Sawgrass Showcases What’s Next in Sublimation

Sawgrass (Booth 3739) is showcasing its industry-leading position in sublimation technology and innovation at 2018 SGIA Expo. At the Sawgrass booth, visitors will find a whole new world of possibilities for sublimation, including cotton, dark colors and outdoor applications. Attendees can also preview the 2018 SGIA Product of the Year for digital textile inks, the new Ultra-HD FLEX ink set from Sawgrass for the Virtuoso VJ 628.

Power in Partnership

Sawgrass is also displaying industry partnerships that are driving major advances in sublimation innovation. The South Carolina-based ink manufacturer is working with Chemica, ChromaLuxe, Forever, Metrotrade, Poli-Tape, Siser and Vapor Apparel to give product decorators more options for making money with sublimation technology.

• Sublimate onto Cotton: Forever’s Subli Light and Metrotrade’s SUBLICOTTON are transfer media that enable users to generate prints to sublimate onto cotton fabrics, while Sawgrass’ Virtuoso Print Manger settings for each type of media ensure consistently vibrant and accurate color.
• Sublimate onto Dark Fabric: Sawgrass Virtuoso HD Product Decorating Systems and Virtuoso Print Manager software now work with Poli-Tape’s SubliTwill and SubliFlock media, Chemica’s SubliTex media and Siser’s white glitter HTV. Each of these allows users to either print directly onto the media or sublimate the media from a transfer, then cut down to size with a plotter, weed and affix to fabric of any color with a heat press.
• Also on display will be ChromaLuxe EXT panels, which Sawgrass worked with ChromaLuxe to develop. When imprinted with Sawgrass inks and profiles, EXT panels are guaranteed to resist the effects of sunlight and other environmental rigors for up to 5 years.

Products of the Year

Sawgrass has been honored with two 2018 SGIA Product of the Year Awards. The first is for the new Ultra HD FLEX eight-color sublimation ink set for the Virtuoso HD Product Decorating System featuring VJ 628 printers, which was Product of the Year for Digital Inks – Textile in the under 24-inch width category.

Sawgrass developed Ultra-HD FLEX in response to the needs of creative entrepreneurs who are looking for the ultimate flexibility in an eight-color ink set. It brings together the versatility of having CMYK, plus light cyan and light magenta inks in one set, then adds true fluorescent yellow and pink capabilities that create a pre-programmed palette of 64 spot colors when used with Virtuoso Print Manager.

Ultra-HD FLEX then sets the bar even higher by offering superior sharpness on text reproduction down to eight points in size. With this ink set, product decorators can produce deeper and more neutral blacks, as well as photo-realistic images. Substrates imprinted with the inks will be on display at the booth, and the inks will go on sale in early 2019.

Sawgrass’ TruePix Classic sublimation transfer paper was also named 2018 Product of the Year in the Media - Dye Sublimation transfer paper category.