hey guys, Dave here with transfer express, and today we are raising the roof!
okay, we're not really raising the roof but we are raising our inks by using our awesome
puff ink screen printed transfers puffings are pretty cool if you want to add a new
trendy 3d raised effect to your t-shirts tote bags backpacks hoodies or anything else you could heat
print if you're new to the channel first of all welcome transfer express is the leading supplier
of digital and screen printed heat transfers for apparel printing 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 customer 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 only piece of equipment that you're going to need to use our screen printed
transfers is a heat press no an iron really won't work because we need consistent pressure every
time from press to press now if you don't have a heat press they're actually incredibly affordable
these days starting here on transferexpress.com as low as 310 dollars for the 9 by 12 craft press but
for our use today we're going to be using the 16 by 20 hotronix auto open clamshell press behind me
while it may be overkill if you're just starting out we use this dude every day and it's been
rock solid for over three years now step one for our project is going to be creating our artwork
so let's jump on over to the free easy view online designer at transferexpress.com and get
rolling now that we're over here in the easyview online designer we can browse through thousands of
customizable layouts or clipart all free and ready to use this is perfect if you're not a graphic
designer or a photoshop whiz easy view is 100 browser based so you don't need a powerful machine
or a mac to get up and running you could also just open any computer and pick up where you left off
now it's super easy to take any of these layouts and just swap the text or even the
clip art giving you a professional ready to sell t-shirt design if you are a graphic designer or
artist with some adobe or corel knowledge that's fantastic you'll find the interface here intuitive
and those familiar with keyboard shortcuts they work all the same here in easy view not only can
you get real creative with the pre-loaded artwork but you could even upload your own vector files
or those raster files bitmap files like jpegs pngs or even tiff for this example here i'll show you
our brand new vector artwork upload functionality here from adobe illustrator i could save out a pdf
an ai or even an svg at 11 and a half by 14 inches to maximize the printing cost of the sheet we call
this gang sheeting and we have videos on how you could do it too linked right here and in
the description below now we'll just go and upload right here into easy view using the button on the
left hand side if you uploaded your vector artwork you could ungroup and duplicate any elements to
your heart's desire changing ink colors that are printing or removing any elements you don't want
there anymore our puffings here are only available in black and white but you could couple them with
any of our 70 standard goof proof ink colors you can even change the background color here in easy
view to simulate the apparel color you'll be printing on here let's choose this navy
bam once we're happy we could run down all the details here on the right hand side
and get accurate pricing and we could even add it to the cart but once we're stoked
with this design and configuration we get added to the cart you get a nice little preview here
of exactly what your sheet's going to look like before you could go ahead and pay for it now that
we've got our transfer order all set let's check out what apparel styles that we want to print
on browsing through the available bulk apparel at transfer express is super easy let's head on over
to the wholesale apparel section and look for some crewneck sweatshirts and tees here you can browse
or search for your favorite styles colorways and more we'll even show you live inventory on each
page so you won't be surprised by any out of stock issues after you've already ordered pretty cool
now once we're set let's add them to the cart too most apparel ships to your door in just a couple
days now that our transfers and bulk apparel have arrived it's time to print so let's head back
and fire up the heat press to our application settings that are noted on the instruction sheet
if you don't have a hotronix press it'll make application a little bit easier if you bump your
temperature 10 degrees to ensure your press is more than hot enough now the first step
is going to make sure that our press settings are correct for this product so that's putting
our temperature between 360 and 370 degrees and setting our timer for five seconds we'll also
want to make sure that our pressure's in that six to eight range the medium firm pressure and
that's one thing that i love about the hotronix auto clamp series is that it has a digital
pressure readout on this gang sheet we have one two three four full front artworks we'll be using
this bottom one that just says coffee today and i'm also gonna cut out this little t e that will
be putting as a branded embellishment on the cuff just as easy as it was to design and order these
it's easy to cut them out before we load our apparel onto the press we will remove the quick
slip pad protector if you have one installed using the quick slip pad protector is awesome
for sliding on and off t-shirts and making sure your apparel is laying nice and flat however
it blocks a little bit of the room that the puff ink needs to expand when you're pressing it so
we'll just go ahead and pull it right off our heat press now that our press is ready to go we'll go
ahead and take our sweatshirt here now this is the comfort colors crew neck sweatshirt which is a
super popular garment right now not only for the available colorways that it comes in but the
quality of it too it feels washed and worn in and a nice vintage very on trend crewneck sweatshirt
now once it's threaded on we're just going to be checking both sides to make sure we are
centered on the shirt and with these garments here with the side seam you can see all the way down
that it's nice and even and not twisted onto the pallet and that's how you're going to be sure that
you are nice and centered onto your heat press now that our apparel is on the heat press ready to go
we're going to give it a pre-press not only is that going to remove any moisture in the fabric
but it's going to even out some of these wrinkles and creases in here and give us an
awesome printing surface when you are pre-pressing your apparel this is the time to make sure your
pressure setting is right if you do have a digital pressure readout so we'll go ahead
and lock the auto clamp down and we see that we're at a nine so we're just a little bit heavy
what we could do after this pre-press is just back the pressure off just a little bit
and we'll be sure that we're back in that acceptable range now right in between that six
to eight that's recommended at a seven here's our puff ink that we've cut out from the gang sheet
and we'll go ahead and just lay this down onto our sweatshirt now one rule of thumb that i really
like to use is about three fingers down from the collar and that's about an inch and a half
to three inches down depending on the size but that's the basic placement for any center chest
once we're happy with the placement of it we'll go ahead and press this for five seconds and with the
puff ink it is a hot peel so as soon as the press opens we'll peel the carrier away immediately
and the peel
and just like that we have a nice 3d raised effect with a high quality print now that we've
got the front all printed let's put that branded embellishment right down here above the cuff the
best way that we could get this aligned on our heat press is just to take our sleeve and lay it
over the platen as flat as we can now with these cuffs on the sweatshirt sometimes they can get
tricky because of the elastic banding down here kind of pinches everything together but we want to
try to avoid that and we'll try to keep it off the press the best we can we'll go ahead and pre-press
the sleeve this also gives us a chance to check our pressure now that instead of one layer just
over the platen we have it doubled and laying over it so we'll go ahead and pull this down and
see how our pressure is and get that moisture out of the fabric so the press let us know we are at
an eight which is a little heavy on the pressure but we're still within that six to eight psi range
and that's gonna be perfect for our puff transfer here we'll go ahead and take our transfer which
is just this little tiny branded embellishment for this brand that's gonna be today and every day and
we're gonna not center it but we're going to use this crease as our guide so it'll be right up in
the middle when you're wearing it and then we'll go ahead and press this for another five seconds
we'll take this and we'll peel this off immediately and there you have it so with
this print right here on the edge we've seen a lot of brands doing this just to put that nice little
elegant subtle minimalistic branded touch on the edge of the sleeve comfort color sweatshirts are
absolutely awesome for branding because as you can see they do give you an area where you could print
your own inside tag we want to show you how you could do it with any heat press
and some materials that you may have lying around the house we'll go ahead and take our shirt here
and place it right onto the corner of the heat press now we may need to raise this up because
this next seam is very thick and we'll be printing some small detail so we want to make sure that our
pressure is nice and even across the printing area that's why we have one little tiny piece of
a mouse pad here that we cut out from the ones that we have available at transferexpress.com
now if you are using any at home just make sure that they don't have any print on them because
those prints are typically sublimated so we're just going to use a white one here so no ink
transfers when we're applying heat to it now we'll just go ahead and fit this down in here to make
sure that we're going to boost the area that is just above that print we'll go ahead and pre-press
this and get this label area ready to accept a transfer by removing the moisture and any wrinkles
we'll go ahead and take our inside tag this time and we're just going to be pressing right
underneath of the comfort colors label now many manufacturers are making tearaway labels
comfort colors is one of the ones that have a dyed sewn in label but the trendy
thing of what we've seen people doing is just going ahead and putting their
own branded tag underneath or beside the label we'll press this again for another five seconds
and while the ink did expand a little bit you could see exactly how much it did but everything's
still legible printing with a gang sheet allows you the opportunity to put so much branding and
really boost the value of your apparel so not only do we get that full front artwork
but then we also got the branded opportunity here on the sleeve cuff and we even printed
this inside tag all of this from one gang sheet and we still have three full front prints left
pretty cool value packed and that is the transfer express advantage 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 any questions comments or topics you'd like to see us cover here
for an upcoming video just let us know in the comments section below
as always make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with all of our weekly content we're
dropping videos just like this one all the time but until next time i'm dave and happy pressing