What is HTV (Heat Transfer Vinyl)?
Heat transfer vinyl or HTV is a method of decorating or personalizing t-shirts, baby onesies, tote bags and other soft items using a polyurethane material specifically created for apparel decoration.
Mirror Your Image
When starting a new project, it is critical to mirror your images before sending the design to your vinyl cutting machine. This is a very important first step to HTV.
This step is missed by folks new to heat transfer vinyl decoration. From experience, it is extremely heartbreaking and frustrating to have a design cut and weeded only to realize the image was not mirrored during the design process leaving you with a useless piece of vinyl.
To mirror your image, you simply need to flip it horizontally in your design software or vinyl cutting software.
Shiny Side Down
After having the desired image ready to be sent to your vinyl cutting machine, place the shiny or glossy side of your vinyl sheet down onto your cutting mat.
The glossy clear plastic or AKA “carrier” acts as transfer tape holding the heat transfer vinyl pieces in place while the image is being cut. Later in the heat application process, the carrier will face up or shiny side up
Test Cut Setting
Many of these vinyl cutting machines such as the Silhouette Cameo and the Cricut Maker Machine are capable of cutting a large variety of material. This includes paper, vinyl, fabric, leather and even wood. For this reason, it is important to test the machine’s cutting setting with the material you will be using.
These cutting machines typically include a design studio software with preset cut settings based on material. It is always a great idea to test these presets on a test piece of material and adjust the cut pressure if needed.
Weeding Box
Removing the excess vinyl around your design is known as weeding. This process can be tedious when removing excess vinyl around a complicated design such as script fonts.
Creating a weeding box around your design can make the weeding process easier. This box gives you an easy method of removing a large portion of excess vinyl with one pull and also gives you a straight cut line after the design has been weeded out. This box can act as an alignment tool when layering multiple pieces.
Pre-Press
Pre-pressing your garment is highly recommended. This process helps remove moisture, wrinkles and helps the print to adhere properly.
Protect with a Cover Sheet
Using teflon or parchment paper between the heat press and HTV during application acts as a protective barrier and prevents your design from sticking to the top of the heat press. This is highly recommended for multi-layer HTV applications.
Application Pressure
Heat + Time + Pressure is the formula for a long-lasting application. Many heat press machines include pressure and time preset based on the type of material being decorated.
But, as we covered earlier it is important to test these settings on test material before moving forward with a final press.
This concludes our HTV tips and tricks. We hope you learned a few new tricks to be used on your next HTV project. Did we miss any other tips, let us know in the comments section below.
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