If you're running an e-commerce or even an Etsy store, printing apparel can be a challenge for
you. A lot of folks will outsource this to a print fulfillment provider. The problem with that is,
is sometimes you don't know what type of quality is getting into the hands of your customer.
And even when you've done all of the work to research the quality, the turn times can be
challenging and even change during the time of the year that you need it most. And so in this video,
I want to show you three transfer products that are really relevant to a print on demand
provider. I think you can be that print on demand provider selling your line on e-commerce and then
fulfilling the orders yourself. All you need is a heat press. It's easier than you think.
I'm Josh Ellsworth with STAHLS and STAHLS Transfer Express, and I specialize in helping people get
started printing T shirts from home. It's very clean, it's very easy, there's not a whole lot
to know. In this video, I'm going to walk you through three of the top selling technologies
that I think are best for printing, for retail for a boutique style. Look, those are screen printed
transfers with heat transfer foil, I'll talk about those benefits. And we'll apply it puff transfers,
which add the texture element which is really popular right now. And then full color transfers,
including gradients and patterns and fades. All of these are things you can do with just a heat
press. Let's head back to our heat press. And I'll show you exactly how each of these works.
So it all starts with a heat press. I'm working here on my favorite heat press which is a Hotronix
16x20 Auto Open Clam. Now when you go to print apparel, typically you want to split it open if
you can, and thread it on to the press to get your print area flat. I'm showing you this youth hoodie
because I'm going to show you one of the most important things with heat pressing yourself. And
that is having a completely flat area. As you'll see here, the pocket is up onto the lower surface
that's going to absorb pressure. And so really, I want to isolate this print area to get an accurate
print. And so with the heat presses that we make at stalls, we've made them so you can change out
this lower table and you can swap in a more appropriate size. In this case, I'm going to load
one that is a little bit smaller, that's perfect for the front of hoodies.
Now anytime I swap that attachment, I'm just going to lock the press down and it has a pressure
adjustment that I can feel for every item that you're going to print on your press has a recipe
will send you in the box of transfers, the time temperature and the pressure that the heat press
needs to be set at for accurate results. I want to start by showing you our puff transfer from
Transfer Express. Now loading that garment you can see the pocket falls off the edge,
the seam structure up by the hood falls off of the edge and the collar. So I have a completely
flat area. Always start with the preheat. And if I'm referencing my instructions,
which do come in the box are in the bag with every transfer it says for my puff transfer,
I want the temperature at 360 to 370 degrees, it takes five seconds and a medium to firm pressure,
which is a six to eight on my machine. So let's make sure we have our settings right.
So up here on the control board, I'm at 362 I'll hit the mode button, I have it set for 365, which
is perfect. This one only takes five seconds. So I'm going to decrease my time. This actually has
two time settings. So you can toggle back and forth for some special applications. I'll show
you in a bit. So I'll make sure both are set at five. And then when I lock the press down,
the pressure is going to read out right here I want that to be between a 6 and an 8. Alright,
it's a five, which means I just need to turn the knob a little bit to increase the pressure.
And now when I lock it down to seven, okay, that's perfect. So now I've preheated my garment
and prepared it for my Puff transfer. Another important concept when you're ordering transfers
is that you can group a ton of different designs as long as they're the same color
all up on one sheet. You can see how I've grouped in the word inspired with fears with believer,
fearless and goals all onto one sheet. And now when the press cut when the transfer comes to you,
you can just trim apart your designs. So I group these all together that's going to save
me on cost. This is an actual screen printing ink that's being printed onto the sheet that's
been put through testing for quality. And so with my transfer trimmed, I'll be able to just flip it
over and kind of feel where the edges of my tech star and position that onto the shirt. Once I have
it positioned onto the shirt accurately, I'll just lock the press down for that five seconds
and all I have to do is remove the backing. This one's a hot peel. And you can see we have a nice
puff transfer result. So this is something that you can take some photos have, you can mark it on
your e-commerce store. And you can take this transfer and apply it across a wide variety
of styles of garments, colors of garments and sizes of garments, not committing your inventory
until you get the order. Let's show you how to heat press a black puff design as well. I'm just
going to grab another hoodie and we'll load it into place. I love this smaller attachment, it's
actually 11x15 inches for printing this area on hoodies one of the most popular sellers. So that's
into place. Don't forget to preheat this one as well. Now, don't panic when you're working with
red or maroon colored material. It looks like it's scorching, but it's not that's just the moisture
leaving the garment it'll return back to the garment. And now I'm going to grab a black puff
transfer. And let's trim another design out in this case we'll go with inspired.
Notice I really don't leave any area uncovered on this transfer all these open areas even get
hearts or little icons. Because these are all little things that you can just save and put
in a storage bin and use later. So this one's trimmed out I've preheated I'll get
a feel for where the edges of my tech star. I'll position it. And then I'll lock the machine down
feel the backing, we have a beautiful completed result. Puff ink from Transfer
Express comes in white and black. Now the next product I want to show you is a
foil adhesive transfer along with heat press foil. And so this one's pretty cool. And I think it has
a very nice place for E commerce fulfillment providers. So let me just cut this open and
show you the transfer itself. It looks a lot like the puff transfer we just did. Except instead
of being actual puff anchor ink in general, it's actually adhesive. So it's just gray. And this is
an adhesive that's designed to go on to our shirt first. And then we're able to lay change the color
of the print by laying a sheet of foil on top at the heat press which is really cool. So as an E
commerce decorator, this means you can stock one transfer type like the word fearless. And
then you can stock tons of different foil colors, which are very inexpensive, and be able to offer
different colors and fully customize this at the time you get the order, which is pretty unique. So
let's trim one of these out we'll go with different one, we'll use the word believer here.
And again, I haven't told you this yet. But over on Transfer Express comm there's this great little
tool called the easy view designer. If you sign up for a Transfer Express account, which is free,
you get access to the easy view designer where you can access tons of clipart and fonts and different
files where you can create layouts like this even more advanced stuff than what I'm showing
you here. So we're going to put on this color shirt. Let me just pick a color foil that we
want to use here. I think that would look cool for more of a tonal inspired one. So I'll just
trim the sheet of foil, and you can buy the foil from Transfer Express as well it already comes
pre seated for you. In this case, I have foil that I've used for other things
that's available by the roll that I'm going to use. So let's head over to the heat press and show
you how to apply this one. Okay, we're back at the heat press and I'm loading my crop top hoodie on.
Again, we will preheat I have adjusted my temperature down to 340 degrees.
And my application is a two step here. So this was was what I was telling you up front with
the timer, how you can set two settings the first application is going to be my
foil adhesive layer. And so I'm just going to position that into place and press it down at
340 degrees. It just takes eight seconds at that same medium to firm pressure.
After it opens, I can peel immediately in a smooth even motion and see how it looks
almost see through that suggests adhesive onto the shirt. And then I'll take my foil color of choice
and add my color to it. So in this case, I'll just place the foil right on top and then just smooth
it out real quick and then it will lock down for a full 30 seconds to add the foil color.
Now the foil is a cold peel so as it reaches zero, make sure the press does not auto event.
I'll just delicately open it up. And then I'm going to remove the garment from the press
and let it cool completely down before I peel the backing. So just kind of fold it in there,
remove it from the press, and we'll let it cool and peel over here at the table. Alright,
it looks like it's cooled completely down here. So I just grabbed the corner and this is really neat
how the foil just sticks to where the print is and removes
from the actual sheet to work reveal our completed result. Now this is the nice bright, shiny sheen,
the foil leaves, you can actually load this back on the press and press it for five more seconds if
you want it to be a lower luster finish, as well. So really cool effects that you can achieve with
foil extremely popular. Let's look at our last transfer type. Now our final example that I want
to show you shows full color. This is something that a lot of people think that they need
sublimation for, but sublimation applies at a really high heat, and you can't do
dark fabrics. And so this is called UltraColor Soft. It's a brand new type of heat transfer
from Transfer Express. And the beauty of this is you can group as many colors as you want
all onto a ready to heat press transfer sheet. So you can see I'm using those same words that we've
been using. But I'm adding different patterns into the words through the easy view designer,
this could also be just multicolor designs, like one two color designs, or you can do the patterns.
And so it comes like this on this clear carrier transfer sheet, it's 11 and a half by 18 inches
is your print size. And if I flip it over to the back, this has my actual screen printing,
ink and adhesive again. So you can just trim apart your design whatever it is that you want to
put on your shirt. To be able to heat apply it now something really cool about this print technique
is you're able to order it by the piece as well. So here we've ordered the full sheet because
that's how you save the most money is by ordering the full sheet. But you can also order it,
you know, just an individual piece if if that's what you want, there is a minimum.
When I say peace, I mean individual image, you actually have to order 20 pieces if you're just
ordering this image. If you're ordering the full sheet, the minimum is just five pieces.
So let's grab a couple of these designs and show you how to heat press a couple shirts.
Now because I'm going to be decorating the full front on a couple long sleeve,
T shirts or more athletic inspired tops, I loaded the 16 by 20.
Print platen back on that allows me to see more of the front of the garment for aligning my design.
One of the big things about this digital transfer this full color transfer is I can press at a low
temperature. So this one actually only requires 290 degrees of temperature. And so what if you
look at sublimation most of sublimation transfers are almost 100 degrees hotter, so you would scorch
a lot of apparel, even lighter color apparel. But here, you're able to do that low temp to
really open up the opportunities for different types of items for your, for your brand and
for your retail sales. So I'm gonna go with this fearless design and we just did a tie dye pattern.
I love this UltraColor Soft transfer because I can see right through the carrier sheet to align it,
you do need to use a cover sheet on this. So that's an extra little accessory you'll need
for your heat press. And then you lock it down again follow the recipe this one takes 12 seconds
at 290 degrees. We'll go ahead and let our press automatically open so you can see how that works.
So if you're multitasking and printing a lot of apparel, it'll automatically open for you.
This is a cold peel. So I'm just going to remove it from the press and we'll press our next one.
While we're waiting on this one to cool, because I wanted to show you two different
patterns in the same text design. And this is going on to this really high end garment
you can see it has like a mesh backing with some reflective details. So even if you don't
sell just basic t-shirts, if you're getting into more of a fitness line or athletic line,
there are choices for you and heat transfers, you just want to make sure that you purchase our heat
transfers from Transfer Express the press at a lower temperature this is one of those styles.
We also have another style called elasti prints the presses down at around 300 degrees.
So regardless of the fabric, you always preheat to get nice and flat.
We'll position our design cover it
impressed for the full recipe. So you're starting to see how easy it is. The idea is that you would
be able to show these looks through virtual samples and mock ups on your website as for sale
items, maybe even print a few to show my models. And then when you actually receive the order you
have the transfers in stock, whether that's a Puff transfer, and UltraColor Soft transfer or a foil
with adhesive transfer you just print to order. Let's show you how these peel when you're peeling
one of the cold peel transfers, let it cool completely down to room temperature to the touch.
And then you're just going to grab it a 45 degree angle and release it from the edge and then you'll
start to be able to remove it clear across but peeling it that 45 degrees and kind of tracing
your letters is key and the finished result is super soft. Let's look at the peel one more time.
This one was pressed so let's make sure it's cool. And it is, I'm just going to grab the corner,
and then peel away doing each part of the design at that 45 degree angle.
Again, very smooth, very soft to the touch. That's why we call it UltraColor Soft.
Let's review all of these completed results. So just to review our finished results,
we started with the path screen printed transfer. This is great for showing texture to your garment,
it applies up at 365 degrees. So you probably want to limit this to just your 100% cotton garments.
Not a whole lot of synthetics because they may scorch but still a great look and feel available
in white and black. Then we went to our foil adhesive transfer combined with our heat press
foil. This is really nice if you want to offer a wide variety of colors with that high metallic
finish. Something that's very easy to apply in this press is down around 340 degrees. So again,
you don't want to do heat sensitive polyester garments, but it'll work across most styles of
blanks that are available out there. I love this result. And then lastly,
we just completed our ultra color Soft heat transfers, which is our full color option.
And we can press that to very high end athletic wear as well as basic t-shirts because it presses
it only 290 degrees. So there's many more styles of transfers that are out there other than just
these three styles. I selected these three because it's what I see trending out there
in the market. I think you can really grow your retail sales by showing looks that are fresh, new,
and relevant. These are three of those options. We manufacture these transfers as well as many more
over at TransferExpress.com if you've never used Transfer Express before and never did
heat pressing before. It's very easy just go to Transfer Express comm you can click
the link in the description. You can set up an account and request free samples,
we can actually see what a transfer looks like and get started designing in our easy view designer.
I'm Josh Ellsworth with STAHLS and STAHLS Transfer Express. Thanks for watching this video.