Digital printed heat transfer graphics for soft goods
A thermal transfer and process for producing it that provides a fully-digital printed heat transfer capable of little to no process changeover between different graphics. Specifically, the method comprises printing a digital image onto a treated adhesive substrate, applying the image side to a carrier substrate, then digitally cutting and removing substrate not containing graphic elements through a combination of kiss-and-through cutting to produce a high stretch, multi-color photographic quality print transfers for the apparel and soft goods industry.
1. A process to create printed heat activated transfers for application to soft goods, comprising the steps of:
obtaining a film composed of a thermoplastic hot melt adhesive coated on one side with an ink receptive coating;
printing directly onto the coated side of the hot melt adhesive film to define printed areas and unprinted areas;
transferring the printed hot melt adhesive film to a carrier layer against the print side;
kiss-cutting around one or more unprinted areas of the hot melt adhesive film without cutting the carrier layer;
removing the kiss-cut unprinted areas of hot melt adhesive film from the carrier layer without removing any printed areas; and
through-cutting around all the kiss-cut areas of the hot melt adhesive and said carrier layer.
2. The process of claim 1 , wherein said hot melt adhesive film is on a carrier layer.
3. The process of claim 1 , wherein said hot melt adhesive film is a thermoplastic such as film chosen from among the group of polyurethane, polyester, polyamide or polyolefin film.
4. The process of claim 1 , wherein said hot melt adhesive film comprises one or more added components for opacity.
5. The process of claim 4 , wherein said one or more added components comprise TiO2.
6. The process of claim 4 , wherein said one or more added components comprise carbon black.
7. The process of claim 1 , wherein said hot melt adhesive film includes an adhesion promoter to improve print quality.
8. The process in claim 1 , wherein the hot melt adhesive film is coated with a primer to improve printability.
9. The process in claim 1 , wherein the printed hot melt adhesive film is coated with a protective coating layer to improve washability.
10. The process of claim 1 , wherein said carrier layer is a paper substrate coated with a transfer layer.
11. The process of claim 1 , wherein said carrier layer is a polymer substrate.
12. The process of claim 11 , wherein said polymeric substrate is coated with a transfer layer.
13. A heat transfer product made by the process of claim 1 capable of undergoing hot wash (60° C.) and medium dryer conditions for at least fifty washes.
14. A heat transfer product made by the process in claim 1 where the adhesive consists of two layers.
15. The heat transfer product of claim 14 where the first adhesive layer is ink receptive and has a softening point above 110° C.
16. The heat transfer product of claim 14 where the second adhesive layer has a softening point below 110° C. to enable heat sealing to delicate soft goods at lower temperatures.
17. A heat transfer product made by the process in claim 1 where the printed image elastically stretches up to at least about 2%.
18. A heat transfer product made by the process in claim 1 capable of elongating to 75% in at least one direction without cracking, speckling, or forming any other defect.
19. A method of manufacturing a thermal transfer, comprising the steps of:
coating one side of a roll of hot melt adhesive sheet with an ink receptive primer;
digitally printing a graphic image directly onto the coated side of said hot melt adhesive sheet, said graphic image comprising a plurality of discrete indicia;
applying a polymeric protective layer over the digitally printed graphic image to produce an intermediate transfer;
adhering a carrier layer over the polymeric protective layer to produce an uncut final transfer;
kiss-cutting partially through the uncut final transfer according to a kiss-cut pattern;
through cutting fully through the uncut final transfer according to a through-cut pattern to produce a cut final transfer; and
weeding out waste sections of the cut final transfer.