# Dye Subliamtion on 100% Cotton



## amir2009 (Mar 21, 2013)

I recently saw a brand release 100% cotton tee with full color dye sublimation on them, Does anyone know a printer that does that?

If the printer is in canada (ontario, quebec region), that would be great


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## Skinbus (Jul 2, 2007)

I thought dye-sub was only used on 100% polyester & hard surfaced items. Mugs for instance.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Doesn't exist -


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

you can not dye sublimation cotton....period...the process of sublimation is the ink will only bond with polyester. you may have seen a cotton tee with dye ink transfer which is not the same as dye sublimation ink


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

There are companies that claim they have a pretreatment that allows for dye sublimation on cotton...

They lie, it sucks. Dye sublimation only works on polyester substrates period.

Now, cotton garments can be fully printed cut & sew as well, or an all-over belt print, or other full printing method. Sublimation is not the only printing process in which you can achieve a 100% fully printed garment.


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## amir2009 (Mar 21, 2013)

thanx for all the comments guys

Proof: here is just one example of this brands 100% cotoon tee with sublimation printing

SHARP TOOTH | Rook Brand Clothing


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

amir2009 said:


> thanx for all the comments guys
> 
> Proof: here is just one example of this brands 100% cotoon tee with sublimation printing
> 
> SHARP TOOTH | Rook Brand Clothing


Too funny - so you believe since it is on the internet it must be true? 

Heck if you want to convince yourself it is possible have at it.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

It says it has a sublimation of a shark. It also says it is 40 ringspun cotton. What's the other 60%? If it's polyester then yes it could be sublimated but it will wash out anything on the cotton and what you will have left is a faded shark.

There are a lot of people out there who don't really know what sublimation is. They think it's the same thing as heat transfers but more expensive so they toss the term around without really knowing what they're talking about. Not saying this is the case but it does happen. I get calls every day from people wanting me to sublimate on cotton. It cannot be done.


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## Eview1 (Apr 29, 2010)

I bet it is a typo, call them. Looks like dye sub on poly..sorry sometimes they get it (the words) wrong 




amir2009 said:


> thanx for all the comments guys
> 
> Proof: here is just one example of this brands 100% cotoon tee with sublimation printing
> 
> SHARP TOOTH | Rook Brand Clothing


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

Guess you have to sign up to see the 100% cotton.


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## D.Evo. (Mar 31, 2006)

+1 to what everyone else is saying - can't dye-sub on cotton. If it's a blend with 60% poly, the print can be done, but will look "vintage" after a wash.
One possible scenario comes to mind - there are fabrics on the market that look and feel like cotton, but in fact it's 100% ring-spun polyester. Maybe the shirts where made of this type of fabric, but labled misleadingly. I don't know this brand and don't know how they do things, but I have sublimated fabric of this type for clients and later was very surprised to see ready made garments sold with tags that say "100% cotton" or "poly/cotton" blend.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

D.Evo. said:


> +1 to what everyone else is saying - can't dye-sub on cotton. If it's a blend with 60% poly, the print can be done, but will look "vintage" after a wash.
> One possible scenario comes to mind - there are fabrics on the market that look and feel like cotton, but in fact it's 100% ring-spun polyester. Maybe the shirts where made of this type of fabric, but labled misleadingly. I don't know this brand and don't know how they do things, but I have sublimated fabric of this type for clients and later was very surprised to see ready made garments sold with tags that say "100% cotton" or "poly/cotton" blend.


Well actually I saw tee the other day that was 70% cotton and 30% polyester but the polyester was all on the other side so it could be sublimated......


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## kenji919 (Mar 22, 2013)

really guys doesnt anyone see the obvious?? it says right there in plain english that it is 65% poly 35% cotton blend. why and where would anyone think it says 100% cotton??


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## PicTheGift (Aug 1, 2012)

It says 65% poly and 35% cotton which will produce a nice dye sub shirt. Not sure how the post got started with a 100% cotton sub shirt, but as everyone stated it is not possible to sub on cotton and have any of the ink stay. 

There are a few people out there that actually use sub ink on transfer paper and call it sub to cotton, but the only think holding the ink on the shirt is the transfer paper film so it would be less confusing if they would call it what it is and say it is a heat transfer. Just a waste of sub ink when regular ink will do the same job!


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## neilb (Jan 14, 2012)

kenji919 said:


> really guys doesnt anyone see the obvious?? it says right there in plain english that it is 65% poly 35% cotton blend. why and where would anyone think it says 100% cotton??


Yep because the page has been changed, it certainly didn't say it right there in plain english earlier, it claimed the shirt was 40 cotton whatever that means.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

The page that was posted has changed since this thread began......40 singles is term to do with the construction of the cotton.....Google or Wikipedia is a useful resource......


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## neilb (Jan 14, 2012)

I know what 40 singles is, it didn't say 40 singles it said 40 cotton which could be the percentage, the weight or something else altogether.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Well actually it said "40 single ring spun cotton".....


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## neilb (Jan 14, 2012)

Ah, my apologies. I remembered it differently.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

And I just checked Google caches and most shirt that were listed as "40 single ring spun cotton" are now listed as "65% POLYESTER 35% COTTON"....Obviously they are aware of their error and have corrected their web listings.....


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## PicTheGift (Aug 1, 2012)

Nice Detective work...remind me to stay on your good side!


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## jfisk3475 (Jan 28, 2011)

Vapor sells a shirt that feels like cotton. Can full sub on it

Sent from my SGH-T679 using T-Shirt Forums


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## delarose (Jun 2, 2013)

The brand Pray for Paris I believe use sublimation printing on the American apparel fine jersey (100% cotton) 'sublimation-T' .. How is this possible? They have a lot of good consumer feedback & a good reputation for quality as far as i know.


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

delarose said:


> The brand Pray for Paris I believe use sublimation printing on the American apparel fine jersey (100% cotton) 'sublimation-T' .. How is this possible? They have a lot of good consumer feedback & a good reputation for quality as far as i know.


No they don't. They use an American Apparel sublimation T.

You cannot sublimate on cotton. Anyone who tells you they are is lying to you. Don't let them scam you.


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## T Industry (Mar 22, 2010)

I think its called chromoblast


Sent from my iPhone using TShirtForums app


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

> You cannot sublimate on cotton. Anyone who tells you they are is lying to you.


I hear and see this written so often and it is simply wrong.
You can sublimate into cotton that is saturated with a fast drying polymer. It initially looks a little faded or vintaged compared to polyester, but still allows the vibrant colours. It is incredibly resistant to hot washing sun and tumble drying and abuse. It has absolutely no hand. It retains its colour far better and longer than any heat transfer I have seen including JPSS. 

The problem is. It is a hit and miss process. (sometimes it works perfectly) You use a spray polymer similar to the stuff they spray over artworks to protect them. It is probably illegal to market the finished product in the US and many other countries. If you don't completely saturate the fibres it is a waste of time. A can of spray costs $10 and will only do 4-5 shirts. You have to wash the shirt before you can sell it anyway - who wants to buy a pre-washed shirt. It takes way too long. If you don't do it right you get a horrible looking border around your print that will not wash out. Oddly enough when I got this I realised I had actually succeeded.

Honestly it is not worth the effort if you plan to sell the finished product.
On the other hand, I sometimes like to wear a cotton tee, so I print my own using this process - just because I can.

There is a picture on this forum of me wearing one of these shirts that had been washed around 30 times. The same shirt is still looking the same after another 10 or so washes. No sign of fading. All the earlier processes I tried retain the vibrancy but the dye washed out gradually. Only this one process worked.

It is no secret. It is simple. It works, sometimes.

So it is not entirely correct to say you cannot sublimate 100% cotton. As long as the cotton fibres are saturated with a polymer that will not wash out, you can. It is just not practical and definitely not viable commercially.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

So what you are saying is you can not sublimate on 100% cotton but you can sublimate onto the polymer that has been applied to the 100% cotton shirt.....


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## 20vK (Jul 9, 2011)

So you are actually sublimating a polymer, not the cotton. So you still cant sublimate cotton!

I hear where you are coming from, though.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Yes, you've got it. In previous posts I always referred to it as sublimating 'into' cotton. 
Just as you can dye a 100% cotton shirt by saturating it with the right stuff (dye), you can sublimate into a 100% cotton shirt by saturating it with the right stuff (polymer) then dying the polymer (sublimating it).

Once the cotton fibres are saturated it is little different than if it was a dyed shirt. I have tried using products like PolyTW and a lot of other polymers that all washed out. Only saturating the cotton with a crystal clear polymer spray lets enough of the stuff bond into the fibres, but lets the cotton return to a nice soft cloth after washing.

Applied with enough pressure for a while the dye gets right into the polymer that is more or less permanently glued intoto the smallest fibres. Because so much is saturated, it works. But it is smelly, messy and all the other things I mentioned. It can take around 20 minutes to make a tee and that is without the time involved in waiting for the polymer to dry and hot washing and tumble drying after.

It is simply not commercially viable.


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

rossdv8 said:


> Honestly it is not worth the effort if you plan to sell the finished product.


And so again I say *you cannot sublimate on to cotton. * ever. It does not work. I encourage anyone to try and find a way, but *there are no commercially available solutions to sublimate on to cotton*


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Using headfirst's logic you can't sublimate a ceramic mug either - or many of the other substrates we use - but we all do it!


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

rossdv8 said:


> Using headfirst's logic you can't sublimate a ceramic mug either - or many of the other substrates we use - but we all do it!


Where do you get that?

We're talking about cotton. Just cotton.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

JollyRoger4040 said:


> We are working with an ink and heat press company here in the States that will soon have a machine and ink that goes onto all cotton products. it wont be for the garage type guys but for the people serious about it and have a large warehouse.


What does this have to do with dye sublimation?


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

> Where do you get that? We're talking about cotton. Just cotton.


Because using my logic, if we treat cotton like any other substrate that also 'cannot' be sublimated - we can sublimate it. 

My objection is not that sublimating cotton is difficult. I object to people saying you 'cannot' sublimate 100% cotton shirts, when in fact you can sublimate prepared cotton and several of us do - if you treat it like any other substrate that, except for the polymer pre-treatment, cannot be sublimated.

The comparison with ceramics is simply to show that pre-treatment has been an accepted practice for years. It doesn't matter whether you want to sublimate a cotton shirt, cotton towels, ceramic mugs and tiles or an aluminium sheet. Pre-treatment is acceptable.

My view is that while it can be done, it is not commercially viable at the moment.
First pic is original image
Second is shirt after about 30-40 washes
Third pic is after 40-50 washes
Notice there is almost no fading in fact image looks brighter. that is simply because of the light. Colour is not washing out. The collage pic shows just how bright images can be. Fading is the same as first shirt.

BTW, these jobs are done using LINUX so i am not able to use ICC profiles.

On this forum somewhere should be pics of this shirt back in February - and colour still doesn;t change. the shirt is worn several times a week, wahsed several times a week in very hot water, using detergent and hot tumble dried.


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

rossdv8 said:


> it is not commercially viable at the moment.


Exactly my point.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

Not commercially viable for end users to be pre-treating cotton for printing, but neither really is coating your own ceramic mugs, if we follow the analogy already brought up, then there would need to be a factory churning out pretreated cotton t-shirts with a sublimatable panel - this could either be a coating, or even a polyester fabric panel sewn on.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

I hang a shirt over a frame, spray saturate the side that I need to print using a crystal clear type aerosol polymer that is used to coat art work, dry it in a tumble dryer, wash the shirt in hot water to prevent an overspray border, tumble dry it again to remove lint, press using sublimation paper, then hot wash and tumble dry again.

Far too many steps. The actual hands on work is about 20 minutes, the rest is done while other jobs are completed - but no normal customer will buy a shirt that has been washed twice before sale. Fortunately the people that are happy to buy from me are the sort that will buy pre-washed denim.

So while it is not commercially viable at the moment - it works, and it works fairly well. I am sure there are much smarter people than me working on a simpler way to do this.

The results are better in some ways than DTG, with absolutely no hand and nice bright colours that last. 

Most of my sales are from sublimating hard items, and shirts are just something I do because I have the equipment. Because of that I can actually sell pre washed garments. But while cotton/sub is not a commercial reality yet, it makes an interesting sideline as a hobby.

I'll stick to polyester/sub and corrn/JPSS for work and keep doing cotton/sub for personal use and for the people that order them.

I'm also curious about the treatment available from Malaysia but it would need to be better than Poly TW that I used earlier in my experiments. It only lasts 5 - 10 washes until it fades.


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

I sublimate print to all kinds of fabrics that aren't cotton. They are for unique products I make that are never washed -- commemorative shadow boxes and the like, for example. The dyes will transfer; they just won't set. Setting isn't a problem if the fabric is not intended to be washed or cleaned. The fabrics aren't t-shirt material, and the other imprinting candidates like JPSS are not suitable. 

This forum is called t-shirtforums, but many of us make things other than t-shirts. I never found a sustainable market for t-shirts, as I found it way overcrowded. So I just sat down and thought of other things I could use my equipment for. Art doesn't always have to be put on a shirt. It can be hung up, put in a frame around someone's picture, and more. I don't have a wide-format printer that can directly print to fabrics, and "fake" sub printing is a good alternative.

Ross, I'm not sure there's anything better than DyeSub's stuff, though you'll encounter the odd YouTube video that pretends the printing is absolutely colorfast. They're just trying to sell you something you know is too difficult to return overseas.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

GordonM said:


> This forum is called t-shirtforums, but many of us make things other than t-shirts. I never found a sustainable market for t-shirts, as I found it way overcrowded. So I just sat down and thought of other things I could use my equipment for. Art doesn't always have to be put on a shirt. It can be hung up, put in a frame around someone's picture, and more. I don't have a wide-format printer that can directly print to fabrics, and "fake" sub printing is a good alternative.
> 
> Ross, I'm not sure there's anything better than DyeSub's stuff, though you'll encounter the odd YouTube video that pretends the printing is absolutely colorfast. They're just trying to sell you something you know is too difficult to return overseas.


Well stated - there are so many crazy things you can do with dye sub if we all think outside the box. It seems we gut stuck into ruts to the point most post are now about cell phone cases and coffee mugs.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks Gordon. Just because I don't see sublimating treated cotton as a commercially viable process for t-shirts, your reminder that there are other opportunities is timely.

I got into sublimation as an adjunct to my photo prints on canvas. I bought a second hand mug press from someone that told me a lot of lies. For a few extra dollars I ended up with a flat press as well. Then I discovered sublimation needed special inks and printers etc.

I have been extending my photo prints by sublimating to a polyester canvas for one particular niche market. What I just realised from your reply is that I can also use my cotton process to sublimate into treated cotton canvas, treated cotton of various sorts.

I am happy to sell a few sublimated cotton shirts now I know the process works and is colour fast - just because I can. Now though, I can see a lot of other uses for this cotton treatment process that 'are' commercial.

I moved away from DyeSub Poly TW and exclusively use the aerosol polyester sprays. These sprays seem to be able to penetrate the cotton fibres but once they are heat dried they stand up to hot washing over and over.

That means they should also work great on photo art that will not need to be washed. They should also be great for cushions etc. I wonder if they will work on cotton towelling or cotton bar runners


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

Ross, Do you have a brand for the aerosol spray you use? Is this like Digi-coat, or something similar?

Wall hangings and tapestries are seldom washed, even when they've been hanging up for years, so cotton (or whatever) fabric works well here. The only other issue I've come up against is that sub dyes don't tend to be as UV colorfast as the pigment dyes. Few people keep their art by a window anyway, but I remind them not to have it in direct sunlight long term. So, no using it as an awning!


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

Ross, Do you have a brand for the aerosol spray you use? Is this like Digi-coat, or something similar?

Wall hangings and tapestries are seldom washed, even when they've been hanging up for years, so cotton (or whatever) fabric works well here. The only other issue I've come up against is that sub dyes don't tend to be as UV colorfast as the pigment dyes. Few people keep their art by a window anyway, but I remind them not to have it in direct sunlight long term. So, no using it as an awning!


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Hi Gordon,

The product I used initially was called 'Crystal Clear' and is here: Micador Crystal Clear - Micador . It is pretty nasty stuff in confined areas and is specifically for protecting drawings and paintings etc.

The one I've used when I can't get the Micador product is: White Knight Paints - Crystal Clear Acrylic .

You should be able to find something similar in a craft shop. 

I did the shirts back in January and the beginning of February just to test the idea. Since then I've been wearing the ones I didn't sell 2 or 3 times a week and washing, washing, washing. Because of that I didn't document what gave me the best results, because I honestly didn't expect it to last. The earliest shirts washed out pretty quickly, but the two I am wearing just keep on going.

I expect to do some more cotton shirts in the next week so, and I'll record everything as I go this time. I know you won;t be doing shirts, but you may as well know exactly which product worked best.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

For GordonM

This is using the CrystalClear by Micador. Pressed for 50 seconds

It will give you an idea what the result looks like on cotton.

You will have seen my discussion about using LINUX with no colour profile. 100_1008 is the original image - for comparison with the end resuls, Just for anyone who follows my experiments.

The shirt was washed straight away in water too hot to keep hands immersed in, with strong detergent.

It is hanging overnight. tomorrow I will hot tumble dry it and wash it in hoy water and detergent again. I'll try to remember to do it daily and photograph each time with a date stamp.

This might give a better answer to the 'is it possible' question for future reference. It still doesn't solve the problem of having to wash the product first.

On the other hand, for GordonM, it will give you an idea of what the result is like for other types of work.

Cheers,

RossD


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## BoydRiver (Aug 12, 2008)

An old thread but very interesting. I wonder if Ross ever took this forward or did Sawgrass buy him out?


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

Not sure why Sawgrass would want to buy him out, but he is still going with his experiments.


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## BoydRiver (Aug 12, 2008)

I could, a special printer with the first ink being the polymer perhaps.
Lots of money in that idea I suspect.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

He took it forward. The Crystal clear needed a lot of work to lock the colour, and was leaving a discoloured area around the print. I started testing some water based alternatives, and they more or less worked, but in about Feb 2013 I had 2 shirts that worked brilliantly. 

I had been reading all the posts telling me it was a waste of time and would never work, so I wasn;t properly documenting what I was doing. I had some success, but no more than 20 or 30 washes and it took me until around Christmas to find the combination and ratios I mixed to get the great results for about 100 washes.

Now I am working on fine tuning it and making it cheaper. And instead of supplying only people I know, I will supply them generally and see if there are any complaints.

It is fun and exciting. I can see a day in the very near future when someone like Sawgrass might patent this process - which is why I'm happy to share the basics, and give people enough info that they can look at it as a bit of a hobby as a break from business. But just for now I can't give out the exact mix because I suspect someone with a lot more money than me will tie it up.

I can say it is based loosely on the sub on cotton you can see on YouTube with the emulsion process.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

By you documenting what you are doing on two forums on the internet, you make it quite difficult for another company to patent what you are doing for themselves, especially without declaring your work as prior art.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

pisquee said:


> By you documenting what you are doing on two forums on the internet, you make it quite difficult for another company to patent what you are doing for themselves, especially without declaring your work as prior art.



But the law has changed in the US and the clock has been ticking and will be soon running out. 

As of March 2013 the US moved to a "first-to-file”system, it doesn't have to exactly mean a foot race to the patent office, the law allows "works in progress" but not filed yet to be considered, however, they give one year going backward for those to surface and be filed.

A good read on it is here ...

The New Law Effective Today: 35 U.S.C. 102 - Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)

In plain English here ...

“First to file” patent law starts today: what it means in plain English — Tech News and Analysis

The general concept of this as a "process" has been existing for a couple of decades now, so a ton of prior art in the public domain exists for this, what would have to be done is to make something unique and "novel" likely in the chemicals and show something that was not done before and sets this apart from prior art.

For example Sawgrass didn't patent sublimation inks for inkjet printers, their claim is a chemical that keeps the ink from clogging up the printhead during the printing process, and not the actual idea of inks that can sublimate surfaces, there was prior art for that. 

Not to wander in the value or the real meaning of what the SG patent is, they simply claim to have improved an existing process and claimed specifically adding a chemical to the inks.

The OP mentioned Feb 2013 as the date he got his process working. It appears that other work he did predates even that date.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks Mike. To be honest, at the moment I am trying to work out exactly what is was I did a year ago. I got a whole lot of things that said 'poly' on the labels, and treated cheap shirts, then sublimated the result. Some looked great for a short time, then faded wash by wash. some washed out almost immediately. 

I then added some things to a few of the most promising substances, and tried again, with similar, if slightly more durable results in general. By the end of 6 months most had faded to faint images. 

But two of them I had been wearing two or three times a week as work shirts and soaking and machine washing, hot washing. One had even had a coating I tried to use to lock the print in, ball up the fibres and I scraped the little coloured balls off the whole shirt with a razor blade.

It is now a year and at least 100 punishing washes and I've just given up trying to get these prints to die. Of course I had tough notes, but some things I tried were spur of the moment. I think I am almost there again. I can hot wash 10 times and not see much difference, but I did lose a little in one soak in boiling water for half hour - which means I have forgotten something.

When I decided to start again at Christmas it was because we've had 40 degree celsius days, and I really need cotton shirts for some activities. I just prefer sublimation. Every single JetPro or Ironall has some issues. The only cotton shirts I am happy wearing are the subbed ones.

I'm not going to make money out of the 'process'. If I fix this I will make money out of the sales, in fact people are quite happy with these shirts now, knowing they will get a good 20 weekly wears out of them. But they need to last as long as the shirt for me to be happy.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

If one really understand what is sublimation and how the process works, then you have your answer.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks Charles. 

I do understand the sublimation process. However it has been adapted for use with many materials that cannot be dyed using the sublimation. So as well as using it on plastics, polyester etc, we can also use it on organic and mineral materials like ceramics, aluminium, stainless steel, glass etc., and of course, cotton.

It is the use on cotton that is tricky for me. People are already coating the cotton with a layer of polymer and having acceptable results sublimating into that, but like any other method of applying decoration 'on' cotton, it eventually comes 'off'.

What I have been doing is impregnating the polymer 'into', rather than 'on' the cotton, then sublimating the dye through the fibres. That is the easy part. If you look at one of mu shirts you can see the pattern distinctly on the inside as well as the outside of the garment. In fact a couple of garments finished up printed through front to back.

What I am looking for now, is the accident that last year caused this print to be completely and indestructibly permanent. I have the proof here. I wear the proof regularly. I just cannot replicate the exact combination of materials and ratios. If I can do it twice by accident, I can do it regularly. I just never expected it to work so early on.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I have seen this type of hype over the past 15 years. None have made it. I remain a firm non believer at this time


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

Someone will get it right eventually.


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