Page 38 - Prnt21 magazine Jan-Feb 2023

| Textile Printing |Opportunity
the opacity and stretchability, while using the HP Indigo for the digital colours. It is a technique unique in Australia, that required a customised HP Indigo to marry with screen printing, and it has clearly worked, as it is now serving clients all over the country.
waste. The Brisbane manufacturing facility has been fully solar equipped, with 286 solar panels on the roof, with the result that even when everything is in use, which
is most of the time, the company is actually still feeding power back into the grid.
DIRECT-TO-FILM DEVELOPMENT
Direct-To-Film market (DTF) is
the big new trend in garment printing, because the film can be applied to virtually any fabric. Many traditional DTG systems only work with 100 per cent cotton, and not with any kind
of polyester, which is fine for most t-shirts, but not for sports team shirts for instance. DTF is digitally printed in mirror directly onto a PET release film, before
a hot melt powder adhesive is added to the wet ink. This can then be cured before, or just before, heat pressing to the garment, to avoid glue spread.
Mandy Olivier, general manager at Velflex, says, “DTF is the way of the future, and
is well suited to the short-run, on-demand market for multiple applications. For larger volumes a print service provider would outsource to UltraColour, we are the only printer in Australia providing the service.”
Velflex now has its new DTF consumables ready for market, with a special dedicated printer unit coming available for implementation this year.
“We provide print businesses with an opportunity to leverage their skills, print understanding, and customer base into a new revenue stream.” Mandy Olivier, Velflex
According to Olivier, UltraColour suffered no lack of demand during Covid, evidenced by the three screen lines pumping out work. The factory that was three times the size of its previous Sydney facility is now looking full. She says, “We provide print businesses with an opportunity to leverage their skills, print understanding, and customer base into a new revenue stream. We turn around work in good time, in short, medium or long run, to the highest standard. And we will teach our customers how to set up their own decorating arm.
Olivier says, “We are here to ease the customer’s pain points, we want to get them to a level where they say yes to every job.”
For print businesses looking at bringing decorating in-house, the company runs training sessions a couple of days a fortnight at their Brisbane showroom, which sees a maximum of six attendees personally instructed by Ben Carroll on how
to run and optimise a heat transfer operation. The investment in heat transfer is not large, and the skillset not difficult; the training sessions deal with all issues.
Environmental issues are at
the top of every agenda, with the government now committing the country to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030, and Velflex and UltraColour are fully on board. Carroll points out that local printing means lower emissions from shipping product from China, while short-run and on-demand means no
All plastics used by UltraColour are recyclable, and all inks are water based, so no nasty solvents going back into the eco-system.
For hard-pressed print businesses the market projections for personalised garment printing are more than encouraging. They all point to a surging market in volume and value. They also take account
of the big move to on-shoring, and the inherent advantages of localised production, again indicating a
real opportunity. And for print businesses the capex needed is not high, certainly not if you use a trade service like UltraColour.
Below
DTF coming soon: Mandy Oliver with the new dedicated DTF unit from Velflex
38 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023