Heat Transfer Central

And it has to be profitable.

Geo Knight & Co is the premier manufacturer and supplier of heat transfer press machines. We specialize in both commercial grade manual heat transfer presses as well as industrial large format automatic equipment.

We accommodate our customers with exactly the machinery they need to transfer press graphics and other embellishments onto a wide variety of materials. We manufacture according to the highest industry standards and only implement solid casting and steel structural frame designs, coupled with state of the art controls and heaters.

Our presses have been the backbone of literally thousands upon thousands of business over the past 4 decades, providing a reliable workhorse of a product that stands up to the demands of imprinting business, manufacturing and personal use.

What is the purpose of a heat press?

A heat press is the machine that presses a transfer onto an imprintable substrate. Using high temperatures and heavy pressures for a certain amount of time, the transfer is permanently embedded into the product.

Heat presses are recommended for professional and satisfying results simply because standard laminating devices and home hand irons can not get even near the temperatures required for a reliable transfer. Standard transfers require anywhere from 375° to 425° F demand serious force in pressing often from 40-80 psi. These temperatures and pressures are simply not possible with other heated devices.

The following are some of the far more common items often heat pressed. The list by no means ends here.

The three main ingredients in heat transfer printing images onto various materials are the Heat Press, the Transfer and the substrate to be printed.

In closing, one challenge you will face is whether to produce the transfers in-house or to have them out-sourced by a supplier. If the target market is a one unit, custom item market, then the transfers should definitely be produced in-house for controlled turn-around time as well as cost. Dye-Sublimation / Thermal Wax printers will produce pretty much everything needed for an expansive custom imprinted product line. Many bubble-jet and ink-jet color printers accept T-shirt transfer paper (good for any fabric-based item) but can not produce dye-sublimation transfers unless utilizing the sublimation ink cartridges (well recommended) mentioned earlier. If the job in mind is for large, bulk quantities (300 and up) a transfer supplier should be considered for fast turn-around time and cost reasons. Transfer suppliers can produce high quality plastisol (hot peel or cold peel), sublimation and woven labels in short periods of time with a much smaller cost per transfer than dye sublimation printers, color copiers, or other small printers. Remember that non-porous items usually need to be coated with a synthetic polyester based coating in order to accept the sublimation dyes, unless the material is already synthetic such as certain plastics.