I’ve been playing around with Heat Transfer Vinyls in the Glowforge, and it has worked out pretty well. One of my son’s baseball coaches recently had a baby, so I thought I’d throw together some custom Onesies with some baseball phrases on the back.
I’m using Siser Easyweed Stretch vinyl. Here are some tips that worked well for me on a Pro - you may have to play around with settings on a standard model:
- Set Speed to 500.
- Set Power to 22.
- One pass.
- .01 Thickness.
- Place the Vinyl shiny-side down. (clear plastic backing down)
- Make sure text is REVERSED in the image.
At these settings, the laser won’t pierce the entire sheet - it generally only cuts through the vinyl layer, and not the clear plastic backing. (although at corners it sometimes goes all the way through). After the cut, I use a dental pick and tweezers to “weed” out the sections I don’t want. Then I use a cheap t-shirt press from Amazon (305 degrees for 15 seconds) to press the vinyl into the shirt. I’ve got some t-shirts I did a while ago, and the text has held up after many washings.
After the cut, the vinyl may look a little imperfect, however it’s amazing how well these come out once heat-pressed to the fabric. Be careful with font selection, or you’ll spend a bunch of time weeding out the bits you don’t want.
