Heat Transfer Paper Manufacturer:
Heat Transfer Papers for Skateboard, Longboards, Cruisers and Skimboards are transfer inks printed on PET films using a release agent or hot peal. The hot peal releases the ink under pressure and at around 200’C.
Skateboard Heat Transfer
Screen Printing
99% of our skateboard heat transfers are screen printed.
Inks for screen printing are hand mixed to perfectly match your provided Pantone color code.
Hand mixed inks are vibrant and closely match your artwork.
Skateboard Heat Transfer
Digital Printing
Digital printing is most useful if customers have small quantities per design.
However, digital transfers cannot be kept on stock for longer than two weeks.
Transfer Printing Process:
To transfer print heat transfers to skateboard decks, longboard decks, cruiser decks and skimboards a heat transfer press is required. The heat transfer press consists of two large silicon wheels which under heat and pressure enable the ink to be released from the carrier and penetrate the wood’s structure to achieve a strongly fixed print.
Heat Transfer Machines:
Heat transfer presses built in Germany or USA are at around 20.000 USD. High quality Chinese heat transfer presses are sold at half that price. Lower quality machines are sold even cheaper. Due to our mass production quantities, 2HEX currently offers the best price for high quality heat transfer presses at 6000 USD. However: Chinese heat transfer presses do not meet US’ or European safety standards and must therefor be retrofitted by the buyer to ensure a safe production.
Heat Transfer Production Process:
- A PET film of 105% the size of the original artwork is taken.
- the release agent is applied evenly on the PET film
- Base colors are used to hand mix the artwork’s Pantone colors. If a photo is to be printed, the pre-mixed colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black are prepared.
- Screens are built, a screen-makers ink is applied and the designs are burnt into the screens. Each color requires a separate screen.
- The screen is showered to wash out the none-burnt screen-makers ink. This way the screen only lets the ink through open mesh squares.
- The screens are placed one after another on the PET film with the dried release agent and the pre-mixed colors are printed on.
- Like your basic printer’s inks, heat transfer inks look best when printed on white backgrounds. Therefor a white carrier is added as final layer, after all colors have been printed.
- If your design has no transparencies, the white layer can be printed over the complete transfer paper and does not require a separate screen. However if your design has transparent parts, a separate screen must be prepared to print the white background around the transparent spots of your design. Since transparencies require us to make an extra film for the white background, we call this screen “the transparency screen”.
- The finished heat transfer must be kept unstacked to dry over the period of two to four days.
Heat Transfer Production note:
If the user only orders heat transfers, the minimum is 3 designs with 100 heat transfers each. This minimum does not have to be reached if the user orders other products of at least 2000 USD together with the heat transfers.
Shelf life:
If stacked, held protected from air, dryness, humidity and sunlight heat transfers can be kept at room temperature for at least one year. Screens have a shelf life of 1 year. Within this time span, artworks can be re-produced without the need of re-making the screens.
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