Sublimation on Cotton Tshirt with DTF Powder

We just tested a TikTok hack where we sublimated using DTF powder on 100% cotton, and we'll show you what we learned right now. What is up? Welcome back. Do you like to do it, build it, or make it? So do we. We have a new video each week. This week we're testing out some TikTok hacks for sublimating on 100% cotton. After our last DTF video, direct-to-film transfer, we had done a comparison between our sublimation printer and our DTF printer and what those prints look like. Then we started to get some questions. Hey, can't you just put that glue powder on the back of your sublimation prints? And I thought, no, I don't think that'll work. But then I started seeing some posts and some videos, and now we have a hack we're going to test it out today and see if we can get it to work. At the end, we'll do a comparison versus sublimation and DTF. We'll see what they all look like. Step one, we're going to gather all of our supplies. We need a sublimation ink and an ink printer. So we have our Epson 2760. We're going to need our hot melt adhesive, our PET film, which is what we use for the DTF printer. And we're also going to need a heat press. So we have our Cricut EasyPress 2. And you missed our 100% cotton t-shirt. So that's what's important on this one, because you can't typically sublimate on a cotton t-shirt. So that's what makes this hack pretty cool. Copy paper and some kind of spray adhesive to get the film to stick to the copy paper. It's a little bit of a little bit finicky. Step two, we're going to create our design. Have you been to Canva? Canva is amazing. It's a great creative platform that will give you a springboard on any of your designs. If it's a t-shirt or even a cut file, this is a great place to start. They have hundreds and thousands of templates for pretty much anything, from t-shirts to stickers to whiteboard designs. Kim has already picked out a t-shirt template, and we're just going to run with this one. We're going to download this as a PNG with a transparent background. Step three, we're going to print our design. Now we weren't able to get the PET film to feed through our printer, so we're going to need to attach it to a carrier sheet. That's what the copy paper is for. To attach the PET film to the copy paper, we're going to use that Gorilla Glue spray adhesive. That's a tongue twister. So we're going to spray it on the copy paper, and then we're going to put the non-print side against the copy paper. Remember to mirror your image when you print it, since it is going to go face down. Step four, time to powder our print. Now that the ink is on the PET film, while it's still wet, we want to add the DTF powder to it. So we use this little bucket system. Here, powder me, babe. Powder my inks. That's it. Give it a shake. You just want a dusting. Step five, time to melt that glue. We're going to melt that adhesive that we just put on the back of the ink. I'm not going to hold the heat press for like 12 minutes while this thing melts. We use the baking sheet. And we're just going to put our little print guy right in there. Cover them back up. We have our EasyPress set to 400, and we're just going to leave it on there for about 15 minutes. And that should activate all the inks too. All right, it's been about 15 minutes. Let's see what we got. Ooh, the rack's hot. All right, you can definitely see the colors are popping. Yes, I want to show the difference. Here they are before it's baked. Yes. After it's baked. Yeah, you can see the heat really activates that sublimation ink. And it melts that powder. The powder is looking a little more shiny, a little less granular. Looks less like sugar and more like plastic. Yes, yes. Good example. Step six, time to press it. We're going to press it real good. So we have our design. It's looking pretty nice. Now let's see if it works. We need to put some parchment paper in between the shirt. This is sublimation ink. I don't know if it will bleed or not. I'm thinking no because of the melted glue. That's really what's on the back at this point. But I say just in case. Again, this shirt is 100% cotton. Fresh out of the store. Here's the tag. I'm going to give it a quick pre-press. Getting all the wrinkles and stuff out. Give it a quick pre-press. Get all the wrinkles and everything out. All right, I'll just line this up. Looks good. All right, now we're going to go in. Now we're going 300 degrees for 10 seconds. And I'm going to lean on it. So typically with direct-to-film transfer, 300, 10 seconds is the way to go. But you need a lot of pressure. So we'll let it cool for a minute. But it looks good. We need like a hairdryer that does cool air. I got it. All right, that's pretty cool. Let's see if it's stuck. You need to press it for just a little bit longer. It's just peeling off. Did other people's film look like that? Did you need to do it a whole lot longer? So 300 degrees for 10 seconds did not work. But it looked like it was trying to work. It was starting. So we're going to try again right below it. We're going to go in for 40 seconds at 385 degrees. We pressed it before a little more like it was a DTF transfer. Now we're going to try it again a little more like it's a sublimation transfer. Yeah, same amount of time. All right, we got to cool it down again. Do a cold peel. Yeah. All right, cool down. All right, that's pretty cool. It's in touch. All right, let's see. Should I keep going or should I try to press it some more? It still doesn't want to lift off. Not like DTF. I don't know. Should I try to keep it down? Do it again? I feel like I'm just going to pull it up again. I don't really have a good answer for you. I don't know. Would we do it again for more time? Are we calling it this doesn't work? Well, I could. Oh, I've seen it work. I know it works. What are we doing wrong? Yeah, not impressed. It looks distressed. All right, we'll try it one more time. One more try. 385, 40 seconds. A lot of pressure. We'll see. Here, you want this on it? I just want to give it a tug. So here's where we were. Second try. Oh, look at that. I'm going to do a hop. Oh, maybe not. I don't know. It seems to still be coming up with it. No, that's better. All right. I am not impressed with this. It looks OK, but I mean, I'm not I'm not impressed with it. Are you? No. No, it did. It did work. So it left a lot on the transfer sheet. Maybe we should have done a cold peel. I tried a cold peel. All right, try to hop you. Well, the cold peel, the blue is a little bit better on that one. And the white is a little better on this one. The yellow is better on this one. Step seven, time to do some testing, a little comparison. We have the DTF hack down. Now we're going to try to do a little pre-treat. We're going to do a little pre-treat and then put some regular sublimation down. Right. So as we were going through this process, were you thinking to yourself, why are they so tiny? That's because our intention is to compare the hack to a regular sublimation with a sublimation spray on a cotton T-shirt and then DTF on a cotton T-shirt. Let's give it a press and see how she looks. So we already pre-treated this side of the shirt. We already dried it. It's ready. Yeah. All you have to do is there's a sublimate. This is sublimate spray. So this is basically a sublimation spray. We let it dry. It's nice and dry. Now all we have to do is press it. I'm not going to tape it down or anything. You're not. I was just a test. I won't move around the whole bunch. Don't move it around gear. Oh, let me get on the other side then. All right. Is this set? We're doing 40 seconds. Uh, yes. All right. 385 for 40 seconds. I'm in three, two, one. Oh, straight up. You did it. Oh, it's stuck to that stuff. It's even more distressed. Now let's give it a quick, quick yank. Oh, I put it on upside down, but Garrett, that looks good. Yeah. I like that. That looks great. That came out great. I'm going to say that came out better than this. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I'm going to give you a final shot here. Well, let's try the DTF first. Okay. We're going to try the DTF. Just straight DTF, like regular DTF or regular direct to film. It is printed on the pet film. It has color ink with a white ink. What is this? A gradient white. So everywhere it needs white, it put white. And then the little powdered glue melted. And now we're just going to press it. Okay. So this, I've got to bring the temperature down to 300, 310 seconds. I really enjoy the 10 second press. Yes, you do. Now, this one's a little bit cool. You want to, it doesn't have to be cold peel, but you don't want to peel it like straight. Yeah. Straight out from the heat press. Garrett cannot wait. Cannot wait. Oh, it's just super efficient. I feel, yeah, that's perfect. It's just warm. All right, we'll get the peel. Oh, look at how easy that peel was. Yeah. Beautiful. See with DTF, there's nothing left on the film. All right. I mean, I see all three and I'm going to say the DTF still looks the tightest, even on the white. All right. That's what we have. What do you think? Look at your t-shirt when we were. Yeah, it turned brown. Yeah, I think we burnt it. We overcooked this thing. Well, because we pressed it so many times trying to do the DTF sublimation hack. I think we went a little too long in the oven. What's your thoughts? Let's give a little. My thought is, so I don't understand the hack now. With the pre-treated, the pre-treated seems to have worked great. I mean, it looks great. It's beautiful. I still think the colors on the DTF still pop. They really pop. You can't feel the sublimation. You can feel the DTF with the sublimation. Yeah. What I don't know is with this sublimation DTF hack here, I can still feel like a little glue residue. So I'm curious to see how this does in the wash. We will test it out and wash it and see. And that way we can compare all three. I agree. This one, this one definitely has the colors that match what you had on the computer. Yeah. This matches exactly with what you designed or what the design has. It has some really crisp lines and you can really see like around this guy's eyeballs. Oh, the detail. Right. Whereas it kind of gets lost here. You can't see. You can see the lines around this one. You can't even see them anymore on that one. Right. So this keeps the detail. You can feel a little bit because he did the gradient white. There are places in between the design where there's no white ink and you can only feel the ink. It's kind of like a little bit like a HTV vinyl, but much, much thinner. Yeah, a lot thinner. So were you able to get the DTF hack to work? I don't I don't know why you would do it. I personally don't. I mean, I'll try it on wood, see if that works, but I don't know. Well, here's my thoughts. So, yes, you have to buy a spray and there's some cost involved in that in order to sublimate on cotton. But it was easy. But you also have to buy pet film and hot melt powder for the hack. So I know that you buy the pet film and sheets of 100. That was $80. This glue melt is $50. The sublimation spray was what, 25 or 30 bucks or something. And then the DTF, I know you have to have a whole other setup for that. But I'm using the I'm using the same material. So I just would, you know, I would use the full DTF setup. I don't know. Did you have better luck? You got to let me know. Did we do something wrong? Yeah. Do you have another reason why you might use this? Yeah, what would you use it on? So it does work. That was the question. Can you sublimate with a hot melt powder? Yes, you can. The results are just OK. You might as well just sublimate with a spray. It looks distressed. If you want a distressed little thing on your shirt, I think that's perfect. Otherwise, a big thanks to all of our patrons. We love you guys. Thank you. Thanks for all the support you guys showed us during our hurricane party. Right. Yes. If you guys are here last, joined us last weekend. Thank you. We really appreciate the support. The just the folks dropping in to say hi and chat with us. Yeah. And made the time go by quickly. You guys know who you are. I think you know who each other are now, too. I see it in the chat and that's awesome. I love it. Patreon family. Yes. So we're about out of time. So if you're not going to join us for the patron after show, we will see you next week. We'll do it, build it and make it again. Oh, and don't forget to catch us on Tuesdays where we do test cut Tuesdays. We make a new design. We test it and we test out the colors and everything. See if it works and fits together right then. And it's not always a sign. Last week we did a wagon. A wagon. A little wagon tray. Right. We'll see you guys next week.