Decorating Golf Wear

Golf wearGolf Wear
One of the most exciting areas for decorators to expand their business is golf wear. Golf wear offers some of the highest profit margins. Now that Tiger is back, interest in and growth of the golf market is certain.

Golf wear includes a broad range of products from golf shirts, towels, caps, rain gear, umbrellas and more. Some of these items can be embroidered, but all can be screen printed. Screen printing can match fonts and logos exactly, and in the prescribe Pantone® Matching System colors.

Apparel that is being worn should be soft and flexible. Certainly the golfer does not want to feel the image when swinging a golf club. Ink is on the outside of the garment where the image cannot be felt. However, screen printing golf wear is not at all like printing T-shirts.

Click on the following images for a closer look;
Golf cap3d printingTextured Fabric






Textured Fabric
Golf shirts typically are a textured fabric. The weave might be pique or some form of micro weave. The irregularity of the surface presents a problem to most screen printers, because the ink will follow the line of the fabric. Edges of images will be saw-toothed rather than sharp and clean with hard edges. Fonts and logos just will not match the same images printed on paper.

The solution is quite simple. Images printed in the third dimension will bury the texture leaving a flat, printed image with hard, sharp edges. The image will look like they have been die cut. The thickness of the image can be controlled also, and that presents the opportunity to print layer upon layer of ink to create eye-popping images that will catch everyone’s attention.

The Third Dimension
To print images in the third dimension, a certain prescription must be followed. First, the screens must be retensionable like the Newman aluminum frames. Except when printing fine detail, my practice is to use 60 mesh (23 in metric) with 100 micron capillary film. The frame is necessary so that the mesh is very tight and there is no sag or softness in the mesh. You will want to deposit a uniform thickness of ink on the garment. The ink we use is Union Ink’s Hi-Square which is specially formulated for three dimensional printing.

An image printed 100 microns thick will not appear as three dimensional. The thickness of the ink only compensates for the texture of the fabric. The image will be opaque, soft and flexible. If the image is printed with a thinner deposit of ink, the image will appear as parallel stripes. This is the picket fence look that we do not want.

Of course, if the decorator wants a three dimensional image, then the capillary film must be thicker. An image 200 microns thick will be slightly raised. (Paramount Pictures image) The maximum thickest I have found that is practical in production is 400 microns. However, printing a thinner deposit like 200 or 250 microns is significantly easier. If you want a thicker image, you could print 200 microns, flash cure, and print another 200 or 250 to produce 400-450. Then there is the option to print a different image on top of a thick layer of ink to create very interesting images.

When a beverage company is sponsoring a golf event, the bottle cap can be printed in three dimensions to be very realistic looking, including the name of the beverage on top of the cap. (Stash image) The three dimensional image can include standard inks printed on top of the three dimensional ink to produce fine details, half tones for shading and fonts that normally would not be possible on a textured fabric golf shirt. (Sierra Nevada image)

Towels
Towels must be printed with water based ink to produce a soft feel. Three dimensional inks, which are plastisol, would produce a rough image like embroidery. A golfer would not want to wipe his face off with that image.

Caps
Caps are another special category of printing. There are structured caps, also known as constructed or fused buckram caps. There unstructured caps, sometimes with a fold out buckram liner, and trucker caps which I doubt anyone would wear on the golf course. Golf caps can be 5 panel or 6 panel. The 6 panel caps have a seam down the center of the image area. 5 panel caps are printed like T-shirts, but 6 panel should be printed like golf shirts.

Rain gear
Rain gear can be tricky. Here are some of the issues you must check for, and then how you deal with the problems. First, the material is typically a synthetic rather than 100% cotton. The material could also be coated with a water proofing to keep the golfer dry.

Water proofing can be checked by throwing a handful of water on the garment. If the water is absorbed, then there is no water proofing. If the water beads up like rain on a freshly waxed car, then there is water proofing. With some of the tight weaves being sold today you could have difficulty determining whether there is water proofing. If there is, wipe the image down with de-natured alcohol, print, and then spray with a water proofing product to keep the golfer dry.

Synthetics
Synthetics are an issue for several reasons. If you flash cure or final cure with too much heat, the fabric will likely shrink. On a multi-color job shrinking fabric will mean the second color will print out of color registration. If the fabric can be secured by a hold down device of some kind and flashed before the first color is printed, then with the proper technique the first color can be flashed without additional shrinkage.

Synthetics also present the possibility of dye migration. Dye migration is where the color of the ink is tinted by the color of the fabric. In my experience, the fabrics with the greatest risk are red, maroon and green. Other colors are less risk, and, of course, white garments are no risk. The dye migrates, because the fabric was processed so fast that the dye did not have a chance to absorb into the solid fiber. Cotton does not present this risk when the fabric is a reputable brand, because cotton is a hollow fiber that absorbs dye.

When printing synthetics that present risk, a so-called low-bleed ink should be used. The safest ink for synthetics is polyester ink. Polyester ink is designed for the nastiest dye migrating inks. However, all low-bleed inks include a gas that expands to heat. The surface of the print will be rough. The more ink that is printed, the rougher the image will feel. A rough image also results from using low bleed inks as under base inks upon which other inks are printed. A better approach is to use a non-low bleed ink for the under base, and then print the low bleed ink as a very thin coating of your final ink.

Textured Synthetics
Many of the synthetics today are textured. If that texture is going to interfere with high resolution images, then the first ink down should be three dimensional. However, these are not designed to prevent dye migration. Three dimensional inks will convert a textured surface to a smooth surface so that fine detail can be printed with superior resolution. Of course, an under base color can be selected to replace the color strength of the fabric with a printing plate that is favorable to the final print.

Rain gear can also be two ply. That requires inspection. Sometimes the manufacturer provides a zipper so that the garment can be slid over the platen. Then just the panel that is going to be printed is on top of the platen, and that panel can be secured with some form of adhesive. If there is no zipper, sometimes garments are not sewn completely around. An open seam again might allow sliding the garment on the platen so only the panel to be printed is on top of the platen. If there is no open seam, then a hold down device will be required to tension to top panel of fabric prior to printing.

Smooth Material
If the material is very smooth, the ink will probably not bond to the fabric despite curing with heat. Very smooth, or slick, fabrics should be printed with inks containing 10% Nylobond. Nylobond chemically bonds the ink to the fabric. Then the fabric would be cured the same way as ink without Nylobond. We do not stack garments that are printed and cured with Nylobond. If you dent the ink with a fingernail after curing, and then try to dent the ink again 24 hours later, you will find the Nylobond has cured. The image is now much harder and more durable.

When you are finished printing that rain gear, you will have a soft, flexible image despite Nylobond, and the fabric has not been pierced by a needle that could leave the golfer all wet.

Umbrellas
Umbrellas are the same as very smooth fabrics used in rain wear as a printing problem. The material is synthetic and will require Nylobond. If the umbrella has white and colored panels, print on the white rather than colored, if possible. That will allow using thinner deposits of ink which means less heat will be necessary to cure the ink. A dark fabric will require an ink with a greater amount of pigment. More pigment means more curing.

Synthetic materials like umbrellas are made of solid fibers that transmit heat. Cotton fibers are hollow and do not transmit heat like synthetics. That is why you are more comfortable on a hot July day in a 100% cotton garment than a synthetic garment like polyester or nylon. Since synthetics transmit heat, they cure ink from under the ink deposit as well as the heat coming down on the image. The heat level should be lower than for shirts to avoid shrinkage. Curing is by dwell time under the heat and that dwell time might be only 10 seconds. The time might be 30 seconds, or some other time compared to a minute or more for a shirt. Testing is required to find the optimal dwell time that allows the heat to penetrate the ink film and melt the ink into the fabric without scorching or shrinking the fabric.

Conclusion Golf presents numerous possibilities for the decorator. Events are a special opportunity. Groups want personalized images that are not on the pro shop shelf. The group might have scheduled the event many months in advance, but does not know who will be playing until 3 days before the event, and therefore will not know the number of garments by size. Screen printers can produce orders with 3 days notice, especially when they have prepared their screens even earlier. An embroidery shop just cannot turn a sizeable order around on such notice.

Once you start printing for the golfers, don’t stop there. Runners, tennis players, bikers, and active people in many activities want the same apparel we call golf wear. So your opportunities are unlimited. Winter and summer there are always people in demand of your skills.