At Pulse Merch in Cedar City, nylon jackets are the garments that separate a smooth order from a reprint. Wind shells, coaches jackets and work windbreakers show up from Southern Utah businesses every fall, and the decoration choice (screen print, heat transfer or embroidery) depends on the coating, the lining and what the jacket will go through. This is how we make that call.
Check the coating before you pick a method
Most failed nylon orders trace back to a coating, not to the printer or the artwork. Many jackets carry a water-repellent finish, and ICC Ink says that kind of finish can stop ink from adhering even when nylon ink is used. STAHLS makes a similar point about heat transfers: waterproof coatings can interfere with adhesion, and excess heat can scorch the fabric.
A test takes a minute. Put a few drops of water on an inside panel or a hem. If it beads and rolls, the finish is there. If it soaks in quickly, the surface is more open. ICC suggests cleaning a test area with rubbing alcohol and then comparing how fast water absorbs there against an uncleaned spot, and changing cloths often so you don’t redeposit the coating on the fabric.
If you order blanks yourself, do this on one jacket before you buy forty. If you send them to us, tell us the style and brand so we can plan around it.
Screen printing nylon jackets
Screen printing works on nylon, but it is not a cotton tee workflow. Regular plastisol alone is not what you want. ICC Ink recommends nylon ink with catalyst for most nylon materials, and International Coatings says conventional plastisols generally give a less durable ink film on nylon. Nazdar’s technical sheet for its DA nylon ink says the ink must be catalyzed and should be pretested on the exact substrate.
That catalyst is a two-part system, and the mix matters. One manufacturer’s guide specifies 20 parts ink to 1 part catalyst by weight for its 900 Series, recommends weighing rather than eyeballing, and says mixed ink stays usable for 6 to 8 hours. Ratios differ by product, so the technical sheet for the ink in the cup is the rule.
Why nylon moves on press
A slick shell shifts. If the jacket has a liner, the shell can slide over it during the stroke, which is why a jacket clamp or hold-down earns its place. Independent Trading Company’s guidance treats this as a registration problem as much as an ink problem and recommends tight screens of 200-plus mesh, a harder squeegee and a clamp when needed.
Off-contact is the other adjustment. International Coatings recommends 1/16 to 1/8 inch from the highest point of the fabric, and about 1/16 inch for quilt or fleece-lined jackets. Too much off-contact causes heavy edges, slurring or double images.
They also suggest preheating the jacket for about 2 to 5 seconds at 150 to 200°F to take out wrinkles and let the fabric settle before the first stroke. Nylon can change size when heated, so you want that movement to happen before the print, not after.
Curing without melting the shell
Nylon has a narrow window. Independent Trading Company says nylon should generally be cured below 320°F, with low-temperature flashing, and that the ink supplier’s specs control the exact conditions. For one catalyzed nylon system, International Coatings calls for the full ink film to reach 300 to 325°F. Those two numbers sit close together, which tells you why you can’t treat a conveyor dryer setting as a guess.
Some nylon inks cure differently. Nazdar’s DA series can air-dry overnight for handling or heat-dry at 200°F for 10 minutes, with full crosslinking about seven days later under dry ambient conditions. That matters for scheduling. A jacket that looks done on Friday may not be at full bond for a week, so a wash test on day two tells you little.
The Printing Industries of America troubleshooting guide lists belt speed, load, hot and cold spots, garment placement and ink deposit as factors in reaching cure. It attributes peeling and wash-off after the first wash to under-curing, wrong additives, excess sizing or dryer problems. Those principles apply to nylon jobs too, only with less margin.
Heat pressing nylon jackets
Yes, you can heat press nylon, if you respect the heat limit. The mistake is pressing at cotton settings. Nylon needs lower temperatures, and the transfer needs an adhesive built for it. STAHLS recommends nylon-specific heat transfer vinyl rather than ordinary HTV for nylon jackets, and says its Inktra transfers apply for 7 seconds at 310°F, again with a sample garment test first.
BELLA+CANVAS describes a STAHLS nylon application at 320°F. You smooth the garment, press 2 to 5 seconds, cool-peel the carrier, cover it and press again for 12 seconds. It also warns that you should test your own garment and machine. Settings from a guide are a starting point. The jacket and the press decide.
Seams, zippers and pockets are where a heat press causes trouble. A pressing pillow and a cover sheet protect the shell around hardware, and a left-chest placement that keeps clear of the zipper track saves a lot of grief. We cover the general tradeoffs in our piece on heat transfer printing and the limits in what to know before choosing it.
Where heat transfer wins on nylon
Heat transfer earns its spot in three situations:
- The artwork has many colors or fine detail, and a screen setup per color would not pay off on a small order.
- The jacket has a coating that rejects ink, and the transfer adhesive grips where wet ink would not.
- The order is small, with mixed names or numbers, such as a crew with individual names on the chest.
If the jacket is going to be washed hard and often, compare it against screen printing first. Our screen printing versus DTF durability page goes through that decision in more detail.
Screen print, heat transfer or embroidery
This is the decision most business owners are really making. Here is how we sort it.
Screen print when you have a simple one to three color logo, a quantity that justifies setup, and a jacket that has passed the water and test-print checks. A bold chest logo on a coaches jacket or a crew windbreaker is the classic case. The print lays flat and does not add stitch weight to a thin shell.
Heat transfer when the coating is a problem, the art is full color, or the run is short. It suits promotional jackets for events where the group is small and the logo is detailed.
Embroidery when the jacket is a lined or insulated style, the logo is simple, and you want something that reads as uniform for years. Embroidery does not rely on ink adhesion, so a water-repellent finish is not an obstacle. Stitching does need a stable base, though. On a very thin, unlined wind shell, a dense logo can pucker. On a heavier shell with a lining, it sits well. Our overview of how embroidery works explains stitch count and placement.
For most Southern Utah trades, such as HVAC, plumbing, electrical and landscaping crews, we lean toward embroidery on the left chest of a soft-shell or lined jacket and screen printing on the back of a lightweight shell where the logo is large. A large embroidered back on thin nylon is rarely worth it: the stitch count climbs, the cost climbs, and the fabric pulls.
What goes wrong in practice
The failure we see most is a jacket that prints beautifully and then cracks at the first fold. It almost always comes from one of two things: a catalyst that was skipped or mixed loosely, or a cure that looked fine at the dryer exit but never got the whole ink film to temperature. The next most common one is a customer who orders a jacket for its price, discovers it has a slick coating, and finds out only at the test print.
There is also the lining. A jacket with a quilted lining prints differently from a single-layer shell, because the print area is thicker, softer and less stable under the squeegee. That is why off-contact is set lower for those styles, and why a clamp matters.
Another trap is decorating after you have bought a few hundred jackets. If the style fails the test, you are choosing between a different decoration method and a different jacket. Deciding before the bulk buy is cheaper.
Test before you commit to a full order
The DAX Show recommends testing the exact jacket with scratch or stretch checks, a tape pull and a wash test after the catalyst’s specified bonding period. It also notes that linings, zippers, snaps, seams and water-repellent finishes can interfere with printing. Those checks make sense for any nylon job.
Here is the order we follow:
- Check for a water-repellent finish with a water bead test.
- Wipe the print area with alcohol and change cloths often.
- Print or press one sample on the actual jacket, not a scrap.
- Cure per the ink or transfer maker’s sheet, then wait out the bonding period.
- Scratch, stretch, tape-pull and wash it.
If the sample passes, run the order. If it fails, change one variable at a time: the ink system, the cure, or the method.
Perspective
We run nylon jackets differently from tees because the margin for error is smaller. The shell is slick, it often carries a coating, and the cure window is tight. Our approach is to treat the first sample as part of the job, not an extra. Every decoration method we offer, screen printing, heat transfer and embroidery, is produced in house in Utah, so we can change methods mid-job if a jacket doesn’t take the first one.
For a Southern Utah business, that matters more than it sounds. Jackets are worn on job sites, in wind and dust, and they get washed less gently than the care label suggests. We would rather talk you out of the wrong method on a particular jacket than reprint it later. That is the value of having hands on the work and the person who quotes it in the same shop.
Cohen
Washing a printed nylon jacket
Nylon jackets tolerate care better than people expect, but the print does not. The DAX Show’s wash guidance for screen prints is to turn the garment inside out, use cold or warm water on a gentle cycle, use mild detergent, skip bleach and fabric softener, dry low or hang, and never iron directly on the print. For a jacket, hanging to dry is the easy answer. Hand that to your crew in writing when you issue the jackets.
Ordering jackets from Pulse Merch
If you are planning a jacket order for a crew, a team or a staff of a Southern Utah business, send us the jacket style, quantity and artwork through a quote request. We will tell you which method suits that garment, run the sample first, and ship across the U.S. if some of your people are elsewhere. Start at Pulse Merch, or read how our screen printing process works before you send the request.
If your artwork isn’t print-ready, our printer-ready file checklist will save a round of revisions.
FAQ
Can you screen print on nylon jackets?
Yes. Use a nylon-specific ink, or a compatible plastisol system with the maker’s catalyst, because regular plastisol alone is not recommended for most nylon jackets. Clean and test the exact garment first, since water-repellent coatings can still reject the print.
Can you heat press nylon?
Yes, at lower heat than cotton and with a transfer made for nylon. Published settings run from roughly 310 to 320°F for some nylon-specific transfers, but you should test your own garment and press before production.
What temperature do you cure ink on nylon?
It depends on the ink. Independent Trading Company says nylon should generally be cured below 320°F, while one catalyzed system needs the ink film to reach 300 to 325°F. Follow the technical sheet for the exact ink.
Is embroidery better than printing on nylon jackets?
For lined or heavier jackets with a simple logo, embroidery is often the safer long-term choice, since it does not depend on ink adhesion. For large logos on thin shells, a print usually sits flatter.
Sources
- ICC Ink: Screen Print Nylon FAQs
- International Coatings: Direct Printing Nylon Jackets
- Independent Trading Company: Printing Tips
- Nazdar: DA Series Nylon and Flock Screen Ink
- Printing Industries of America: Troubleshooting Guide
- DAX Show: Screen Printing on Nylon
- DAX Show: How to Wash Screen Printed Shirts
- STAHLS: How to Achieve a Screen Printed Finish on Nylon
- STAHLS: Heat Pressing Nylon Jackets with the Correct HTV
- BELLA+CANVAS: How to Heat Transfer on Nylon