Hats are great statement makers. They’re worn for personal use, and also essential to many types of employment or advertising. Customizing hats can help specify a group that you’d like to represent or boost your personal fashion statement. This article will explain how to perform the process of heat pressing a hat for your own style customization. We’ll give you a step-by-step list, with tips and sub-steps for more direction on how to heat press a hat professionally. Some topics will have more detailed directions than others, however, the steps should be easy to follow.
Items Needed
In learning how to heat press a hat, you need to get equipment prepared. Below are the tools required:
- Hat of your choosing;
- Cap Press (Hotronix Cap Heat Press);
- Platens (Hotronix Hat Platens);
- Hat decorations/accessories;
- Heat Transfer Sheet (3 pack Teflon Sheet)
1. Determine Your Hat’s Construction
Before you get started, it is a general rule and recommendation to decide if you would like to decorate a five-panel hat or a six-panel hat.
On a six panel hat, you will have six actual panels that make up the crown of the hat. For this type of panel, you’ will have to print over top of the seam during your application. You’ll need to go over the seam, whether you have screen printing embroidery, or heat applied graphics.
Bonus Read: How to Heat Press a Mug Professionally in 5 Steps
With a five panel cap, you’ll get a little more of a flat surface on the front. So you’re getting the look of a seam halfway down the crown, however, in the actual area of printing, you don’t have a seam. For this reason, while heat printing will go directly over the seam, often decorators will look for a five-panel cap as something that’s easier to decorate, and you’re less likely to have any sort of pressure issues. So, as a general tip, look for a five-panel cap to decorate.
2. Determine the Color and your Hat Style
As you are following instructions on how to heat press a hat, it’s important to analyze the materials you will use for heat pressing. When you’re looking at the construction of a hat, think about what fabric it’s comprised of. It’s no different than apparel when you’re decorating. It’s also helpful to analyze when choosing which color you choose to use for a hat.
With heat printing apparel, darker colors are going to tend to give you more issues. For example, black will show a heat press mark more likely than a light gray. So you want to take special consideration, and take certain steps when using darker colors, like dropping the temperature and sourcing a low-temperature transfer to go on your headwear. It’s also recommended to get an unstructured cap, it will make the process of using a hate heat press much easier.
3. Preparation of Hat and Hat Press Equipment.
After you have learned how to heat press a hat and have finished choosing your styling options, the next step is to prepare your cap press equipment for use. With your cap press, you should also have interchangeable platens available for your use. You should select what’s called a low profile platen, which is approximately two and three quarters by six and a half inches.
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Then load the hat into the cap press to begin the first steps of pressing it. Be sure to follow any additional instructions that the user manual in your cap press may have listed. Make sure to also have any safety gear on that you require when using a hat heat press.
Flip out the hat’s sweatband, position it on to the press and I’m just going to pull it tight. On the press, there should be a cap hold down the device. Grab this lever of this device and pull down on it. The device will grab the back of the cap, and it’s going to pull it flush, thus allowing you to make any fine adjustments to it if you need to.
At this point, you should check the pressure of your hat pressing. You should make sure you have good pressure. If you don’t think you have a good pressure, the pressure adjustment should be directly under the press. There should be a small knob that you can turn to raise or lower the plan for adjusting.
4. Decorate your Hat with the Heat Press
Hat decorating can be very customizable. Grab your press design, and position it appropriately. You can choose from a number of decoration types – glitter, vinyl, etc. After positioning your decoration, lock the press down against it for your first full application.
After you have pressed your hat, trim a piece of craft paper, then lay it over the top of your design to complete the application.
Conclusion
In this article we’ve covered how to heat press a hat, giving users the basic foundation of how to perform this process for hat styling. Additional tips were also added in case you want to give your hat extra customization. In learning how to heat press a hat, you have the freedom of customizing and defining your hat and creating your client’s individuality, or your own uniqueness. Learning how to heat press hats also is a great way to promote your business or organization in-house. If you have any thoughts or tips of your own, please feel free to add your own tips or advice.
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