How To Add Multiple HTV Colors On A Dad Cap
Are you looking to apply a multicolor heat transfer vinyl design on your caps without pressing layers one at a time? In this video, I’ll be guiding you through how to apply broken up layers of HTV in one go on a standard dad cap.
Perhaps pressing layers of heat transfer vinyl one-by-one is too slow for your tastes. To work around this, we’ll be showing you how you can use two or more colors of HTV with a broken up design. Though this won’t only come in handy for customizing caps quickly, as most specialty vinyls in holographic, glitter, and thick styles can also take advantage of this method of application. This is particularly notable as these materials are not layerable by default, making this the perfect workaround to creating a multicolor design with virtually any kind of HTV. As long as you follow our process and apply your vinyl with its recommended press settings, your designs can look just as clean and presentable as ever.
To begin, you’ll need to find and import your broken up design to your vinyl cutter’s software, or create a new one using the knockout method. If you’d like to learn how to make a design with the knockout method, you can check out our extended tutorials linked in the description below. But once your design has been prepped, you’ll then need to scale it down within the size of your cap’s front side. An average size to go with is 3-and-a-half by 2-and-a-half inches, though it’s a good practice to physically measure your cap beforehand to pinpoint the size you need to scale down your design. Now you may ungroup your design’s shapes, then regroup or make compound paths of certain colored shapes to be able to easily choose which ones to cut matching the color of your vinyl.
As soon as your design is ready, draw a weed box around it, then load your first sheet of vinyl onto a cutter. We’ll be cutting some Siser EasyWeed HTV with a Silhouette Cameo Plus, which is capable of loading 1 foot sheets of vinyl, but has a 15 (fifteen) inch media width ready for larger sheets or rolls of that size. Assuming you’ve loaded your cutter with the vinyl however, you may go to your cutting software’s send, cut, or output window and configure cut settings. If you’re also using a Silhouette cutter, go to the Send tab in Silhouette Studio and set the Material to “Heat Transfer, Smooth.” Then you’ll set the blade depth to 3, Force to 6, and Speed to 8.
Before cutting, we recommend completing a test cut to check if you’ll need to adjust the settings accordingly to your machine’s blade. Once you’re ready, you may start sending your design’s layers to be cut. On Silhouette Studio, be sure to set the layer matching your loaded vinyl sheet’s color to Cut, with all other layers except the weed box set to No Cut. You may then click the Send button, then Send Mirrored to cut your layers out. After all your vinyl layers have been cut, trim and weed each one. And with the layers weeded, you’ll then need to trim them as close as possible to the edges of the vinyl. By doing this, you’ll be able to piece all the vinyl layers together in forming a two-tone or multicolor design.
Once your layers have been trimmed, turn on your cap press and set it to 10 (ten) seconds at 290 (two-hundred-and-ninety) degrees Fahrenheit with medium pressure. When your cap press reaches temperature, place your dad cap on the lower platen and pre-press it for 2 to 3 seconds. Next up is to center and place your layers together on top. Finally, carefully cover your vinyl layers with a protective sheet so as to not slide them, then press your cap. After 10 (ten) seconds, open your machine and give EasyWeed a hot or cold peel.
As you can see, this design has applied flawlessly onto the cap with Siser EasyWeed HTV. If it does appear to slightly wrinkle up however, you can always repress the vinyl with a protective sheet. Parchment paper in particular can help make the vinyl slightly less glossy. But to reiterate, there’s no need to limit yourself with EasyWeed! As long as your design has been broken up either by default or with the knockout method, you can achieve the same results with any other kind of HTV as long as you follow this same process with the material’s recommended settings.
If you’d like to share your multicolor cap designs with us, alongside a growing community of heat transfer enthusiasts, you can join us at the HeatPressNation Creators Facebook group at heat.press/FBgroup. To learn more about heat transfer vinyl and other products, be sure to visit us at HeatPressNation.com. For any questions, feel free to get in touch with one of our MyExpert representatives at support.heatpressnation.com
