Printing onto Elastic (waistband material)

[ElasticLiz]

Hi All,

I am a newbie here so please excuse any general ignorance, I am still making my way through the wealth of information on this forum!

Sooooo... I am looking for a way to add designs to elastic waistband material. My research has led me to using sublimation printing, but I have yet to find a post on here confirming that it is possible to use this method on the material I am planning to use. The elastic will be in strips measuring 5cm x 33cm, so my plan would be to print the designs on A3 paper (I should be able to get 5 designs per sheet), cut them out, then heat press them.

I am thinking about purchasing the Ricoh SG7100DN and the 38cm x 28cm Clam Press from Xpres to do this - any thoughts would be welcome. Obviously before I jump in it would be great to test first, so if anyone has a similar setup and a little expert knowledge, and would be willing to test print some designs for me I would be forever grateful!

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Liz

[purpledragon]

BIt difficult this one
the elastic would need to be polyester apart from that have you considered the effect it would have once printed and the elastic stretched? im guessing here so i could well be wrong but if you print onto a surface that streches, then only the area thats at rest (best way i can thing of describing it) will be printed therefore when strechted wouldnt there be white gaps between the print ?
i suppose the best way to find out would be to send someone a sample of the elastic you plan to use and see if it will print up . it needs to be polyester as already mentioned and also white . feel free to inbox me and id be happy to try a piece for you

[pisquee]

Also, the heat could affect the elasticity of the band. you could print it prestretched, but again this would cause the image to look thin when unstretched.

[daviddeer]

Found this link which is a company which does exactly what you are after. Seems they can do it without too much of a problem. If you feel like popping over to Rhode Island I am sure they will show you around lol.

[NikGrey]

Hi Liz,
I'm happy to do some testing for you, if nothing else I will be adding to my own experience ! I have a Ricoh so we would be using the same inks.

PM me if you like and we can sort it out - just send me some samples. I'm new to this myself though - still haven't opened up to the public (long story) but I have been beavering away for 4 months now experimenting with different things.

Oh, and Welcome to the forum.

[pisquee]

One thing away from the technicalities of printing onto the waistbands, is are you buying the Ricoh A3 printer and heat press just to print waistbands? This would seem a huge investment for such a small price item, unless there is a market for high-end/designer waistbands? Or do you have other plans for the set-up, or are you adding the waistband to another garment? would the addition of the waistband add enough value to the garment to justify the expenditure on the equipment?
If you're just wanting printed waistbands, it may be better for you to outsource their production so you don't have the big outlay on equipment.
How many printed waistbands will you need to sell before you break even?

[ElasticLiz]

Hi all, thanks for getting back to me so quickly! It seems like printing onto elastic using sublimation is fairly standard, however the big boys use pre printed films and rotary heat presses. I am hoping a smaller setup in my design studio will work just as well!

Pisquee - I agree that the setup would be a bit steep for making just waistbands but I am actually going to be using the elastic to make another product with a higher price point. Having the kit myself would mean I can make smaller design runs and create prototypes. I may well use the printer for other products in the future too. You will be surprised how quickly I will be able to break even if all goes to plan

NikGrey - Thanks for the offer it would be great if you could do some initial tests for me. If you can pm your address I will send over some elastic for you to play with:)

Thanks all!

[pisquee]

I was thinking either you had rather big dreams for personalised waist bands, or you hopefully had another product that these would be added to - I am glad it's the latter.

[matthewgu]

Hi Everyone

I am doing some custom designs on a client's underwear waistbands and my research had led me to believe that sublimation is the best method. I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences printing on waistband elastic (especially with sublimation)?

Did you run into any problems? Did the colours turnout nicely on the elastic? And how does stretching affect the look?

Thanks...any tips and direction will help

Matt