Is multi-pass dye-sub printing possible?

[ArtyGamer]

Hey guys... I got a TAD adventurous tonight. Best game I've played this year (in terms of actual replay value) has to be inFAMOUS: Second Son and when I love a game, I want to wear shirts that celebrate it. The problem is, rather than just create a typical shirt design like I do for all the other gamer shirts I wear, I went a little overboard with this one because I love the art style... and so it's turned into a full-facing design.

Now, I'm not the kind of guy to shy away from a challenge and I reckon I could probably do this in several passes (many sheets of A3 at a time) but I wasn't sure if it was even possible. CAN you sublimate on to an already sublimated shirt or will it lift/affect the existing dye? The last thing I want to do is to successfully line up and press the first sheet, then the second sheet press ends up with an area of the existing print in the press and it fades or lifts the existing dye. I'm pretty sure that I could wash the shirt in between passes and that would ensure that each print was colour-fast... but that means a six-panel shirt will be SIX DAYS in the making. I don't want to farm this out to anyone as I genuinely prefer to make my own shirts (I only ever wear shirts that I've designed myself).

Is it possible??

[pisquee]

It takes a lot of patience and practise to line up a patched print, but even then it is rare to get perfect results.
Tape all the transfers together, so essentially they are one big piece of paper, and use 3M Scotchweld 75 to fix the transfer to the t-shirt, then patch-press it in sections as big as your press platen.

[soulclaimed]

I've tried something similar before but if you heat the same area for full press time it will not look good .

[ArtyGamer]

Well, thanks to pisquee saying that it was at least possible, I gave it a shot. Didn't have any of the 3M spray, so I was basically relying on the print just NOT MOVING while I moved the shirt around the press. I also had very little time as I was taking my kids to the local loch to enjoy the good weather (they'll realise when they get older that 'good' weather means dull, cool, and tolerable!) so I rushed it out. Six sheets of A3, cut and stuck with heat tape, then pressed. Bit of an alignment issue as I wasn't familiar enough with the design and assumed I should centre it when I really shouldn't have. It actually turned out a LOT better than I'd expected it to, all things considered. I'd never sell anything of that quality, but I wore it with pride around the loch today, that's for sure.

[socialgiraffe]

Marks out of 10.... I would give you 9.75 for that mate.

Excellent first attempt.

[ArtyGamer]

Thanks mate, I appreciate that. It was more curiosity than anything, and driven by the various artwork elements I found, otherwise I'd never have gone full-face. It's by far my favourite shirt though, and I'll likely wear it to death. Next time I'll take a lot more care over it, and will try that 3M spray that pisquee mentioned.

Typically... I started looking at A1/A0 printers and presses tonight even though I don't actually have any full-face designs that I can sell. It's one of those things where you think you're happy with your tech until you get a spark of inspiration and then convince yourself that you could probably make some money from it in the long run even though you probably won't and are only saying that to justify the expenditure. I think I'd rather go with an R-Jet 5 before going allover dye sub. Dunno. All I know is that I'm seriously hacked off with doing software development for almost eighteen years and selling my own designs is a very niche thing so I may have to branch into corporate/bulk work if I'm to break away from software entirely.

Man... now I want to try another full design :\

[RogerC]

SG your marking like Simon Cowell mate....hehe. I reckon for a first effort I'd go for the full 10/10. It's good to see experimenting being successful like this.

[pisquee]

Lay the transfers face down, and then you can tape all the way along them to join them, and then you should also tape the t-shirt to the transfer assuming you haven't got the 3M 75 spray.
We use to do this kind of thing a lot, along on raw fabric, rather than ready made tshirts, and didn't know about kapton/polymide tape, so just used masking tape!

[ArtyGamer]

I couldn't lay them face down as I included a 3mm print overlap on each one to avoid gaps, so I had to attach them face up. I did tape the back though, after I'd done the front, so that the transfers themselves wouldn't move away from each other. It was getting them to remain aligned on the shirt that was the tough part as the six sheets taped together were much larger than the shirt itself so I couldn't tape the shirt to the transfer... except that I COULD have flipped it over and laid the shirt on the transfer rather than the other way around. BUT I was being an idiot.

The annoying thing is that this was supposed to be a one-off thing just for myself and now friends are asking me to do something similar for them for their favourite games. As much as I hate saying no to people, there's no way I'm going through all that again for someone who will likely expect 'mates rates' anyway. My wife wants one of the same designs for herself. I'll likely do one for her, since she keeps me in tea and I rarely remember to make her any.

[pisquee]

You may find it easier to get someone else to print the transfers in one piece of large format paper, and you just do the pressing, which would be an easier job for you, and give you less faults in the end print (although still not 100% perfect) if you find there is demand for the product (although you couldn't pay someone else for transfers if people just wanted to pay you mates rates!)