Need advice on printing on cloth book cover.

[JCB]

Hello folks,

Can someone advise on the following please?

I recently finished writing a 400 page A4 size book and decided to do the bookbinding myself to create it as a cloth covered hardback book. This is my first attempt at bookbinding and everything was going really well until I realised I will have problems printing the title of the book on the cloth cover (which would be done before gluing cloth to boards). The cloth is dark navy blue linen and is specially made for the purpose with a paper backing. I have a Brother MFC-J6540DW A3 inkjet printer and I believe it will print the cloth ok, but when cut to size the cloth will be 40mm too wide to fit into the A3 printer because of the extra width allowed for overlap when gluing the cloth to the front and back hardboards. So, I'm wondering if I was to fold 20mm in on either side, and tape them down, will this work? Will it go through the printer ok, or will it likely cause a massive printer jam?

I tried T-shirt heat transfer paper to create the title but it was a disaster. If there is a better method of giving my book a title I'd sure like to hear about it.

Thanks
JCB

 

[UpAndPrinting]

I would only recommend a DTF heat transfer sheet pressed on before binding. Using a heat press, you should be fine. What happened when you tried and where did you get your heat transfer paper?

 

[JCB]

I would only recommend a DTF heat transfer sheet pressed on before binding. Using a heat press, you should be fine. What happened when you tried and where did you get your heat transfer paper?

I bought Agfaphoto "Dark" heat transfer paper from a local Officeworks store. (I'm in Australia). The main problem is I cannot cut excess paper away from all the lettering because it's too small and fiddly to even attempt, so I cut the paper as a 2 inch x 1 inch rectangle with the lettering printed on it. I then used my wife's electric iron to apply heat. The result was an ugly looking white rectangle with no lettering on the cloth, and a big smear of white ink(?) stuck to the face of the iron. My wife was not impressed.

I think, if I can make the paper backed cloth fit into the printer without jamming I'd have better success, but I'm worried about damaging the printer.

 

[UpAndPrinting]

I think those heat transfers don't work well at all. We have similar ones in the states and they performed terribly. You either need a printer that you can easily convert to DTF or you can order sheets from a print on demand supplier.