# Bought and tried "Flexcut Sticky"! .... the report & Q



## KaySh (Oct 12, 2011)

Hi all,

I love working with vinyls. It's clean and crisp and fun. It's great fit for my designs, which are mostly pop-ish.

I have used Spectra Eco Films that came with the Roland GX-24 package, and now Easyweed, since USCutter is 10min drive away from my day job. I hear Easyweed is one of the softest vinyls available, but sadly they are still not as soft as screenprint.

Every time I search something like "screenprint-like vinyl" or "as soft as screenprint", I find discouraging news. No vinyl is close to screenprint. But kept searching on, until I found a couple of posts talking about this minor vinyl called "Flexcut Sweet". They are about 50 mirons. Easyweed is about 80.... Whaatt? That's a huge difference! I googled to get more info, and learned that Flexcut Sweet does not come in many colors and backing is not sticky, but there is Flexcut Sticky which is also 50 microns and has sticky backing.

I found someone who was selling Flexcut Sticky on ebay. I decided to give it a try and bought a white. Then one thing led to another, I ended up buying all 10 rolls (different colors) of Flex Sticky he had for a very good price. Anyhoo, the box arrived today.

I am making custom tech shirts for my friend's business right now. He only needs about 6 shirts. Naturally, I want to use vinyl because screenprinting or custom plastisol transfers is not cost-effective for small quantity job like this. 

Several days ago, I made a test shirt (Hanes tagless cotton) using Easyweed. I still hated the hard hand. The graphics is rather big.

Today, I cut the same design using Flexcut Sticky. Here is what I found about Flexcut Sticky, compared to Easyweed.

Easyweed is easier to weed (okay say that 3 times very quickly). My design has a lot of tiny splash pieces. With Easyweed, I did not even have to worry about them. It weeded perfectly, without lifting those little bits. With Flexcut, quite a bit of small pieces and inside of "a" and "e" were lifted up and did not stay. It did not cut as clean as Easyweed either. Maybe I should change the blade settings. Weeding slowly helped a bit.

But as far as the hand goes... Flexcut Sticky is definitely softer than Easyweed (or Spectra Eco for that matter). I even asked my husband to feel it and he agreed. 

To compare, I pressed some of the plastisol tranfer samples I had to the same shirt. One is Spot Sports formula and the other one is Fashion Formula, both by F&M. Flexcut Sticky is comparable to Spot Sports. Fashion might be slightly softer than Flexcut.

Now the question is - if I had my design silkscreen-printed by someone who has screenprinting equipment, would it be softer? 

From what I gathered from spending months reading posts here, plastisol transfers produce pretty much similar results to regular screenprinting, which uses plastisol inks. Correct? But are there other methods that can produce softer-hand design? 


By the way, here is the info on Flexcut Sticky:
Flex Cut Sticky
Composition
Base: Hotmelt Film (polyurethane)
Adhesive: Synthetic Resin
FlexCut Sticky is a PVC free, water based, 100% Polyurethane heat transfer film. It has a low tack sticky carrier allowing very fine cutting and fast/easy weeding.

Kay


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## 20vK (Jul 9, 2011)

You can get a very soft hand with plastisol if you do not need an underbase. I tend to use higher mesh screens as standard. Even with an underbase, my prints are very soft and light, compared to the other screen printers here and the imported prints I've felt.

If your screenprinter offers discharge or waterbased printing, then the hand can be so light you may not even feel a hand!

It's all down to your screenprinter and their capabilities / product offering, as well as your transfer manufacturer. You may find your plastisol transfers are produced with a thick underbase so they can be used on dark and light garments.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

Plastisol transfers will be soft because of the press. when someone wants a soft print I screen print and heat press for 10 sec with parchment paper Teflon leaves a grid pattern 

For soft vinyl I use thermal flex plus. Press for the standard time 22sec use a chalk board eraser to quickly rub the design and pull carrier while warm. Then recover with Teflon or parchment paper and press another 10-12 sec. I did some numbers that usually screen print and the customer wanted a differnt font so I used vinyl and they thought I had screened them.


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## KaySh (Oct 12, 2011)

Thanks Rich and sben.

I am trying to summarize what I learned...

1) If the shirt color is dark and I want my design to be pop and vivid, most likely screenprinting / plastisol transfer will require underbase, which will be harder-hand than without. 

2) There are ways to make it very soft without underbase, like using waterbase printing. I am not familiar with the screenprinting term"discharge". I will search / Google after this.

I will be using vinyl (Flexcut Sticky) for this small qty tech shirt project but for future work I am going to have to find a couple of reliable local screenprinters. Yellowpages here I come...

sben,
Can you possibly overcook vinyl by pressing too long?

Richie,
Where are you located? Probably not my area, but just in case I need a quality screenpriting service 

Thanks!!
Kay


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

1. Yes the more the ink the more the hand you will have 

2. There is always waterbased. Discharge is a reaction where the dye from the tshirt is discharged. Both water base and discharge require special equipment. Dish charge can be dangerous without proper ventilation. 

Some vinyls will loose the adhesive is pressed too long. I can only speak of the thermal flex plus for double pressing. Haven't tried double pressing with other brands.


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## 20vK (Jul 9, 2011)

I live on a small island -so definitely not local! ha ha!


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

But your Richie Rich. Local has no boundaries.


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## 20vK (Jul 9, 2011)

HA HA HA!

No, I USED to be Richie Rich. Then my partner pulled a fast one and I'm now a screen printer - you know how tough that gig can be!

Hopefully I will be Richie Rich again


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## RasWayne (Aug 9, 2017)

Ladies and Gentleman, I want to say I enjoy reading your post, as I am gaining a vast amount of info and knowledge than I can possibly grasp in any one day or week for that matter etc. So, I am seeing a lot of the word usage "Hand" tossed about. Please explain, or I will google as well, what is that terminology in reference to?


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## mfatty500 (Jan 18, 2010)

RAswayne, as this post is 4.5 years old, it basically is the feel of the screen print or vinyl. Does it feel heavy/thick?, or have a smooth and silky/barely feel the print. Hope that helps. Welcome aboard, lots to soak in here. You can look at US cutter forum also.


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## into the T (Aug 22, 2015)

i think i sent RasWayne here for the great advice sben763 gave

although i don't use thermoflex, i used his method with a sample i had on one of my test shirts
the design is still like new after 40+ wash/dry cycles (nary a wrinkle to be found, and still has a great hand)


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## mfatty500 (Jan 18, 2010)

I like the feel of Thermoflex, but not real fond of the way it cuts and weeds. It seems to be more rubbery to me.


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## into the T (Aug 22, 2015)

it does tend to pull like taffy when weeding,
you really have to dial in your cut settings so it cuts the pu, but no mark on the carrier
then it seems to weed quite nice, without excessive taffy-pull

the pu we use now is like that, but on a non-sticky liner
and it was a joy to not have everything stick to the carrier
it did take a bit to dial it in, worth it though for the look and feel on the tee
i think that extra rubber feeling gives it that nice stretch capability and hand


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