Printing inks and machines

Nearly every problem people bring to us about garment printing turns out to be a chemistry problem: an ink that will not stay suspended, a powder that has absorbed moisture, a film whose release coating has been cooked too hard. This section explains the materials first and the machines second, because that is the order in which they actually matter.

Where to start

If you are choosing between printing methods, read these in order. If you already print and something is going wrong, skip to the last one.

DTF, sublimation or screen printing: The decision that determines everything afterwards. Sublimation dyes polyester and will not touch cotton. DTF sits a pigment film on top of almost any fabric. Screen printing beats both on unit cost once you are running hundreds of the same design. Guide in preparation.
What a print actually costs: Film, ink, powder, blank, electricity, labour and the machine itself written down over its working life. Most people count the first four and are surprised by their margins. Calculator in preparation.
Choosing a printer: What separates a printer that runs production from one that runs for six months. Print head type and availability, white ink circulation, parts supply and whether anyone will service it. Reviews in preparation.
When prints fail: Cracking after washing, chalky whites, powder that will not stick, films that tear on release. Almost all of it traces back to the four variables below. Troubleshooting guide in preparation.

The four materials, and what each one does

A DTF transfer is a small piece of polymer engineering. Understanding what each component is for makes most buying decisions obvious and most failures diagnosable.

Pigment ink: Not a dye. A dispersion of solid pigment particles held in suspension by surfactants and a polymer binder, in a mostly aqueous carrier with a humectant to stop it drying in the nozzles. Two consequences follow. Dispersions settle, so ink that has stood still needs agitating and has a real shelf life. And white ink, loaded with titanium dioxide, is the densest and the first to separate, which is why white channels block before colour channels do.
Transfer film: PET carrier with a release coating. The coating is the whole product. It must hold the printed film through powdering and curing, then let go cleanly at the right temperature. Hot peel and cold peel films use different coatings and are not interchangeable, and storing film in a humid room is enough to spoil the release behaviour.
Adhesive powder: Thermoplastic polyurethane, ground to a particle size that trades adhesion against hand feel. Coarse powder bonds more aggressively and feels heavier on the fabric; fine powder feels softer and is less forgiving of under-curing. TPU is hygroscopic, so powder left open in a humid workshop clumps and cures unevenly. This is the single most commonly mishandled material in the process.
Heat: Two separate heat steps with different jobs. Curing melts and coalesces the powder into a continuous adhesive layer without fully activating it. Pressing bonds that layer into the fabric. Getting the first one wrong produces transfers that look perfect and fail in the wash, which is why temperature uniformity across a platen matters more than peak temperature.

What we are building here

This section is new and we are writing it in the order that helps buyers most: the method comparison first, then the cost calculator, then equipment reviews, then troubleshooting. We would rather publish four pages we can stand behind than twenty assembled from other people's specifications.

If there is something you want covered first, or a machine you would like assessed, tell us at sales@textinkllc.com and we will take it into account.

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