In Case You Don’t Cotton to Dye Sublimation

By Randy Anderson, Product Marketing Manager-MUTOH AMERICA INC

Printing on Cotton Fabric…Something to Think About

In case you don’t cotton to dye sublimation, there is always…………well………cotton.

Or wool, or even silk and other fabrics. Printing on cotton fabric with a textile printer of course just one choice.

The textile market is in a growth mode for digital printing. There is probably less than 20 percent of all textile now being printed digitally. Last stats I saw were around 3%, but talking to a supplier of single pass printers at the show, that number is growing at an incredible rate, and may currently be hovering around the 20% mark. And speaking of Mark

This is Mark Sawchak.

Expand Systems Fabric

Mark is standing behind a chair supplied to us for the ISA 2018 show (https://www.signs.org/) by Mark’s wife Ann. Mark and Ann are the driving forces behind their company Expand Systems LLC

(http://www.expandsystems.com/). And the chair they provided was a HUGE hit at the show.

The chair was covered in cotton printed directly with the pigment process and shows a wide range of color and style that direct to textile pigment printing brings to the home décor and upholstery industry.  The fabric used is Expands’ PREMex brand

of media, (http://premexsolutions.com/fabrics.html) which is a top quality line of fabrics suitable for a wide range of applications and industry.  All of our show images were printed on Expands’ PREMex linen and twill.

The following  images were printed on Expands’ PREMex linen and twill with an 8 color Mutoh inkset on the ValueJet 1938TX

Yes, I know I ranted and raved about how much attention the backlit dye sub got, but in all fairness, the combination of the chair and the backlit was THE nice attention getter and conversation starter for textiles in the Mutoh booth.

Expand Systems provides Digital Textile Printing Solutions that cover pretty much the entire gamut of digital direct printing.  From MS LaRio (http://www.msitaly.com/) printing at some 75 linear meters per minute to the entry-level and sample capable ValueJet 1938TX (https://www.mutoh.com/products/valuejet-1938tx/) printing at 7 to 28 linear meters per hour.

It still takes a minimum of fabric to make a run with a single pass printer so the ValueJet 1938TX for perfect for small runs, samples, prototyping and high resolution/ high-quality prints.

Imagine as a designer sending your latest designs overseas for sample printing, with no real control over your designs, your intellectual property.  Now imagine keeping your designs in-house and having absolute control over your ideas and designs, until production starts or product is released. All that is doable and inexpensive, with the Mutoh ValueJet 1938TX.

Perfect for Short Runs and Sampling

Want a sample,  a single image or a production facility? Mutoh has an answer. The ValueJet 1938TX is the culmination of over a decade of work around the Mutoh platform by companies like Yuhan Kimberly, Expand and Mutoh to produce an easy to use, effective, and inexpensive printer for the textile market.

You can sit on your designs (or just wear them) until YOU are ready to show the world.

If you are not ready for a printer of your own, there are many options to get your designs printed and fabric produced to make your own home décor items, craft items or just to stretch your creativity.

The Spoonflower Example

Spoonflower (https://www.spoonflower.com/) is one of Expands customers and have for years provided Spoonflower with Mutoh based textile printers for direct printing on a variety of textiles.

Spoonflower started with a single Mutoh based textile printer, and at one time had dozens of them running their production, and their orders typically fit inside a small envelope mailer – that’s how they built their business.

Some of their customers bought enough printed fabric that it made sense for them to purchase their own direct to textile and dye-sub printers and produce for themselves and other.

One of those customers is Dee Dee Davis of Décor Print, Custom Digital Textile Printing  (www.decor-print.com), who started with one Mutoh based textile printer from Expand Systems, and now has a shop that has multiple direct printers and dye sublimation to cover the full range of textile digital printing.

So with some 80% or more of textile NOT being digitally, and the rise of personalization hitting the home décor market and business branding market there is plenty of opportunities to produce and sell digitally printed textiles.

Be sure to visit our product website where we have numerous choices in textile printers available. www.mutoh.com