Tinwolf is a very small company where the manufacturing process from raw material to finished garment is almost entirely done by hand.
These pictures give some indication of the work we do but what isn`t shown is the time we spend to make sure that the custom designs we produce are as close to the original idea proposed or better.
The only real machine involvement is the cutting of the design into the reflective material.
A custom image is imported to our design software. The image is coverted to a vector graphic and then cleaned up and smoothed to provide a good design for the cutter to produce. Often the image provided requires some work with drawing software before it can be converted,
The vectored graphic will often require a good deal of tidying before it can be sent to the cutter. This is done by a designer line by line and can take quite a while depending on the original image.
Once the design is cut into the reflective material it must be "weeded". This is the process of removing the unwanted material from around the image. With complex designs this can be intricate and time consuming work. It can be very difficult to remove the unwanted material and keep the dot of an i for example.
Once the material is weeded it is placed on the garment and secured before passing it to the heat press. This picture shows the backing vinyl which holds the design together.
The garment is then put on a heat press. It will go through two applications of the heat press, once with it`s backing still on and then with the backing removed at a higher temperature for a longer period to ensure good adhesion to the base layer.
And the finished product!
TINWOLF DESIGNS
