Applying Perfectly Centered Flock Transfers

We first pre-pressed the shirt for 5 seconds.

Using our T-Square It!, we make sure that our T-shirt is perfectly centered at the top of the press (more about the piece of paper, later)

See the T-Square It! later in your tutorial, at “Designing Made Easy”.

Next, we move the slide down to the front of the press and make sure that the bottom of the shirt is centered.

This is easy. If the shirt is not centered, gently pull the bottom of the shirt until the same amount of fabric is at both ends of the slide.

We are using 1” white block letters and want our letters to start 4” under the collar.

We move our slide up to 5” under the collar and pull our paper template (the line and Arrow) we have drawn with Word, on our computer, down to be even and centered with the slide.

We then remove the Tee Square It!

Next comes the tricky part of the job: Getting the letters even and straight on the shirt! With good eyes and a steady hand, many can “free-hand”, their layouts. My eyes are not young nor my hand very steady, so I use tape. Here’s how-

In Fig 1, we have put a piece of heat tape on the back of a ruler. About half of the tape strip is off the ruler. In Fig 2, we have turned the ruler over and have started to apply our letters (in reverse order). In Fig 3 all letters have been applied. This was done by butting each letter up to the ruler and gently tapping them down onto the tape. This keeps it stuck to the tape but easy to reposition if necessary. In Fig 4 we decide where the midpoint of the word is located (see the pencil). This point will be centered over the arrow on our template.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

We lined up the bottom of the letters, even with the top of our template and centered over the arrow. To stick the word on the shirt, we just gently pressed the ends of the tape. Gentle is enough.

We get ready to lay out line 2 by putting our T-Square It! back on the shirt, adjusting our horizontal slide to be 2” under line 1, and then pulling our paper template down, to be even with the horizontal slide, and centered

The 12” ruler wasn’t big enough to hold line 2, so we used the Tee Square It!

Line 2 is on the shirt and we have pulled the shirt up, to get the collar and seams off the press. We are now ready to close the heat press and apply the letters. The press is set at 350° and 18 seconds, with medium pressure. Presses are different and times and temps can vary slightly.

After we opened the press, we ran a lint roller once, over the finished shirt, to get rid of any little “fuzzies” around the letters. Very Important: Flock applications should be done with medium pressure. This is very important if you use our tape method. Too much pressure will cause the tape to pull the letters off the shirt.

One more important item- If you use a clamshell press, you will want to position your words with the shirt pulled forward as much as you can (See the first picture). Before you close the press, you just pull the shirt up, to get the collar and seams off the press (see above). The reason for this technique is that heat has a tendency to curl flock letters (especially 1” block) and heat is the greatest at the back of clamshell presses. It is a non-issue, with swing-away type heat presses.

Practical Business

If “Randall” had wanted 50 shirts with his company name I would have taken them to a screen printer, marked them up a bit for my profit and said, “Thank you very much”, when he picked them up and paid for them.

However, if he had wanted 5 I would know that this was a perfect job for flock! Also, in most cases, customers are usually willing to pay a bit extra for a low quantity, high quality custom job with flock.

Our total time for the finished shirt was about 3.5 minutes. This was because we demonstrated how to measure everything and it was a 2 line shirt. With even minimal experience, one-line shirts, especially with 1.5” letters can easily be done in less than two minutes.

Flock On Caps

With 40+ years of business experience I usually hesitate to call anything a “no-brainer”. Putting flock letters on caps, however, comes close!

• Caps cost no more than shirts, so the profit margins are there.
• Caps sell themselves enough that they don’t take a big pitch.
• They are easy! The working area is obvious so centering is easy.
• They are fast! The words can’t be that big. Layout time is short.
• There is often no competition (I loved that in the old retail days).
• You often get an extra sale from offering caps and shirts.
• Inventory costs are quite low. $25 of flock goes a long way.

The press we are using is the HIX B-250D; with the optional youth platen and the standard blanket bracket attachment. This holds the letters in place as the heater block is closed. This is helpful is you are not using our “Alpha Way” tape method to apply letters. You can use a strip of Teflon if your press is not a HIX (if you order our flock and need a strip, just ask when ordering and we will send you one free).

The first thing that we do is pull the cardboard support out of cap and pull the sweatband forward

The back of cap has been hooked over the bottom tension bar and centered over the lower platen. Notice that the sweatband is still forward and not under the cap. This is important!

Centering on a 6-panel cap is easier than eating a plate of grits, because the seam is centered. We are pressing the cap at the same time and temperature (350° at 15 seconds) that we used for the T-shirt demo.

Note: while many can “free-hand” a short name like “Ashley”, three-line caps, like that on the main flock page, has to be done with tape

DONE! Total time was about 1.5 minutes.

Few ever got rich decorating caps but it can be a very nice, steady, revenue stream, especially for mobile retailers and point of purchase venues.

New cap presses run $545 to $725 (see Stahls', HIX and Knight in our heat press sections).

A used brand name cap press might be OK, if it hasn’t been worked to death. I would be leery of any of the cheap imports offered on E-bay. From all that I have heard, the problems are many, and if you have a problem, the problem is yours.

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Updated: Sunday August 1, 2010