Dye Sublimation heat transfer to acrylic questions

[Adam Less]

Hi all,

With my laser up and running, I also have a heat press and an inkjet that prints sublimation ink onto sublimation paper.

From everything I've been reading, it appears you can't simply print out a graphic onto sublimation paper using sublimation ink and then heat transfer it to a piece of acrylic. Is that true, does anyone know?

If so, is there another way other than simply using Sublicrylic, which is scarce and expensive? I've seen coatings you can buy to coat acrylic for sublimation. Do these work. Are they easy to apply, quick drying, etc?

Any suggestions, tips, etc.?

[Gary Hair]

You can't sublimate acrylic, the dye won't penetrate because it's not polyester based. You can try coatings but in my experience they are pretty much worthless - too time consuming and inconsistent to be a viable option for anything remotely professional looking or profitable. I know sublicrylic is expensive but what little I did with it worked and I could count on it working every time. I gave up dye sub a little over two years ago, I have a UV printer that took its place, and it will print on just about anything I throw at it - including acrylic.

[Adam Less]

You can't sublimate acrylic, the dye won't penetrate because it's not polyester based. You can try coatings but in my experience they are pretty much worthless - too time consuming and inconsistent to be a viable option for anything remotely professional looking or profitable. I know sublicrylic is expensive but what little I did with it worked and I could count on it working every time. I gave up dye sub a little over two years ago, I have a UV printer that took its place, and it will print on just about anything I throw at it - including acrylic.

So how would one print something like a colour logo on a plastic/acrylic name badge then engrave the badge?

[Mark Sipes]

Believe JDS is the only distributor with coated acrylic for sublimation

https://shop.jdsindustries.com/site_images/small/SAC022.png

.

[Mike Null]

You could hot stamp or screen print it. Johnson Plastics offers such a service.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I've become a little bit of an expert on the matter after this summer.

I had an order for 200 sublicrylics. The quality of these products is VERY hit or miss. I dealt with two of the major vendors in the awards world. One had a product with inconsistent coating (hairs, scratches, blotches) but the actual color and final product on a good award was very nice. The other looked great out of the box but the coating was completely faulty. Peeling off the paper resulted in issues. Looking at it wrong resulted in issues. It was a horrific experience. Generally speaking, the only sublimation material I trust 100% is aluminum and FRP. Hardboard is typically also good. MDF is hit or miss. Glass/Acrylic is a nightmare.

My guess is I'll end up buying a UV printer in the next 5 years. I'm not looking forward to it because I generally don't like doing full color layouts because I find them aesthetically unappealing and a heck of a lot more work. For now, I'm happy to outsource that type of work but I know that won't last forever. People aren't able to plan 2-3 weeks in advance and that means needing the ability to do the work in house.

[Gary Hair]

My printer can print on 10" x 24" material so I would just print then engrave or engrave then print.

[Rodne Gold]

Colour laser toner transfer
Like this
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/.cm4all/iproc.php/P1150442.JPG/scale_800_600%3Bdonotenlarge/

[Adam Less]

Ok, then my next question is, can you laser cut FRP plastic to shape. ie, let's say I wanted to print a hockey rink on a sheet of FRP plastic, could I then cut the rink to shape using a 60w CO2 laser? Or vice versa, could cut the plastic then heat transfer a dye sublimated image to it?

[Mike Null]

In my opinion, no. Whenever I've tried cutting that material with the laser it results in a charred mess. You can cut it with various saws--slower and not so precise but still pretty good if you're careful.

Ross has some good advice--outsource. You don't have to do everything in-house.

[Ross Moshinsky]

If you want to do a hockey rink, buy hardboard and cut it out on the laser and then sublimate it. Comes out pretty well. I had to do that for a project once.

[AL Ursich]

Ok, then my next question is, can you laser cut FRP plastic to shape. ie, let's say I wanted to print a hockey rink on a sheet of FRP plastic, could I then cut the rink to shape using a 60w CO2 laser? Or vice versa, could cut the plastic then heat transfer a dye sublimated image to it?

I cut FRP with my little hobby CarveWright CNC. I use a 1/16th circuit board bit and it comes out pretty good. My pear shaped tags have a rough edge due to the low resolution of the servos and encoder. Rectangles look great until the rounded corners.

So a Rotary Engraver would cut out your FRP very well.

For Sublimation you can also consider Clear Mates... It is a clear polyester sheet with a sticky back. Getting the air bubbles out as you apply it would be a challenge.

As far as the Spray Coatings, they must be baked in a oven after applying and that is not friendly to Acrylic.

And if you do Hardboard rather than 400 degrees for 1 Minute, I do 300 degrees for 3 Minutes. At 400 degrees you sometimes get blow out where moisture within the hardboard blows holes in the coating sounding like a gun shot.

Like Gary said, UV Printer is the way to go for your application.

Just had a thought.... For a Logo to be applied to a badge, consider a White Mate's cut to the logo size then printed as dye sub then EPOXY DOMED then applied to the badge.

Epoxy dome is easy to get into...

AL

[Neville Stewart]

Here's some ordinary cost clear acrylic with us,opted images made by a guy who didn't know he couldn't. Not me though. A friend from England.
339991

[AL Ursich]

Here's some ordinary cost clear acrylic with us,opted images made by a guy who didn't know he couldn't. Not me though. A friend from England.
339991


And how were they done Please?

AL

[eduard rodriguez]

Hi Rodne!
You mean that you print in paper with laser printer then transfer toner direct to acrylic? Can I Know more about the method? The result is impressive!

[Mike Null]

Rodney's taken CLTT to a whole new level. You can find out more about it here. http://www.themagictouch.com/

Here is a much simpler piece i did on white engravers laminate. I laser cut the shape then did the transfer.

340058

[Keith Winter]

Rodne can you elaborate on how the laser toner transfer works?



Colour laser toner transfer
Like this
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/.cm4all/iproc.php/P1150442.JPG/scale_800_600%3Bdonotenlarge/

[Rodne Gold]

Real easy , print the graphic using a laser (we use an oki..straight thru path) and using the magic touch release paper to print on , line it up on the cut piece of whatever you are transferring to (like the acrylic) ,put both in the heat press and hey presto.....
Works on just about anything , wood , anodised aluminium , brass , acrylic (we do up to 25mm thick), plastics (so long as they survive the heat) , rowmark material , sublimation material etc etc
The image can be scratched off if you really try hard , but what you do is post bake it for 10 mins or so and it becomes much tougher .. you dont need to do that for awards etc.
We have an a4 printer/press , but you can go to a3 if you want
Its about 50c a page , we charge up to $35 just to do the printing on an a4 award .. + cost of a4 award
We do tons of thin anodised data plates etc as well as badges
An example , a 6cm x 2cm badge can fit 40 odd badges on an a4
cost to print a4 is at WORST $3 (paper , toner etc) divided by 40 -- 8c a pop
CLTT is wonderful and is real cheap to get into .. a laser printer and a heat press .. well under $1k.. maybe more if you get a real good heat press (which I suggest)
You can even do white printing if you get a laser printer that does white as well or use the magic touch paper with a white background -- gives a "solid" print vs just using colour
check out magic touch as others suggested.. t- shirts etc can also be done

[Keith Winter]

Real easy , print the graphic using a laser (we use an oki..straight thru path) and using the magic touch release paper to print on , line it up on the cut piece of whatever you are transferring to (like the acrylic) ,put both in the heat press and hey presto.....
Works on just about anything , wood , anodised aluminium , brass , acrylic (we do up to 25mm thick), plastics (so long as they survive the heat) , rowmark material , sublimation material etc etc
The image can be scratched off if you really try hard , but what you do is post bake it for 10 mins or so and it becomes much tougher .. you dont need to do that for awards etc.
We have an a4 printer/press , but you can go to a3 if you want
Its about 50c a page , we charge up to $35 just to do the printing on an a4 award .. + cost of a4 award
We do tons of thin anodised data plates etc as well as badges
An example , a 6cm x 2cm badge can fit 40 odd badges on an a4
cost to print a4 is at WORST $3 (paper , toner etc) divided by 40 -- 8c a pop
CLTT is wonderful and is real cheap to get into .. a laser printer and a heat press .. well under $1k.. maybe more if you get a real good heat press (which I suggest)
You can even do white printing if you get a laser printer that does white as well or use the magic touch paper with a white background -- gives a "solid" print vs just using colour
check out magic touch as others suggested.. t- shirts etc can also be done

pretty cool, what do you post bake it in?

[Mike Null]

Keith

Depending on what piece I want to post bake I use the heat press or my heat gun. To date my work has been smaller than Rodney's example; mostly plaques and name tags.

[Rodne Gold]

We use an old oven we bought for $30 .. also works well to heat acrylic for drape or mould forming , also works to anneal acrylic to relieve stress from machining and lasering , and of course , cook up a pot of soup or warm those pies...
we use about 50 degrees C for plastics and 100 for metals

We no longer post bake however , we cannot get magic touch paper here anymore , and importing it costs us much more than the paper. We found a local supplier whose paper is much better in that it leaves a thin plastic coating on the heat pressed part.. obviously its part of the substrate of the paper , and only leaves the coating on the printed part , not the whole graphic.
www.studderpromotional.co.za

[Neville Stewart]

And how were they done Please?

AL
I believe you probably have your answer Al, but he said standard Sub ink, cast Acr, 195dgs for 60 seconds.

[Keith Winter]

Thanks Rodne and Mike!

[Mike Null]

I forgot to mention that post baking causes the colors to develop a higher gloss.

I've tried other papers with mixed success. Here's a company I've used. http://www.coastalbusiness.com/laser1opaqueheattransferpaper85x1150sheets.aspx

[eduard rodriguez]

Real easy , print the graphic using a laser (we use an oki..straight thru path) and using the magic touch release paper to print on , line it up on the cut piece of whatever you are transferring to (like the acrylic) ,put both in the heat press and hey presto.....
Works on just about anything , wood , anodised aluminium , brass , acrylic (we do up to 25mm thick), plastics (so long as they survive the heat) , rowmark material , sublimation material etc etc
The image can be scratched off if you really try hard , but what you do is post bake it for 10 mins or so and it becomes much tougher .. you dont need to do that for awards etc.
We have an a4 printer/press , but you can go to a3 if you want
Its about 50c a page , we charge up to $35 just to do the printing on an a4 award .. + cost of a4 award
We do tons of thin anodised data plates etc as well as badges
An example , a 6cm x 2cm badge can fit 40 odd badges on an a4
cost to print a4 is at WORST $3 (paper , toner etc) divided by 40 -- 8c a pop
CLTT is wonderful and is real cheap to get into .. a laser printer and a heat press .. well under $1k.. maybe more if you get a real good heat press (which I suggest)
You can even do white printing if you get a laser printer that does white as well or use the magic touch paper with a white background -- gives a "solid" print vs just using colour
check out magic touch as others suggested.. t- shirts etc can also be done

Thanks Rodne :)