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Hi I'm Josh Ellsworth General Manager with Stahls' CAD-CUT® Direct. A few years back
we did a video all about footwear customization. We gave you some tips and tricks and showed
you how to decorate multiple pairs of shoes. Well since then we've managed to implement
a lot of different systems and have customers customizing shoes everyday. Throughout this
course of time we've learned a lot and we want to show you our latest system for customizing
shoes utilizing the Hotronix® heat press and Stahls' CAD-CUT® FashionFILM heat transfer
film. So it all starts with the heat press. At Hotronix® we've developed what's called
a shoe platen and it starts with the Hotronix® press. Here I'm working with the Air Fusion
but the Hotronix® Air Fusion, the Hotronix® Fusion and the auto clam and MAXX series all
feature interchangeable platens. You simply click out for this particular style and take
off the 16 by 20 platen, and at Stahls' we now sell a shoe platen specifically for footwear.
It comes with the pin registration system for the Air Fusion and the Fusion, you just
drop that into place and lock it back in on your press. Now, it's very easy to load a
pair of shoes and print at one time. We're going to show you how to do that momentarily.
This particular platen also comes with the pad attached to it which allows it to accommodate
a wide variety of shoes, and also prevents the shoes from falling off. This is something
we've learned over the course of time. Now you need a way to create graphics to apply
to those shoes. For this you have a couple options one if you want a full color logo
we can create a digital transfer called Cad-Printz all you need to do is visit stahls.com and
upload your art, but if you have a vinyl cutter, you can actually order heat transfer film
from us that we manufacture and sell direct. It's called CAD-CUT® FashionFILM. So you
can load that into a vinyl cutter and cut designs specifically for application to shoes
and we'll show you how to do that. I have a scrap piece of FashionFILM here this is
a great way to utilize scraps since shoe logos are typically very small. I'm just going to
load it into my cutter in this case I'm utilizing the Roland GX-24 we can also place you with
a vinyl cutter at Stahls' capable of cutting these graphics. I'm going to tell the machine
a piece is loaded and it's simply going to measure the width and length of the piece
so I know how much scrap material I'm working with. I'll verify that my force is correct,
my cutting downforce on the cutter. And then I'll send the job. I've already created a
design in the design software CadworxLIVE.com. Once the cutting is completed, I'll remove
the piece and we'll complete the weeding process. Utilizing the Stahls' EZ Weeder we'll start
at the weed border by picking away the excess material and just grabbing and pulling. Now
this is another key reason we use FashionFILM there's some reasons in the heat application
process but the high sticky backing allows you to accommodate a lot of detail. And that's
important when doing small footwear graphics. Trim out my design being careful to save as
much material as possible, because it can be used to cut another shoe graphic down the
line. It doesn't take much material to do this. Let's show you how to heat apply this.
The FashionFILM has a sticky backing on the material so it is able to actually hold to
the shoe. Otherwise you could use thermal tape which would help you keep it in position.
But in this case it's able to just stick down and apply. And now something people are most
apprehensive about naturally is melting the shoe. They don't understand that you can actually
heat press footwear. This is why we now recommend the Flexible Application Pad which is just
a cover sheet, a siliconized cover sheet, that you can use to cover the entire surface
of the shoe prior to pressing. Swing the heat press back into place and for FashionFILM
we recommend 320 degrees, a medium pressure and 30 seconds. Normally FashionFILM is a
15 to 20 second application but I need 30 seconds because I've added the Flexible Application
Pad as a barrier in between. Once the application completes simply remove the Flexible Application
Pad and FashionFILM backing can be peeled away. We have a completed pair of shoes. It's
important to note that the cost of this material is only about a penny a square inch so it's
about a nickel for each graphic on each shoe, so it can be very profitable. Now let's go
through the application of a wide variety of shoes and the next pair we'll do is another
pair of cleats this time for football. And we've cut out of FashionFILM Electric material
the QB number 7 design just showing you a concept if you wanted to incorporate a player's
position as well as a number. In the last design of course we did the player's name
with the number. Just to repeat the steps, we load the shoe, position the material, cover
everything with a Flexible Application Pad and then heat apply. There will be no preheating
required when you're decorating footwear. Just press and peel. And that finished design
is on there to stay. Now let's go with a pair of soccer cleats. One of the major markets
for personalization of shoes is naturally sports and cleats, because players want to
show their number. In this case we'll use a neon yellow color. Neon colors are prevalent
in shoes so it's a good product to put on the shelf when you first start customizing
shoes. Neons, electrics, metallics these are all good shade. Even though the shoe surface
is a little more of a glossy surface, and almost a plastic like, you can still apply
to it. Just always make sure you cover with the Flexible Application Pad press for one
step and peel. We can't possibly predict the materials that construct every shoe on the
market so I will give you some fair warning, we didn't ruin any shoes in this example and
we have plenty of customers doing it but I'm still going to recommend that you test the
footwear if possible before you start offering it as a stock offering. In this case we'll
switch gears and do a pair of sneakers. and show you a tone on tone look using FashionFILM
in an Electric Blue shade on top of the white area of the shoe as well as the royal blue
are of the shoe. Two separate placements and we'll apply it all together. We're showing
you the variety of shoes just to give you ideas. A lot of customers have actually implemented
shoe customization allowing the customer to go to Finish Line or Foot Locker whatever
shoe store is available, and actually bring the pair of shoes into your location and customizing
one pair at a time can be profitable. Many sporting goods businesses are selling customization
for $10 a pair and a retail setting I think you can command more then that. Once again,
all with about 10 cents in material costs. Here we'll do a pair of kid's shoes bright
and colorful and we're matching up FashionFILM in a brighter shade of green here. It's actually
the Apple Green color. This is probably about the smallest shoe that you can fit on the
shoe platen. It doesn't necessarily fit baby or toddler shoes this is just a kid's size
shoe, so you just want to make sure you can accommodate the shoes on the standard platen.
We can always do custom cut platens specific to size but this shoe platen will accommodate
most kids shoes and certainly the teenager shoes and adult shoes. Both men's and woman's
style. Now we would like to show you a heel placement on a actual sandal. You can accommodate
heel placements on the shoe platen you just need make sure it has a collapsible heel and
if it's on a sneaker or cleat style it needs to have a collapsible heel to be loaded on
the press like this and apply accurate pressure. In this case we've actually switched materials
on you and we're using the 3M™ Scotchlite™ Reflective and you can see the backing isn't
quite as sticky which is presenting an issue, and so that's why we're going to grab the
Stahls' thermal tape just to tape that design down into place to make sure it doesn't shift
and move when we go to cover it and heat press it. But 3M™ Reflective is a very unique
material to use on shoes especially for this particular application which is for a camp
where the kid or counselor may be out hiking. Of course you can do reflective on running
shoes there's a ton of different applications for reflective. But just press and peel using
the same application settings as we mentioned before. And then we're just going to...we
print it and now we spin it to do a side placement. Were we'll once again leverage FashionFILM
in the color neon orange. And we cut the name of the camp to put on the side of the sandal.
And we have a completed pair, this time with the 2 placements. And lastly lets step it
up and do some glittery shoes and we've cut our Stahls' CADCUT® Glitter Flake material
so it matches the sheen of the shoe. Glitter Flake is a little more challenging to cut
small detail on you want to limit exactly how small the detail but for a basic text
based design like this it's no problem. So we're positioning our pink colored Glitter
Flake onto the bling shoes once again following the same application. Peeling the backing
after it's complete and now we have a style of shoes that we could approach a number of
demographics with. You can go and call on dance schools, cheer squads, just kids, girls
in general. A very nice look. So as you're probably starting to see, there is a ton of
opportunity for customizing footwear and it can be very profitable. All you need to get
started is a Hptronix® heat press that allows you to interchange platens then you'll need
the shoe platen for the Hotronix® press. Now if you're working with the clam press
it would be beneficial to have the heat press caddie or the heat press counter caddie to
raise it for loading the shoes. You also need the flexible application pad and then of course
you'll need a Stahls' CAD-CUT® Direct heat transfer material. I recommend starting with
the CAD-CUT® FashionFILM or CAD-CUT® FashionFILM Electric and then you can experiment more
with 3M™ Reflective and Glitter Flake as you saw on this video. Good luck in customizing
footwear in your store and thanks for watching.