# Vinyl wrinkling after washing



## Beckmansbeach (Jun 30, 2014)

Did a bunch of searches, but no concrete answers. None of the answers given seem to fit with my procedures..


Hello, still fairly new to vinyl. Been doing plastisol transfers for years but just got my cutter in august. I have done a bunch of one-offs for people and never had any problems.
However, just did my first "big" order, 75 softball shirts. 15 ea of 5 designs. Did 3 in thermoflex plus, 2 in siser easyweed., matching color #'s on back of all of them. All on gildan dryblend 50/50 shirts. 

I have done prob 100 shirts before this, no problems. Ever. Maybe a little weinkling after 1st wash, but nothing like this. I tested differant shirts, differant vinyls, etc. i try to be as methodical as possible before i do anything for customers.

I have a hix 650p press, i always use a teflon pillow to ease in alignment and to avoid collar marks, press marks and to keep front or back print safe while doing both sides. I just think it makes alignment easier than burning knuckles trying to hang collar off back of shirt.

Always followed manufactures recomendations, 330 for 18 sec for thermoflex plus, 302 for 13 sec with siset. Keep the pressure firm or a 7 on my press.

Always pre-press for 3 sec, use a piece of craft paper and just hold press down, dont actually lock it to avoid to much heat and press marks on darker shirts.

I dont get it. Customer brought back sone shirts to show me and the vinyl wrinkled. bad. I dont know what is going wrong.

Ive read it could be shirt shrinking, but i dont see that with the 50/50 dryblends, i have been using them with plasisol transfers for years for that reason.

I pre-press, follow manufactures settings, hot peel...

Only thing i can think of is i know customer washed and dryed at a laundrymat, and i have read on here that can cause issues because of more aggressive machines and higher heat in the dryer.

I read one thread were someone had a similar problem and repressed the shirts w kraft paper and it cleaned up the wrinkles, but never said how they came out after subsiquent washes.

This customer gave me a shot with one of his smaller leagues. He runs 19 leagues all over the state for various sports. This could turn into something big for me, but he is gonna walk if i cant remmedie this. I am willing to take the hit and redo the shirts if i have to, but i cant risk them coming out with same problem...

I know many say "wash inside out warm only hang dry". But this is real world 20 sonethings softball shirts, these guys are just going to throw them in wirh everything else.

Any ideas? Any recommendations? Any way i can salvage these shirts?


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## ayukish (Aug 18, 2005)

Did you use the same materials you used on this job on your previous 100 shirts? If so, it's likely that your problem is specifically with this customer, and likely a result of how the customer treated the shirts. 

Heat transfer materials _usually _crack for one of three reasons:
1. The garments are not preheated adequately.
2. The garments shrink (cracking usually occurs in the corners of "T", "H", etc.
3. The garments are washed in too hot water and/or dried in a too hot dryer. This usually results in cracks going horizontally across your design, not necessarily in corners like the shrinking issue noted above. 

If you can limit this problem to this job and customer, then it's likely that the problem is how the garments were treated after your application. It's likely that your customer dried them in a hot dryer, and possibly a commercial wash/dry.


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## kwt1955 (Nov 3, 2011)

I've had the same problem when covering a large area with vinyl. Once the shirts were folded and stacked, the wrinkles flattened out significantly. For this reason, I try to avoid very wide columns or solid areas over three or four inches without a break. For one thing, a very large vinyl logo can make a shirt feel like a rain coat. I also run anything with cotton through the washing machine on rinse only and then dry --- even50/50 shirts. In my opinion, cotton shrinks no matter how many times the manufacturer tells you it is pre-shrunk. Since vinyl does not shrink and cotton does, a small amount of distortion could occur.


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## Beckmansbeach (Jun 30, 2014)

The shirts looked perfect when they left my shop.. The wrinkling didnt occur until the customer washed the shirts. He did confirm they were washed at a laundry mat, im guessing that was the problem. The vinyl looks like it got crumpled up in the wash and the creases stayed after drying.
It really doesnt look like it was the shirt shrinking, its just like the wrinkles from the shirt getting bunched up didnt go away.

Do you think its really just the commercial washing that left these marks?

i know you want to stay away from large areas of vinyl, and the one he showed me with the wrinkles had no areas larger than 1 inch, and the wrinkels are apparent even in the small thin areas....

I told him to wash the shirt again and see if that helped


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## Beckmansbeach (Jun 30, 2014)

Soooo, guy brought a bunch of the shirts back over, at first i had only seen the one. It was the ones i did in siser easyweed silver that were really bad. The ones i did in thermoflex plus were fine, a little wrinkly but he was just over reacting about those because the silver one looked terrible. 
I repressed the shirt for 10 sec, cleaned it right up, looked perfect again.
Washed and dried the shirt on "normal" settings, warm water, regular dry... came out fine.
It was definitely the higher heat from him washing and drying at a laundry mat that caused the issue. Im gonna stay away from the siser in the future.
We also washed some of the thermoflex shirts are that hadn't been washed yet and they came out if the dryer perfect.
We discussed the fact that the washing instructions on the tag from gildan say "if imprinted wash inside out" and says "hang dry or low temp heat".... So that kinda saved everything (even though that really has nothing to do with the vinyl, lol)
Helped that he had specifically requested those shirts anyway..
I figure if this problem ever comes up with another customer (not that i am going to use much of the siser anymore anyways) first thing i will do is ask if it was commercially laundered and then point out the washing instructions on the shirt . Then tell them to then can bring the shirt back for a quick press or they can just lay a piece of paper over design and iron it out, then wash accordingly.
I showed him some of my personal vinyl shirts that have been washed 20+ times and how the vinyl actually got a little softer, so he is going to run the shirt through the Laundromat again just to see if it comes back and get back to me.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

We had the same problem with the laundrymat dryers. They can run hot and the length of time can be an issue also. We contacted Siser and they did their own test and confirmed the same problem. 

The shirts should be turned inside out and dryed for 20 minutes on a low heat setting. If that isn't enough time then increment it a little at a time. It should not be dryed on high heat or for an hour.


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## Screen Medics (Feb 23, 2015)

When heat transfers come back unstuck and/or wrinkled we usually can resolve the problem by smoothing the detached part of the transfer smoothly and replicate the same heat transfer procedure. Few shops verify and document heat transfer machine temperatures as compared to the dial or digital display on a regular basis.
Friends call me more often than I like with this complaint. We use a small pencil digital temp gauge and confirm the temperature at 300 or 325 degrees F once or twice a month. It is not unusual to have temperatures inaccurate by 3 to 15 degrees F for no apparent reason other than a lot of use. Once calibrated the problems nearly always go away.
It is also a good idea to time the transfer machine timer when verifying temperatures.
I like to use the adage, "if you take good care of your equipment it will take good care of you". If you don't regularly take good care of your equipment...well you know the answer.
Hope this helps.


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

Beckmansbeach said:


> Did a bunch of searches, but no concrete answers. None of the answers given seem to fit with my procedures..
> 
> 
> Hello, still fairly new to vinyl. Been doing plastisol transfers for years but just got my cutter in august. I have done a bunch of one-offs for people and never had any problems.
> ...


Thin vinyl will get a wrinkled appearance when cotton garments shrink in the wash.

We recommend using a thicker vinyl such as our Thermo Film to avoid this as well as trying to use pre-shrunk cotton.


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