Heat Transfer on to Polyester Roller Blind Fabric

[Kevin.Beck]

i had a sample of the same material dropped off at the shop, to try and print, yesterday.

It seemed alright, but i told the customer i couldn`t give any guarentees, as i can`t test rolling up and down the blind300+ times in a year.

My only concern, the image was alittle “bulky” due to to the exta thickness of the heatpress material.

I thought a better option might be, cut a stencil and paint/roll ink on to it. rather like a banner.. this would be a give a much thinner print. all you need do is sorce a ink suitable.

i`m giving sericol a ring..

[Paul Rollason]

Hi sandy

Heatpress film from different suppliers tend to be different thickness’
The thinest we have found are easymark from Victory 01246 570 570 or PU flex from Grafityp 01827 300500

I think either of these would be ok

You can get large heat presses from http://www.rasmart.co.uk

Another thing to consider is the UV stability of any material you use.

The t-shirt films are not tested for long term exposure to the sun and no one I asked were willing to commit one way or the other.

What about sublimation.

Paul R(Mackerelbus Design)

[Nicola McIntosh]

hi sandy cannot understand why the screenprinting ink fades on the roller blinds!! 😮 been printing them for years, without any complaints 😀 i still see blinds that were done 8 years ago and they still look great 😀

Nik

[Rodney Gold]

There is an easier option , printing directly onto meshes and using these as roller blinds. You use a large format solvet/eco-solvent inkjet printer to print directly on the front face of the mesh material. The material we use comes from a Co called Maizey plastics in south Africa – they import it so I cannot tell you the supplier – but Im sure it must be available in UK.
The beauty of the mesh is that it does not block light from the backside , even tho you printed the front you can see thru the back. It does filter the light and block the heat – its not totally translucent from the back side. You cannot see thru the mesh at ALL from the printed side!!!! So in terms of traditional rollers , when they down , the user of a mesh system can still see thru and most traditional roller blinds wont allow this.
Due to the fact tis a mesh , you can print at blindingly fast speed and lower resolution as you cant see banding on the mesh (you can if its real bad) and the low res is cos the mesh , due to its having holes cant display a high res image. thus printing these should be quite cheap.
We have used them for at least a year in a VERY high uv position as roller blinds in some outside facing windows in our showroom and have not had any fading issues. The meshes can be sewn and hang nicely, no curled edges etc. Can be used for roller and for louver blinds. The material is real cheap – about 2 quid a sq meter in our part of the world. It works marvellously for other applications too , like using it for office partitioning , depending on light , a supervisor can sit behind it and see right thru and no one can see in , we use it for other diverse stuff too , like as covering for aircon ducts , wind “transparent” banners , inside windows of vehicles etc.
The meshes are durable too , we roll ours up and down at least once a day , ie done at least 4-500 rolls and there is no ill effects , no abraision on the graphics etc. The material is fairly thin too , not thicker than a normal rolller blind so works on most roller mechanisms. It’s a wonderful media for advertising on in a retail environment.