Printers

Laser Transparent can be printed on most non oilbased Laser printers.

If you require a laser printer, Serigraf can supply you with our recommended Oki laser printers, offering unbeliveable colour prints on our tansfer paper, ultra sharp and vibrant.

A4 Oki C610

Technical + Pressing Info

Transfer Settings for Cotton

	Automatic Heat Press	Manual Heat Press
Transfer Application	180c, 15 seconds under 2bar	180c, 15 seconds medium-heavy pressure, pressure may vary depending on the press
Remove	After 15 seconds cooling, peel in a smooth easy motion	After 15 seconds cooling, peel in a smooth easy motion
Fixing	Repress fo 15 seconds, 5bar	Repress fo 15 seconds, Heavy Pressure

Transfer Settings for Polyester

	Automatic Heat Press	Manual Heat Press
Transfer Application	180c, 30 seconds under 2bar	180c, 30 seconds medium-heavy pressure, pressure may vary depending on the press
Remove	After 15 seconds cooling, peel in a smooth easy motion	After 15 seconds cooling, peel in a smooth easy motion
Fixing	Repress fo 15 seconds, 5bar	Repress fo 15 seconds, Heavy Pressure

Printing Laser Transparent

When printing Laser Transparent, we recommend that you feed the sheet in one at a time through the bypass tray.

Laser Transparent will not run in plain paper mode for almost all printers. It is likely to run in Heavy 1 to Label 2 mode. When you run Laser Transparent in plain mode, you will notice the image will not print very well [toner offsetting]. To check if the toner is properly fused to the transfer, take a piece of tissue and rub the image, send a few sheets of blank paper through the printer to get rid of the excess toner left in the fuser Then try the next heavier paper mode. Keep repeating until the problem is gone.

Pressing onto the Garment.
Laser Transparent is a one step heat press process and can be mastered with practice. The extra repress step with a silicon sheet is to ensure better wash resistance. When pressing Laser Transparent, ensure that you follow the instructions.

TroubleShooting

Polymer Window on the unimaged areas.

If you get a polymer window or partial polymer window on your image where there is no toner, there are two possible reasons for this.

1.) When peeling, the wait was too long. We recommend peeling the paper 15 seconds after heat pressing. This wait can vary depending on the fabric.Thin fabrics will require less wait time and thicker ones will require more. Waiting too long to peel will result in some polymer window being left behind. And if you wait too long, the backing paper may stick to the shirt and peeling the backing paper off will be next to impossible.

2.) If the temperature is too high or the press time too long, it will also leave a polymer window on the shirt. Laser Transparent is designed to be pressed at 180c for 15 seconds.

So if you get a large visible polymer window, check your press temperature to ensure it is not too high. And check to make sure that you have not waited too long to peel. Heat press temperatures can vary from press to press, sometimes as high as 15c, please check your press with a temperature gun.

Incomplete Image Transfer
If you get an incomplete image transfer, there are 4 reasons why this could be:

1.) You used drop shadows, gradients or skin tones. This is not a defect in the paper, it is a limitation of the paper because of how drop shadows, gradients, or skin tones are created using toner. Laser Transparent will only print solid colors consistently. Either print the photograph on regular laser transfer paper such as Classic Universal or edit your graphic so that it contains solid colors only. With some gradients, Laser Transparent will print perfectly, but we always suggest you test first.

2.) You didn’t wait long enough to peel the backing paper off. As mentioned before, different fabrics will require different wait times depending on how thick it is. Thin fabrics will require less wait time and thicker ones will require more.

3.) You didn’t apply enough pressure when pressing. Pressure will also affect the transfer and is more evident in light colors such as yellows, beige, etc. Also with insufficient pressure, it will affect the wash resistance of the final product.

4.) The toner may be incompatible with the paper. However this is rarely the case as most of the time, images will transfer fine even with incompatible toners, but will not wash very well. There are many different brands of OEM toners and third party toners. If you are using third party toners, with approved brands of printers, please test to ensure that the third party toners are compatible with Laser Transparent.

Incomplete Transfer - This is a combination of not enough pressure and not waiting long enough to peel

Wash Results
After Pressing Laser Transparent to your garment, we also recommend you do a wash test before commercial production. Most of the time the wash is superb and no problems are encountered. However sometimes there are problems and here are the top 3 reasons why you may get poor wash results.

1.) The number 1 reason that bad wash results occur is from using an incompatible brand of toners. HP and Brother toners are incompatible with Laser Transparent. They may transfer fine, but once washed, almost the entire image will wash out. This problem is amplified more when you put the garment through a dryer.

2.) Insufficient pressure. Like all laser transfer papers, you need a lot of pressure to fuse the transfer paper coating onto the fibers of the shirt. With insufficient pressure, the image will still transfer to the shirt perfectly, and you will only be able to tell after you have done a wash test. One of the easiest ways to correct insufficient pressure is to put the press onto a lower table so you have more leverage. The ideal height of the bottom platen of the press should be around your stomach. Using an automatic press will also ensure heavy and consistent pressure

3.) Using bleach, harsh/corrosive detergent or fabric softener to wash the garment may give you poor wash results. Most transfer papers are not designed to withstand rough wash cycles. Even with normal t-shirts, putting it through rough wash cycles and the dryer will reduce the life of the fabric.