FAQ T-Shirts

Can all kind of basic materials be used for flocking?

For T-shirts the substrate will be mainly 100% cotton but basically, all materials and mixtures might be flocked, if the basic materials have been adapted to each other.

What materials are required?

For flocking one needs:
flock (for T-shirt flocking mainly viscose- or polyamide flock),
adhesive (for T-shirt flocking mainly dispersion adhesives),
and equipment (adhesive application is done by screen printing / flocking is done electrostatically / drying / cleaning).

How does the actual procedure operate?

Adhesive is applied to the T-shirt to be flocked by the screen-printing process. This may be done manually or automatically.
The flock fibres are charged in an electrical field and shot vertically into the surface which has previously been coated with adhesive.
Now the drying process follows, whereby temperature and drying time have to be adapted to the materials used.
After drying and curing, the flock has been fixed into the carrier material, and the T-shirt can be cleaned from surplus flock by the use of special cleaning equipment.
Depending on the required fastness, the final products may be resistant to washing, to cleaning and abrasion and even to light.

Which advantage has flocking compared to other finishing procedures?

Flocking results in an interesting relief-kind of surface as well as in a ‘soft, velvety touch’ and thus is considerably different from other procedures.