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Printing onto Leather
Hi everyone
has anyone any experience of printing onto leather? I have a client asking about lettering and imaging onto a leather jacket.
I have heat pressed Xpres Inkjet Dark onto leather samples and it works fine but the heat press really flattens the leather and I wouldnt want to ruin an expensive jacket.
Anyone any tips or tricks for this???
Regards
John -
15 Replies
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sorry can`t help you with your search,
but make sure you print on the understanding you can`t be held responsible for any damage to the jacket.
you don`t want to do a job for £10 and then get asked to replace the £100 jacket because of a burn mark or smudge…
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Going to be do a sample print run on some leather for an upholsterer / restorer friend who specialises in the restoration of old and expensive car interiors. Will let you know how we get on.
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hi john depends on what sort of image you want on the jacket
we do a lot of work with racers and the sponsors badges these are vinyl encapsulated and stitched onto the leather we used to have them embroidered but found they would collect moisture and mist up behind encapsulate also a lot of stuff can be built up with the diff coloured leather as you would vinyl we pass lots of this on to Scott leathers at Barnard castle who make custom leathers made to measure i have seen full colour images but these have been painted onto the leather as you would in the 50s on your (i think they were called havasacks) mostly something like lead zepelany or studiuse qwo ? some of the older guys may be able to elaborate
some of the built up stuff in leather is really good cartoon characters etc
i would imagine screen printing would be an option but for one offs expensive keep us posted as your search is something we are interested in
Dex -
I think you can print onto leather using the system from the magic touch
http://www.themagictouch.co.uk/store/erol.html
Look under Applications, then leather products
sorry, I thought the above link would have taken you straight there
paul r
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thanks for all the replies.
Am going to follow up The Magic Touch and check out some biker stuff in the USA also going to try pressing with different temps and pressures – so will report back.
Cheers
John
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Send the job out to a company with a UV curable ink printer. NOT a HP or something fitted with UV resistant ink.
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Thanks Tony
Would such a company be able to print directly onto the garment or is it done by via a transfer?What is the difference between UV curable and UV resistant. Is there and extra process in curing or is it just different inks/dyes/pigments?
John
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UV curable uses UV to cure the inks. UV curable is becoming a lot bigger and in a few years may replace normal inks as there is little or no harmful chemicals, they are also resist fading from UV light.
UV resistant are just resistant to UV and usually dry normaly by evaporation.
Steve
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well i kept quiet here, but silk-screen printing onto the leather would be a big worry for both the printer and the owner of the jacket… however there is an ink called “Nylo-bag” made by sericol, it is a catalist ink and when printed it takes 24-48 to go off, only really suitable to one colour jobs. Also the silk-screen printer normally has to clean the screen quickly as the ink can damage the screens! it is the nastiest ink and is used on surfaces (mainly nylon jackets) that cannot be printed any other way.
However I am suprised that some vinyl routes cannot be used, this would be my preffered option if it is possible.
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Is it a simple layout – few colors etc.
What about cutting some mask and paiting it on with 1shot?
I think 1shot holds up on leather -
quote DaveRowland:“Nylo-bag” made by sericol, it is a catalist ink and when printed it takes 24-48 to go off, only really suitable to one colour jobs. Also the silk-screen printer normally has to clean the screen quickly as the ink can damage the screens! it is the nastiest ink and is used on surfaces (mainly nylon jackets) that cannot be printed any other way.
.is there an answer to printing on leather dave? 😀
nik
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oh yes.. just come to me Nik.. my friends at <oh i advertised :lol1: >, they print gold leaf on leather for Books using a foil machine, it uses a heat and foil embossing stamp type print. It looks great, however not really for jackets.
I don’t know any other way Nik regards using screens and inks… just think if the jacket moved.. also if it has any seams in the print area then your stuffed.
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There must be an answer. I used to know a lad who printed colours and multi-coloured patterns onto leather for Doc Marten boots and that had to be fairly robust.
Unfortunately he went out off business and moved away some years ago so I can’t ask him. 🙁
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I used to work as an engineer at K shoes and used to make heat embossing dies.
One machine we had used 1 die for each colour with colour foils on a roll, It used to take near a day to setup the head alignment etc but they did a really good job. I would think that the foils are similar to the Gerber type ones, don’t know what base they were though.
The heads were very hot, 100 C +Not sure if any of that is any use but heat embossing is what’s used in production.
Maybe you can use a satin lacquer over the top of a sublimation transfer.
Someone I knew at school used to spray leather jackets as well, used to lose the initial newness really quick but lasted for ever after that.
Just found this link on the web http://www.opus90.com may give you some ideas, basically it’s digital tattooing
Steve
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My company uses a UV flat bed printer, I’ll try out a sample on leather just to see but its prints to pretty much anything that can take the heat of the UV lamps. We did some rugs, doors & tiles the other day which came out really well, we we’re only testing it does seem to take to most substrates if you leave it a day or two to cure properly.
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