Hey guys, Dave here at transfer express and today we are talking all about heat printing with custom
transfers on tri blend apparel. we're going to start by explaining what tri-blended garments
are and why they can be tricky to print on then we'll be covering the right
transfer to select that feels great on the comfortable lightweight feel of a tri-blend
and will even cover some accessories for your heat press that make printing these
blends just a little bit easier so are you ready let's learn something today
if you're new to the channel transfer express is the leading supplier of digital and screen printed
heat transfers for the apparel printing industry. with two production facilities in ohio and arizona
we're able to meet the demand for our customers nationwide. we are dedicated to customer service
and helping grow custom apparel businesses is our number one priority. everything we do is focused
on making sure we send high quality, fashionable custom transfers on time and on a budget. the
first question we're going to talk about today is what is a tri-blend garment? so tri-blend
is a fabric made of three different materials typically this is cotton polyester and rayon. now,
you're probably already familiar with the first two but rayon is a far less common material around
was originally created as a substitute for silk giving it a luxurious smooth feel it's made from
cellulose fibers and is also hydroscopic, which makes it great for moisture-wicking sportswear.
rayon itself is not suitable for making great t-shirts because it's light thin and
draped but combined with cotton and polyester the trifecta come together to a super soft lightweight
and stretchy garment now that we know what it is why are they tricky to print so number one it's
the heat sensitivity just like polyester garments tri blends will burn or melt at high temperatures
this usually makes the fabric a little shiny or very obviously discolored in the shape of the
heat press or platen that you are decorating. in the apparel decorating industry this is known as
"scorching" and you're probably familiar with it most of the time it's way more noticeable on
darker colored or black shirts than it is on the lighter color when you're printing on anything
tri-blend you should not be using transfers that require an application temperature over
340 degrees otherwise your apparel has a greater chance of scorching this is why for tri-blend
garments we recommend using the low temperature application for goof proof transfers or our full
color digital ultra color soft transfers these are ideal for tri-blend garments because they
apply at a lower temperature and the goof proof is perfect for your one to two color designs
anything three or more you want to go with ultra color to help protect your profit margins they
could get expensive with the spot color printing when you start putting that color count high
the altar color is limitless you could design and order these prints the same way you can for all of
our transfers by going to easyview online designer at transferexpress.com or using the upload artwork
section the other thing that makes tri blends tricky is that the fabric is super stretchy so
this could cause your prints to pucker or distort if the garment is stretched when the print's
applied over the grippy foam on the lower platens this is why we recommend using one of the quick
slip pad protectors for your hotronix press and this is going to allow the garment to remain flush
when being pressed and not get pulled or skewed on the pad on that lower platen so the bottom line is
that yes tri blend does require you to take more precautions to get your prints right compared
to cotton and polyester but when using the proper products and procedures the results on tri-blends
could be fantastic and give you that premium product to make your t-shirt business a cut above
the rest so to conclude this video we are going to press on some tri-blend garnets to show you
how perfect our goof-proof transfers look and the quick slip pad protector works with the tri-blend
garments then just to show you how tricky it can be we're going to press the tri-blends with the
wrong method wrong products wrong temperatures and show you just how wrong it could go we have
our shirts here and these are the bella canvas tri blends they are 50 polyester 25 rayon and 25
cotton so not only do they have a high polyester content but they also have that high rayon content
with only 25 of it being cotton that could take that high temperature so let's head on back to
the press and i'll show you the right way on how we can print these bad boys we're back here with
our tri-blend shirt at our hotronix 16x20 auto open clam show and we have it coupled today with
our hp tagalong platen from hotronix before we do align it let's test this to make sure that it's
not going to scorch one thing about this tag along platen is that you have several irregular shapes
that you could test on to see if something's going to scorch so we're just going to go ahead and
put a little square here at the bottom of the garment and use this spot that's reserved for
tag printing to test to make sure that we're not going to scorch the garment we are at
330 degrees which is right in that range of 325 to 335 low application temperature for the goof proof
and at that low application temperature for the goof proof we do not have any visible scorching
on the garment just like we mentioned in our polyester printing video you could start lower
if you've never actually printed on the garment before and that's something that we recommend
not just for tri blends but any blended garments that you have not used before or even polyester
don't go through running a whole bunch of shirts or ruining a full front when you could use say the
lower application temperature for goof proof and be able to get away without scorching or
ruining garments so the next step we're just going to go ahead and thread this directly
onto our lower platen here and that is just why i absolutely love the hp tag along platen
because when you're doing a large run of shirts just being able to throw it right on
know that the shoulders are aligned properly and you're centered on the shirt
makes running those jobs so much easier we'll just take this down pre-press it for about
three to five seconds removing any moisture and wrinkles and giving us a good printing surface
the hydroscopic properties that i mentioned in the rayon actually is holding moisture so that's
why pre-pressing on any tri-blend garments is super super important to help release some of
that moisture in the fibers with the heat from the heat press now that we're all pre-pressed
we'll go ahead and take our artwork here for this balloon festival and lay it down right
here onto our garment now we're going to use the low temperature application instructions
that are included on your goof proof sheet you'll see that it's listed as 100 polyester garments
but because we have such a high polyester content and the heat sensitive rayon in this tri-blend
we'll use that to reduce any scorching onto the shirt that we're going to show you in just a
little bit we'll go ahead and press for 12 seconds goof proof is a hot peel so even at this lower
application temperature as soon as the press opens we'll peel the carrier sheet away immediately
right here at the corner
and there it is and we'll remove this one off the press to ensure that we don't have
any weird stretching or puckering and we don't it looks absolutely fantastic on this tri-blend shirt
one thing about the goof proof 2 is it is a very light feel our new and improved ink formula makes
these prints super comfortable to wear on these lightweight stretchy and fashionable garments
so just to show you how important the quick slip pad protector is we'll go ahead and remove it from
our hotronix auto clam here you'll see that not only does it make threading the garment
on and off a little bit more difficult with the quick slip pad protector removed but you'll see
it also grips the garment and could distort the fibers in that stretchiness to on the tri blend
when you are printing we'll go ahead and grab our tri-blend garment right here and thread it right
onto this heat press so you can see that already where you kind of twist it it's holding it and not
letting it release back to its shape which could be troublesome now that we have the
transfer placed exactly where we think it should be i'll show you just how distorted it could be
when we take it off the platen without using that quick slip pad protector goofer fit this
temperature of course is still a hot peel so we'll peel it as soon as we open the press
there we go the print looks great and let's pull it off of the platen so here you can
see with this one there's just a little bit of puckering on that graphic because of the
way it kind of held its stretch over the platen and then when everything collapses back on down
on the print the print doesn't stretch nearly as much as this high stretch fabric does with
those synthetic fibers so this is something that you want to avoid now of course this is the worst
case scenario of what you can do and if you're just laying over your platen and not threading on
you could get better results without using the quick slip pad protector but just be cautious
of the stretch of the garment on any platen when you're printing it so now we have our
press set at the typical temperature that you would see a regular goof proof print applied at
that 365 370 range so we'll go ahead and load our shirt back onto the platen here and i'll show you
just how this material handles the higher temperature this is only with a four second press
so i could already see a little bit of slight sheen in the top here
and it'll be very evident usually right down there at the bottom that you could really see
there's a difference in the color of the garment and a little bit of the sheen when you hold it
up to the light now that's not what you want to be doing on these premium garments thank
you guys so much for watching here at transfer express we are always dedicated to helping you
and your t-shirt business with tips tricks education and of course some product inspiration
if you have your own tri blend printing tips we'd love to hear them below in the comment section
as always make sure you subscribe to stay up to date with all of our content we're dropping
videos like this one every single week but until next time i'm dave happy pressing