Following on from our introduction post about working with graffiti website 010fuss on some sample clothing here is the first of a few posts about the different screen printing techniques that we tried out.

One of the first things that came to my mind when I saw this design was metalic! We decided that we would try two different techniques which both give a metalic effect but in a different way, so today I am going to be talking about the first technique which is called Foil Printing.

What is Foil Printing?

Foil Printing is a process whereby a layer of foil is glued to a garment (t-shirt, polo shirt, hoodie, etc) in a particular design. In our example this is the 010fuss logo. The foil can come in many different colours even including fades from one colour to another. For our experiment we tried out Gold, Silver and Red.

How does Foil Printing work?

Foil Printing uses two main garment printing techniques to achieve the effect. The process is as follows:

• The garment is screen printed with a regular screen, although instead of an ink, it is printed with a special glue.
• The garment is then put through the drier as you normally would with a screen printed t shirt, although instead of drying the ink, the dryer in this context makes the glue nice and tacky ready for the next stage.
• The garment is placed in a heat press.
• The foil is then cut to the correct size and placed on top of the glue on the garment.
• The garment is then heat pressed for a certain amount of time, then, when the heat press is lifted you are left with the foil stuck to the glued areas, and the excess just gets removed! Voila!

What are the Pro’s for using Foil Printing?

• It is SUPER shiny, in fact you could probably use a foil print as a mirror!
• It is the most shiny & dassling metalic form of printing that you can get.
• It doesn’t wear off like some transfers can, it will last just like a regular screen print.
• Did we mention? It’s SUPER shiny, kind of like Gold Leaf, but shinier!

What are the Negatives about Foil Printing?

• The process takes twice as long as regular screen printing and so you can expect to pay around twice as much.
• It is not quite as consistent as normal screen printing as some bits of foil, especially in small detailed designs may not stick.

Can I see some examples?

Sure, check out the images below, in order of how awesome I think they looked, Gold, Silver, & Red. Roll over the images to see close up detail, or click to see full image in large.

-James

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Articles, Screen Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.