Flocking & Foiling with glue

Flocking & Foiling with Glue.

Due to the process of trying to use laser print to use the toner to foil to paper failing. When I looked into how why the foiling was not working I realised that the toner was the quicker but not as good in quality and was a little hit & miss. And that the best way to get the best effect was to glue the area and heat press on the foil. When I went to the printing shop at Blenheim I also seen that there was flock which I also purchased as I wanted to see the finishing effect of this too.

Firstly, we cleaned and exposed a textile screen. I haven't used a textile screen before but the method was exactly the same as a paper screen. So then I exposed the flock textile screen with my logo and the white middle part of a penguin to be able to flock & foil them. I also wanted to screen print the outside but when I exposed on to the normal screen I realised I gave him the wrong negative to expose onto the screen and therefore ended up with the middle part of the penguin again. I didn't redo the screen again as this would have been a long process and a waste of time as I can effectively screen print already. 

So I decided to print out the outside of the penguin on paper with a printer and then flock the middle. We used the movable beds as the large beds where all taken. He told us we would get around two pulls before we would have to wash the screen so it didn't get blocked. I didn't want to risk my screen getting blocked at first so after every pull I washed and dried my screen before I would go and flock or foil the glue with the heat press. 

The penguin ended up flocking on the toner too as I forgot that the foil would attach itself to the toner as well as the ink (RIGHT). So the printing tutor said that I could try and make a stencil out of grease proof paper on the areas I don't want to flock. But Because I didn't take as much time as I would probably need to make it perfect it didn't work very well and also ripped my page as the grease proof attached to the toner too (LEFT).

The final pull I did just try and do as many as possible before it started blocking and I got around 4 pulls with a clean crisp edge finish. Then it became blotchy and patchy in places where the screen had become blocked.

The satisfaction was great when peeling off the flock or foil and all the time & effort paid off due to the long waited and let down trial first time. I think that I would definitely do this process again maybe for branding for myself or appropriate design work.

Here are the final photos, as you can see I have foiled some of the logos where the screen became blocked as it was quite hard to see if the glue had covered the whole space or not.

The foiling with the glue was much more successful with the glue, this could also be due to the fact it was fresh glue ans the foil hadn't been crumpled as we bought it fresh that morning before doing this process.

This is the last few that didn't work due to the screen clogging up so the foil did attach to any glue that was on the paper so it was the screen & glue rather than the heat press.

These are the left overs from my foiling I did like this also, the clear film left where the foil has been attached to the paper and the foil in the place where the glue isn't.

These are the successful flocking prints. I do think this is a very classy finishing but as to be used in the correct content. There is slightly some flock attached in the parts where it shouldn't be but it easily scratched off with a scalpel.

This is an unsuccessful print due to the glue not coming through the screen and it not been attached to the paper so again it isnt due to the heat press attaching the flock to the glue.

These are my off cuts from my flock I have used, in which you can see where the flock has been attached to the paper.