steve@bass.cc.utas.edu.au (Steve Andrewartha) (06/28/91)
Here's a list of the responses to my query about printing on fabrics. Thanks to all that responded. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [steve@bass.cc.utas.edu.au (Steve Andrewartha)] >I'm interested in getting colour images from machine to fabric >(linen, cotton, whatever). Are there any colour printers out there >that can be used to either print straight onto the fabric, or at >least create a transfer that could be ironed on? I have heard of >"underwear ribbons" for dot-matrix printers, but never been able to >track one down. Do they exist? Any help greatly appreciated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [swatko@airbag.enet.dec.com (Mike Swatko)] I have heard that there are t-shirt transfer kits that are used in the following way. Starting with a color hardcopy (photo, printout, etc), go to a copy shop and get a color photocopy made. The t-shirt transfer material is then used on the photocopy - it picks up the "ink" from the photocopy and then you transfer it to your shirt, probably by ironing it on or something. I've never actually seen or tried it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Sam Uselton uselton@nas.nasa.gov] I first used this process in the late 1970's - I'm sure it is better now. Basically, there is a special t-shirt transfer thing that can go through the copier feed. (Finding this, or a copy shop that has it, is the hard part.) You generally make a copy of the original onto a transparency, then flip the transparency and copy the flipped image (with a backing sheet or background if desired) onto the transfer. The transfer, when ironed onto the t-shirt, re-flips the image back to original orientation. It was fairly expensive then, because color copiers were rare beasts and both the transparency and the transfer were non-standard too. We did it to make t-shirts for my Dad as gifts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [mpogue@applelink.apple.com (Mike Pogue)] There are two methods that I have tried: 1) Use a "transfer glue" on a photocopy to pick up the image (along with some paper) and glue it to the T-shirt. There is an alternate method which also works, involving using the glue to make a sort-of decal, that can be glued onto a T-shirt. However, the decal also has a thin paper background, and so appears white on the T-shirt. Both methods have high detail, and work with B/W and color photocopies (and according to the bottle, also works on Christmas cards, etc.). 2) There is a company called Black Lightning, that makes a fusible transfer toner for laser printers, in Black, Red, Blue, Green, among other colors. Load the toner cartridge into your favorite laser printer, send your bitmap out (reversed), and iron the paper onto your T-shirt. The colors appear upon ironing. Saturation is good, but the method really works best on polyester T-shirts (also there is spray-on gook that you can buy for 100% cotton T-shirts.) Speaking for myself alone.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [dfrankow@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Dan Frankowski)] The Oberlin College computer science department has produced t-shirts from a computer image by printing it (in black and white) on a laser printer and taking it to a shop which will take an image from paper and put it on a shirt. That's silk-screening, I think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [dhansen@NMSU.Edu] Sorry I can't give you names and addresses, but I recently saw a "new product" blurb about a company selling a laser printer cartridge with iron-on toner. The image is printed on a neutral paper then ironed onto a T-shirt. The only difficulty is that the image printed by the laser printer has to be the mirror image of what you want to appear on the T-shirt. According to the blurb, the cartridges are available in a range of 5 or 10 colors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)] There are color laser printers which will produce iron-on output; I'm not sure whether this is a function of the laser printer or the toner/paper being used (I believe I've seen ads in the PC publications for toner cartridges for various printers to produce iron-on transfers). I am certain that it can be done, because there are a pair of people who work the weekend 'swap meet' (given it's longevity, it's become more of a weekend-only open-air market) who have a video camera hooked up to a computer with a Targa board and a color laser printer (looks like a Canon engine by the case) who digitize people pictures and print transfers which they press onto shirts, calendars, and the like. I have also heard it claimed that if you run a sheet of label backing paper through a laser printer (printing on the shiny side), you can use the resultant printout as an iron-on transfer (if it's a PostScript printer, doing a left-for-right flip of the image is trivial). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [WOJ@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au] Our Tektronics rep told us that you can get iron-on transfer media sheets for the TEK PHASER PK ( which we have.). Then you can do quite good quality colour postscript t-shirts at about 200x200 dpi. I have not used these sheets, but the PX works quite well for paper and transparencies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [wpoor@poorhouse.lexington.ma.us (Ward Poor)] I have heard the ribbons you refer to called "heat transfer", or "T-Shirt" ribbons. My wife uses them in her computer summer camp. She says they are hard to get. I was just leafing through one of her Apple computer magazines (this one was "inCider/A+") and only found one company selling them: RAMCO COMPUTER SUPPLIES P.O.Box 475 Manteno, IL 60950 800-522-6922 USA 800-621-5444 Canada 815-468-8081 BBS 815-468-3298 Fax You might check out the ads in similar magazines & make phone calls to likely-looking organizations as they may not always advertise these "specialty" ribbons. If this doesn't work, and you _really_ need them, get back to me and I'll get the info from my wife, who has contacts with smallish local dealers.