# Screen Printing on Life Jackets



## mlovestoast (Feb 8, 2017)

All,

I've recently been asked how to go about printing on life jackets, what inks to use, and then if I would do them. 

I have no experience with this, is it worth trying to figure it all out, or turn down the order? 

Solvent Vinyl Ink seems like I would have a large chance of trashing my set-up, and the foam wouldn't handle heat to cure plastisol- what I usually work with.


----------



## PatWibble (Mar 7, 2014)

With solvent inks you are probably going to need specialist cleaners, emulsion and maybe even a higher mesh count screen. If this is a one off job, then the up front costs are high.

You might be right about the heat of curing plastisol damaging the product, maybe not - the only way to be sure is to try one, preferably at the customers risk.

The only thing that would worry me, considering this is a safety critical product, would my insurance cover me if my printing damaged the life jacket, if someone got hurt.


----------



## herokid (Jul 22, 2016)

No do not try to print plastisol. Your best bet is graphic ink. 200-230 mesh. Charge a setup fee. When your done trash the screen if you don't have the solvents to reclaim or it will turn our expensive.


----------



## numbercruncher (Feb 20, 2009)

Years back I printed football helmet decals (we constantly tested for adhesive degrading the helmet's shell and other interactions) I want to re-emphasize Pat's comments - "considering this is a safety critical product, would my insurance cover me if my printing damaged the life jacket, if someone got hurt?". To add a tad bit more of conscience - how would one feel if a life was impaired because of my printing on that PDF ?


----------



## into the T (Aug 22, 2015)

i agree with numbercruncher,
even if you theoretically could, should you?

much like firefighters' wear, 
pfd's have their own code associated with them and you need to make sure you adhere to those codes


----------



## hedsteve (Sep 8, 2009)

Have you considered an air dry waterbased ink?

We did some yard signs last august with the AQUO-HYRBID INK distributed by waterbaseinkusa.com and had great results. 

Would mean you could print the vests and just set them aside to dry.
Saw some umbrellas at the NBM show that had been printed with it and they looked great and the guys manning the booth had used them a couple times (it was a rainy show).


----------



## abmcdan (Sep 14, 2007)

We did some dog life jackets years ago. I think we used nylabond.

I can say 100% none of us that was involved would take another life jacket job. 

One of the impressions was on a small area and it was tough to print because the material wasn't flat on all of them. (Chest print on a human life vest)

In the end we ended up with a bunch of slight misprints and lost money on the job because the customer rejected so many and made us pay for part of the life jackets that got ruined. 

I think it's like many specialty items, make sure you're not liable for misprints no matter the rate if you're putting a couple dollar print on a expensive item.


----------



## tfike (May 2, 2011)

We print life jackets all the time for our local rafting companies and we use TW Graphics air dry ink. It seems to work very well and they even send them back to us at the end of the season so we can touch up any "scratches" that have occurred during the rafting season. I can tell you that if the foam under your print isn't perfect, it will show every single indentation on your print but other than that they aren't too bad. We hate to do them but just because they are time & space consuming.


----------

