# Printing On "polyester" Material



## HOOSIER DADDY (Jan 8, 2008)

This might have been discussed before but I haven't researched so will ask. What types of "polyester" material can be printed using DTG printers. Our Brother rep says NO to nylon as our ink is water based and nylon won't accept it. And I suspect the term "polyester" is a catch-all description for many synthetic materials. Any help here would be appreciated as I've got a customer inquiring whether we can print onto "Polyester" tote bags.
Thanks-
Robin
Sunshine Designs


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

dtg printing works best on natural fibers. For polyester, it is best to use sublimation. Some people have had some success with polyester or 50/50 shirts using pretreatment. Most of the time, the wash test show dtg inks don't do that well on polyester. So, I would recommend doing the polyester tote bags with sublimation inks.


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## HOOSIER DADDY (Jan 8, 2008)

Well, that's disappointing to hear but not surprising. I'm not quite sure what "pretreatment" is as our Brother folks never mentioned that. By sublimation inks, do you mean printing the design on an ink jet printer and then doing a heat transfer? Or do I not understand the sublimation process (probably!)?


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

Brother does not talk about pretreatment because it is primarily used by white ink printers (which Brother does not do) and they really promote the printer as a garment printer - not a digital printer that prints on other things like some of the dtg printers. Call Harry at Equipment Zone in New Jersey. He sells pretreatment to several other Brother users already. He even has one that will give the CMYK colors on light colored garments better washability. 

Here is a link that goes over the process of sublimation - MultiRIP Screen Printing, Sublimation, Transfers, Photograph and General Printing RIP Software. Yes, it is similar to printing a heat transfer, but you use special inks and special paper.


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## miriamdavis (Apr 8, 2009)

There's an "essential" tote at SanMar that is polyester and comes in 18 beautiful colors, but it's polyester. I have dye-sub inks, but not sure they will work on colors. Can I use ink jet transfers??


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## Glenn (Oct 15, 2009)

The only machine that can print on Polyester fabrics is the TEXMAC SOLO garment printer (as well as your cotton/poly-cottons of course)

check it out
www.happyemb.com


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

Glenn said:


> The only machine that can print on Polyester fabrics is the TEXMAC SOLO garment printer (as well as your cotton/poly-cottons of course)
> 
> check it out
> www.happyemb.com


I don't want to duplicate posts, so I will just point to the other post where this was addressed - http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t11595.html#post768139


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## Printzilla (Mar 22, 2007)

Glenn said:


> The only machine that can print on Polyester fabrics is the TEXMAC SOLO garment printer (as well as your cotton/poly-cottons of course)
> 
> check it out
> www.happyemb.com


Gee....I better stop printing on poly with my Epson based printers. I didn't know they couldn't.


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