Marking laser creates custom T-shirts with "brilliant brown" labels
La Chapelle St. Luc, France--GravoTech has publicized an incidental but eye-catching use of one of its marking lasers: the making of custom T-shirts. The announcement was notable in two ways--its description, and the surprising effectiveness of the technique. Here is what GravoTech has to say:
"When we were asked if our lasers could personalize T-shirts, we jumped at the opportunity to show the market our laser's versatility. We took a plain black T-shirt, a high-res image, our LS100 35W, and went to work. With the right power and speed, our laser created a stunning personalized T-shirt. The beam 'bleached' out the dye, leaving a brilliant brown. Each color T-shirt yields a unique and different 'bleach.'"
While the color brown is not normally thought of in this way, a look at the photo shows that the resulting marking is about as brilliant as brown could ever get. In fact, it may even enter the realm of tan. The look is appealing and would especially suit riders of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Business opportunity
Although the procedure was done mainly to highlight the laser's usefulness for surface processing, it could actually make a useful business in itself, for example at a tourist site such as the Eiffel Tower or the Jersey shore. A customer could step up, select an image from a touch screen and add personal doodles to it, press a button, and voila (or, at the Jersey shore, "awesome") the custom T-shirt would be ready. Either the laser itself would have to be behind safety glass, or the T-shirt vendor would have to be a certified laser-safety officer handing out laser-safety glasses to the onlookers.
Source: http://ns204460.ovh.net/press/modules/journ_access/index.php?page=detail&pfid=1851&lang_=us
To learn more about the Gravograph laser, visit www.gravotech.com.
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About the Author
John Wallace
Senior Technical Editor (1998-2022)
John Wallace was with Laser Focus World for nearly 25 years, retiring in late June 2022. He obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Rutgers University and a master's in optical engineering at the University of Rochester. Before becoming an editor, John worked as an engineer at RCA, Exxon, Eastman Kodak, and GCA Corporation.