The Fabric (Printing) of Our Lives

Over the past several years, digital fabric printing has taken off, the equipment options available have proliferated, and textile printing has been seized on by print businesses as a hot opportunity. Printing on fabrics is obviously different than printing on paper, but how? What other processes and equipment are involved? What about finishing?

This month, we kick off our “Becoming a Fabric Printing Expert” four-part series –the “Fab Four,” perhaps – and in this first installment we’ll look at the various equipment and ink technologies that are required for fabric printing.

You are your choices

Technically, just about any inkjet printer can be used to print on fabric, although the results will vary. A solvent or eco-solvent printer can print on fabric, but requires a coating for the ink to adhere. This coating adversely affects what is known as “hand,” or how the fabric feels, especially when worn. If you’re printing soft signage, though, hand may be a non-issue.

Likewise, a UV flatbed can print on fabric without special coatings, but since UV-cured ink is a polymer film, it will be stiff and uncomfortable if worn. Again, if you’re printing signage, you may not care about the hand.

Latex printers – pretty much synonymous with HP’s Latex line, but Mimaki and Ricoh also offer latex devices – use a water-based ink, and can print on a wide variety of substrates. Latex printers have found a strong niche in soft signage, wallcoverings, and décor.

If you already have a fleet of wide-format printing machines and want to get your feet wet in fabric printing without a major investment, you can use what you already have – bearing in mind the limitations and workarounds that may be required – and at the same time have the versatility to print other types of non-fabric applications.

Live free or dye

Much of the fabric-printing action today is in dye sublimation. (There are also non-dye-sub direct-to-garment printers; see sidebar.)

“The difference between dye-sublimation and other printing technologies is that it’s wearable,” says Lily Hunter, product manager, textiles & consumables, Roland DGA. “When you print with sublimation, you’re dyeing the fibers of the fabric; it’s not a layer on top of the fabric. It gives you a nice, soft hand.” Roland offers the Texart RT-640 and the high-volume XT-640 64-inch dye-sublimation printers.

“Dye sublimation is an out-gas process and the coloration becomes part of the fabric,” says Tommy Martin, product manager, Textile & Apparel Business Development and Marketing, Mimaki USA. “It doesn’t sit on the surface of the fabric like latex and UV technologies do. Dye-sublimation is also more washable.” Mimaki offers about a half dozen dye-sublimation printer lines, including the 77-inch TS300P.

The most common type of dye-sublimation today is transfer-based: the device prints on a special coated paper, and after printing, the paper is brought into contact with the fabric in a heat press, where the ink embedded in the paper is converted to a gas that penetrates into the fibers of the substrate.

For best results, dye-sublimation requires polyester fabric. Polyester is a plastic, and under heat and pressure the fibers melt slightly, opening up tiny pores. The ink suffuses into these pores and when the fibers cool, they and the dye solidify, and the dye physically becomes part of the fabric. This is why dye-sublimation is extremely wash-fast.

That said, you can sublimate, say, a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend – you’ll just get results that are not as vibrant as all-poly, which may be intentional. “Some users prefer a 50/50 polyester blend because they want a faded, distressed look,” says Hunter. “The more vibrancy you want, the more you go with a 100-percent polyester. The more distressed look you want, the less polyester.”

Transfer-based dye-sublimation can also print on virtually any substrate, so long as it’s polyester-based or has a polyester coating and can be exposed to the appropriate levels of heat and pressure.

The alternative to transfer-based dye-sub is direct-to-fabric, which is the subject of next month’s installment.

Bringing it home

The key to success with fabric printing, be it dye-sublimation or otherwise, is to decide what application you want to produce before you go shopping for equipment. Apparel? Signs? Décor? Rigid materials? Or all of the above? This decision is key, because the press is only one part of the equation.

“First, identify the type of ink required based on the type of fabric,” says Martin. “Second, identify the maximum width required. Third, determine if direct application is required. When looking at potential solutions, users should consider the printer’s material handling and take-up system, plus the availability of automated features that can help identify possible production printing issues and enable continued unattended production. Speed and production considerations should be looked at after identifying the above features.”

“Printing is just part one of sublimation,” says Hunter. “Sublimation takes place on the heat press, so you’re going to need to marry a heat press with the end product you print. If you’re going to be doing roll-to-roll, you need a calender press.” If you plan to sublimate onto rigid materials, you’ll need a compatible heat press. There are cylindrical heat presses that support printing on coffee mugs, for example.

It’s also important to look closely at aspects of the equipment beyond speed or even image quality. “Check out the warranty,” advises Hunter. “What does it cover, and how long does it last? Does replacing a printhead null your warranty?” Ask about other related issues, “How much downtime will there be for maintenance? How much training are you going to get? That can be important.”

It also pays to understand what products are in demand, and what kinds of margins certain applications can command. “The ones I’m seeing that are more of a ‘dime a dozen’ are those feather or teardrop flags,” says Hunter. “You’re seeing a lot more people trying to get into them, and it’s a really competitive market.” Although some apparel is going this route as well, customization can still command a premium. “[For apparel] that’s customized, like socks or shirts, you’ll still be able to get decent margins,” says Hunter. “Home décor as well.”

“Technical/industrial, home/furnishings/interior design, fashion/sports apparel, and graphics industries – all of these markets are growing because the digital textile market and solutions are growing faster than any digital market,” says Martin. “Dye sublimation, out of all the digital textile technologies, I feel, is becoming commoditized, but it’s still growing and moving into new markets.”

Hi, fiber

New polyester substrates are appearing that closely match the look and feel of higher-end natural fibers like silk, expanding the kinds of materials that can be printed via dye-sub. And new developments in inks – particularly pigment inks –have the potential to make digital direct-to-any fiber a reality.

DTG Printing to a Tee

For users who want a quick solution for doing short-run fabric printing, there’s a class of inkjet equipment called direct-to-garment (DTG) printers. These are not to be confused with dye-sublimation direct-to-fabric printers; DTG uses a special type of water-based ink to print directly onto pre-made garments such as T-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, hats, and the like.

“Unlike the dye-sublimation process, direct-to-garment printing uses special inks that are jetted directly on to the fabric to create a full color image,” says Matthew Rhome, business development, fabric imaging and founder of Direct to Garment Printing, Epson America, Inc. “Unlike the more traditional method of screen printing, which takes a long and involved setup procedure before any garments are printed, DTG is digital and the printing process is as simple as loading a garment onto the printer and pushing print.”

Three vendors have carved out a niche in this space: Anajet, which was recently acquired by Ricoh (the SPRINT and mPower i-series), Epson (the SureColor F2000), and Mutoh (the ValueJet 405G). DTG devices can print on light and dark fabrics, although the latter often require a pre-treatment.

“The Epson SureColor F2000 uses the same ink set for printing on various colors and fabric types,” says Rhome. “The only difference is when printing a design with white ink, a special pre-treatment must be applied to the garment before printing. This pre-treat process can be accomplished by hand, or with a special pre-treating machine.” Some users simply use a Wagner Power Painter.

“If you’re printing a dark shirt, you put down a background white layer first so it has something to make the colors pop,” says Paul Crocker, marketing director, Anajet. “If you’re using white ink, you would need to pre-treat the garment first.”

Like dye-sublimation, direct-to-garment machines do require a heat press to “fix” the colors on the fabric, but unlike dye-sublimation, DTG works best on substrates that are 100-percent cotton or other natural fiber, although it will print on a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend. “You can go up to 100-percent polyester if you’re not using any white ink,” adds Crocker.

“A best practice is that a user should always test a fabric’s compatibility with DTG before a production run,” advises Rhome.

The image is durable and is said last for the life of the garment, depending on the quality of the garment.

DTG printers are designed for short-run garment printing. “As you get into a couple hundred, you start to evaluate whether it’s worth going to screen printing,” says Crocker. Or purchasing additional DTG devices.

DTG units have several niches, from screen printers who want a short-run or one-off option, to entrepreneurs who want to start up a customized garment printing business. It’s also fairly economical. Blank shirts, for example, can be had for $1 to $2 a shirt, ink adds another 20 cents to $1.50 (depending on the image), plus labor. “Usually we’ll tell customers they can look at maybe $5 total cost for the shirt and they can turn it around on the low end for $10 and up to $20 even $25,” says Crocker.

The breadth of garments that can be printed on DTG devices runs from hats to socks – and even to non-garments. “You can print on wood, pillowcases, mousepads, canvas art, some metals, glass, and all sorts of things,” says Crocker. Some items will require a pre-treatment, but DTG printers can be a versatile option.