Industry Advice
Printing on dark polyester with the Brother GTX series printers
In this step-by-step guide, Folker Stachetzki, marketing manager, and Giulia Gallo, area sales manager, of Brother, outline how to print on dark polyester using the Brother GTX series printers.
P
rinting on dark polyester, in addition to printing on cotton, is becoming increasingly popular..
The process in itself is not difficult, but there are a few things to consider, such as the selection of the right textile, the proper use of the special software package for polyester printing, the correct settings in the printer driver and, of course, the accurate following of every specific step during the printing process.
The textile choice is very important, since it may determine your final result from the beginning. Considering that all the inks we use are water-based, the advice is not to choose any kind of polyester that has been treated to be water-repellent.
Of course, considering the wide range of polyester materials available nowadays, the suggestion is to always test each one before printing. The software package has been specifically built for polyester printing and, together with a more detailed guideline on how to use it, is available at all certified Brother dealers.
Regarding the printing process, is really important to follow the steps listed below, in order to achieve the best result for you and your customers.
Step 1: Print file creation Use the Brother Software tool and the GTX Polyester Firmware, which you can get from all certified Brother dealers, to create a print file out of your favourite design.
Printing on dark polyester needs some special print settings, therefore the special polyester software and firmware package is absolutely needed. The special thing about this easy-to-use software is that any user can easily manage the amount of white
| 50 | April 2021
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk Step 2: Pre-treat your dark polyester garment with a PT Machine. Do this twice
ink, starting with the suggested default settings and just playing around with mask and highlight.
After the print data has been created, it can be sent to the printer as usual.
Step 2: Pre-treatment
As with common dark cotton, it is also necessary to apply pre-treatment on dark polyester and to dry it. The dark-poly liquid has to be mixed with distilled water 1:1 in order to work with this material. After application by using a PT Machine, which we strongly recommend,
(22 grams of pre-treatment for an area of 14x16in), drying has to be done with a heat press which allows you to control temperature, pressure and time, (110°C, 47 psi for 35 seconds).
Now comes one of the biggest differences from printing on cotton: the above mentioned pretreat-process must be repeated twice. So, again liquid- applying and again drying.
Step 3: Print
At this point the time for printing comes. The Brother GTX series printers allow
Step 3: Now you’re ready to print
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