# sublimatable white ink



## jugurei (Nov 15, 2006)

are there any white ink that i can paint or screen print onto dark t-shirt that I can then sublimate to ? Im thinking of screen printing white ink and then sublimating my design into the white parts, however im not sure if this will work. have anyone tried this method for sublimating into dark tshirts ?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Interesting idea. My guess is that the 60 seconds in a press to sublimate the dyesub ink wouldn't do any favours for an initial layer of plastisol. You might want to try it with waterbased inks (which would withstand the heat pressing). I have no idea if it would work or not, but ink isn't anywhere near as porous as fabric so I certainly wouldn't bet on it... we don't get anywhere if we don't experiment though.

On the one hand it's a fairly advanced chemical process and there's no reason to believe it would work with just anything, but on the other hand... it might  Unfortunately I don't have access to dye sublimation equipment for a couple of months, so I can't test it.

Hopefully someone here has actually tried it.


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## Jimwill (Nov 23, 2006)

Jugurei,

Please post any successes or failures you may have with this "experiment". I've had the same idea, but I am a total newbie. I'm still doing lots of reading and research to figure out the quickest way to get a professional looking image onto dark shirts.


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## Jimwill (Nov 23, 2006)

I found something interesting on Zazzle's site. They have started printing on dark shirts, and based on their description of the process it sounds like they are first printing a white ink base to which the transfer is applied. Search for "Zazzle Dark" and you should find the info. I'd like to know the details of how they are making these.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Jimwill said:


> Search for "Zazzle Dark" and you should find the info.


They didn't give a lot of info, but it sounds like normal DTG to me.


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

There is a white toner now for the laser dye sublimation that will allow you to transfer to darks. I have not seen it myself, but people on other message boards definitely think highly of it. The only negative is the size of the printable area is a little less than 8.5" wide. Look up ATT at www.atttransfer.com for more information.


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## Jimwill (Nov 23, 2006)

Mark,

Thanks for the info about the white toner. It looks like they may be onto something.


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## JaeAmera (Dec 25, 2006)

As for painting / screen printing a white section onto a cotton shirt then sublimating........I partnered my infrastructure with a friend who was trying to do the exact same thing. In short, we never achieved good results.

The white section for us had to have no hand, have good adhesion with the cotton, withstand the hightemps of the sublimation process and lastly have excellent retentive properties for the sublimation dyes.

As of four months ago, there is nothing on the market with ALL of these characteristics. There are some coating that worked somewhat but the hand was very heavy....defeating the entire reasoning for dyesub.

Anyone else discover or create a product that will allow this process...........patent it! 

Jae'


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## jugurei (Nov 15, 2006)

have anyone tried using white acrylic paint with the emulsion described in this guide ? I think there is enough plastic in acrylics for holding the sublimation ink but i dont know much about sublimation. 

Acrylic Fabric Paint Medium


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## dondelauder (Jun 5, 2014)

http://www.graphicsone.com/large-format-printers/printers/oki-printers/
There are 2 different Oki Printers that do sublimation printing in white on one sheet of special transfer paper, then on a separate transfer sheet you would do the colored sublimation.
You would then heat press the white transfer sheet onto the item to be sublimated onto, then peal off the white transfer sheet, place the color transfer sheet on the item and heat press again to transfer the color transfer image.


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## calhtech (Feb 4, 2012)

dondelauder said:


> http://www.graphicsone.com/large-format-printers/printers/oki-printers/
> There are 2 different Oki Printers that do sublimation printing in white on one sheet of special transfer paper, then on a separate transfer sheet you would do the colored sublimation.
> You would then heat press the white transfer sheet onto the item to be sublimated onto, then peal off the white transfer sheet, place the color transfer sheet on the item and heat press again to transfer the color transfer image.


I think you are confused with what SUBLIMATION is. What you are referring to is a 2 step self weeding laser transfer paper. This is not sublimation. BTW, you are responding to a 7 year old thread.

CalhTech>


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