# Need advice -- 1300 stone design -- some stones not adhering



## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

Hi,
I'm relatively new to rhinestoning. We use the DAS system and are in the process of pressing a 4 layer 1300 stone design. The design includes 3 colors of SS06 stones and 1 color of SS10 (the SS06 stones make up 1100 of the 1300 stone design. 

We're about 40 shirts into the project and have lost 6 to 8 stones due to either the glue not adhering to the shirt or the glue sticking to the shirt but releasing from the stone. 

The stones came from DAS and are supposedly their "Gemcut premium grade" Korean rhinestones. 

My question is -- should I expect to have 6 to 8 stones out of 52000 not adhere to the shirt or is this abnormal? 

I am pressing the design to a 4.3-ounce, 100% ring spun combed cotton shirt (DM1170L). and we are using the following process: light to medium pressure (4 on my manual press); 330 degrees; press for 10 seconds; cool peel; cover w/teflon sheet; another 10 seconds on the press.

Thanks in advance for any insight you might be able to provide.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

I should add that the 2nd hit on the press is irrelevant to the problem as we are noticing the issue when peeling the silicone tape after the 1st hit. Also, it has always been 1 stone not adhering on the shirt -- never more and it's occurring in a different location each time. Sometimes it's the clear ss06 and other times it's the siam ss06 (these 2 are the most prevalent stones in the design).


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I would suspect the stones unless the faulty stone is in relatively same position on the press in which case it could be a cool spot on the press


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## ShaggyDog (May 28, 2012)

Are all the stones on the same piece of tape so they are all being pressed at the same time? If you are doing this as 4 transfers, you could be overheating the glue.

Are you checking the back of the transfer before you press for stones with missing glue? You musth always check the back before pressing.

A silicone sheet is a good tool for pressing designs with multi stone sizes.

All rhinestones have stones that are missing glue. You hope it's not too many.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

charles95405 said:


> I would suspect the stones unless the faulty stone is in relatively same position on the press in which case it could be a cool spot on the press


The stones are in a different position each time so I definitely suspect it's the stones. In a situation like this, do you think the stones with poor adhesion will present themselves immediately or will we possibly have stones falling off later (i.e. after delivering to client)?


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

ShaggyDog said:


> Are all the stones on the same piece of tape so they are all being pressed at the same time? If you are doing this as 4 transfers, you could be overheating the glue.
> 
> Are you checking the back of the transfer before you press for stones with missing glue? You musth always check the back before pressing.
> 
> ...


Yes, all of the stones are on the same piece of tape and being pressed at the same time. Initially, we weren't diligently checking the back of the transfer, but we are checking much more diligently now. While we are checking, we might see 1 or 2 stones every few transfers that are obviously lacking glue and we replace them with new stones, but we have experienced the issue on at least 2 shirts that we inspected prior to pressing and didn't see a problem. It is possible that we just didn't see the issue though (old eyes and all)! Do you think the problematic stones will all present themselves immediately or possibly start falling off later (i.e. after delivering to client)?


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## BlingItOn (May 29, 2008)

It's possible that you are not using enough pressure. I usually use a medium to heavy pressure especially if a design has multiple size rhinestones. The smaller stones won't get the full amount of pressure because the larger stones stand taller.


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## serdnaclsg87 (Dec 8, 2011)

Try a bit more pressure or a little more time. Generally, if no stones are missing glue there shouldn't be any stones that do not adhere. I peel the tape hot after just a few seconds, and then press the shirts inside out.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

Does anyone who thinks I need to increase time, pressure and/or heat think I should go back and give the 40 shirts I've already pressed twice another hit for good measure? These are for a small gift shop so I definitely don't want any stones falling off once they are delivered to the client. 

It's odd. Before buying the DAS system, we purchased pre-made transfers from a few different places, some of which were from China, and have never had a stone fall off or not adhere to the shirt.


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## LEO (Oct 10, 2006)

IMHO not much glue surface with the 6ss- especially for an item which will be worn / washed and dried alot.

On shirts and jackets: I only use 8ss & 10ss...for this reason.
Might use the occasional 6ss for highlight in an eye or to fill in but never more than a couple.
I know this doesn't answer your question but you might consider redoing your designs with a slightly larger stone.

And yes, by reheating several times.. you might have just burned off what little glue there was on the bottom of the stones.

If you are locked into 6ss because of your designs...you might consider buying a higher quality MC stone with better glue.

LEO


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## api (Nov 22, 2009)

Let me help you if I can:

*1.) Use higher pressure;* medium or even high. In a Hotronix press: between 6 and 9.

2.) Don't approach 2 problems in the same way: 
a.) Glue problem: If the glue is missing, broken, or if the glue separates from the stone, you have low quality stones. Check the transfer before pressing and replace the faulty stones.

b.) Pressure problem: If the pressed stone falling off, you have to adjust the pressure/time/temperature settings. We use 340-355 degrees, 7-8 pressure, 12-15 seconds, 1 hit only. ​3.) In my opinion you must re-press these 40 shirts with higher pressure. The glue won't like it but it is still better than not knowing if the stones are fixed properly with the first pressing or not. The glue can accept if it is reheated but if the pressure wasn't enough at the first pressing you have 52000 imperfect connections between the shirts and the stones.

4.) Don't panic.  If you have 6-8 problematic stones out of 52000 you are in good shape. Replace the missing 6-8 stones before delivery and you are done. After you removed the cold mylar, use a brush. If the brush won't remove any more stones they are probably OK. Don't worry about the future of the shirt.  If you still do, you can mention that IF (!) a customer would ever lose a stone, you will replace the stone for free.

5.) We use a dirty trick replacing 1 or 2 missing stones: We simply put the shirt back on the heat press, put the replacement stone manually to its place and hit the shirt for another 10-12 seconds. (We always have a teflon "bra" on the heat press.) This method is somewhat faster and easier than switching on the manual rhinestone tool for replacing a stone.

6.) If you have stone quality issues, switch to a different supplier. We used a few million ShineArt stones without real quality issues.

7.) If you continously have large orders, upgrade from DAS to a better, more powerful system. (Decor, Cams) 

Good luck.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

api said:


> Let me help you if I can:
> 
> *1.) Use higher pressure;* medium or even high. In a Hotronix press: between 6 and 9.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the input. So if I brush the 40 shirts I've already pressed and no more stones are lost, do you think I should still repress the shirts? What kind of brush would you use? The same brush I use to get the stones into the template? I'm making a running change on this order to ShineArt (keeping track of where in the run I make the change).


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## api (Nov 22, 2009)

Since you pressed the stones twice already, it is now a judgment call. 


On one side: re-pressing with higher pressure can make the bonding perfect between the stones and the shirt material.
On the other hand: if you burn out all the glue under the stones you can make the situation worse.
If you feel that *there is a definite problem* with the stability of the stones all over the design, go ahead and re-press the shirts.

If you were just overly cautious "_OMG: 6-8 stones fell off out of 52000_"  than just use a brush and deliver the shirts. We use a strong, large, "kitchen brush" or "shoe shine brush".


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## Leg cramps (Feb 9, 2009)

IMO stones can be heated up many times. I set my press at 300 and hit them med/high pressure for 10 seconds for sometimes 5-6 layers. Personally I have never had a stone glue melt off problem that I see everyone talking about. I'm sure it has happened but just not to me. When I was new I used a Teflon sheet on everything. now only on delicate fabrics. I have had certain colors have the glue fall off. you got to just check the back of your transfers before they get to the press and replace the bad stones as mentioned in previous post. Now as far as if you should repress them I would say no. Here is the reason why I say that...once that glue heats up and melts the stones are stuck. You were having a pressure/glue issue. I'm not sure why everyone presses things twice. It is a big waste of time. In production the less steps the faster more efficient way is the way to go. Instead of a 10 second press, a cold peel and then a second 10 second press why not just turn the heat down to 300 and press for 20 seconds one time and call it done? You seen to be a little nervous about it so if you feel better by pressing again you should and everything will be fine.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

I really appreciate everyone's input on this issue. Although even with all of the input (both on and off the forums), I still can't figure out why this continues to happen to us. 

We've now completely transitioned the stones from DAS to ShineArt and yet we still lose 1 or 2 stones every few shirts. I've checked the temperature of our press with a high end heat probe and we are amazingly even/accurate temp across the entire platen, we visually inspect the glue on the back of the stones twice before pressing, removing and replacing suspect stones. We've tried switching to one longer press instead of two shorter presses but we still have the issue. 

It's very frustrating as we never had this issue when we were buying premade transfers (and some were much lower quality stones from China). 

We've decided to continue pressing and replacing and hoping that we somehow work through this issue. We did try to brush off the stones from several completed shirts with our microfiber brush and nothing moves so I think we're ok. Just frustrated that we can't figure out what's happening.


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## YourLogoGear (Jul 5, 2011)

So we finished the project and did several wash/dry tests to make sure we didn't have additional stone issues outside of those we experienced while pressing (thankfully the tests were good and we delivered the order with no complaints). I did want to follow up on this issue though to get your opinion on the stone providers' suggestions.

1) DAS said that my press must be overheating (I tested the temp using a heat probe and the press was spot on).

2) ShineArt said that I should try pressing for longer (which doesn't make sense to me that pressing the stones for longer will result in the stones NOT releasing from the glue and leaving the foil glued to the shirt and the stone on the hotfix tape??).

Both vendors stood behind their product and said it was not due to a bad batch of stones.

Any additional input/expertise would be greatly appreciated as I would love to be able to figure out what happened. One theory I have is that the clear stones were the first layer of a 4 layer design that we created with the brushing/template technique and therefore were pressed into the hotfix tape far more than any other layer was (I used a small sign vinyl squeegee to press the tape onto the stones and made multiple passes per layer). Is it possible that this caused some of the stones to stick better to the tape than to the foil backing?


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

Are you putting a Teflon pillow under your shirts when pressing? I always use a Teflon pillow underneath when pressing a design with different stone sizes. It seems to help. I also use the DAS stones and haven't had much trouble with them not sticking, but a little every once in a while. I've also gotten to the point where I try to avoid ss06 rhinestones whenever possible. Good luck!


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