of the t-shirt business tips tricks
and inspiration that we're dropping every single week but until next time I'm Dave happy pressing