Printing a T-Shirt

Once the image is on your silkscreen and you have completed taping and touching up, you are ready to print a t-shirt.

The first step is to draw a center line on the t-shirt platen (platen is the board you place the t-shirt on to print the image on it), and then draw another line 5" from the top edge. Then place a copy of the art work on the t-shirt platen centering left to right and then brining up close to the top edge. Basically this is where the t-shirt print will print so make sure it is straight and even.

Place each screen on to the platen and while moving it around look at the image and targets to line them up to the art work taped to the platen.

Once the targets line up, tighten both the front and back registration brackets. This will ensure that the screen will always fall into the right location each time you lay the screen down. You will repeat this for each color you want to print.

Before you start to print remove the art work from the platen.

Next you spray textile adhesive on the t-shirt platen. This will ensure that the t-shirt will not move will you are printing. Textile adhesive at $4.00 a can is less expensive than spray glue. Each time you spray it will last for about ten t-shirts before you will have to re-spray the platen.

The next step is to use a test pellon to see if everything looks right before you try to print on a t-shirt. A pellon is a cloth like fabric that comes in white or black and cost $20.00 per 100 and is well worth it to save wasting t-shirts.

When you wash out the screens for a multi-color job the targets will wash out also. After lining up the screens you must turn the screen over and put tape over the targets so ink will not come through onto the t-shirt.

You place the lightest color of ink down first. The ink you use is called plastisol. It is unvulcanized plastic (liquid plastic) and is cured only when it reaches 300 degrees heat for about one minute. It is like working with peanut butter. The silver handle with a rubber blade in the above picture is called a squeegee. A squeegee comes in different lengths and must be a little wider than the image you are printing. The proper procedure is to pull the ink with the squeegee from the back of the screen toward you (the front) coating the screen with a thick layer of ink though not really pushing down hard. Next, pushing down hard force the ink through one time only from front to back. Try to do it completely the first time; the more times you push the ink through the more ink goes onto the t-shirt which can potentially ruin the image on the t-shirt.

Here I am flood coating then pressure squeegeeing, pushing down hard to the back of the screen, on our four-color rotary press (Package #2). Update: Package #2 is now a 6-color press for the same price.

Back to the yellow ink, this is what the pellon looked like after I printed it.

Next you must flash dry before you print the next color. A flash dryer is a small dyer that is 16" x 16" and radiates heat downward on to the t-shirt in order to cure the plastisol ink. In this case you only have to heat between colors enough to dry the top of the ink so the next color you put down will not bleed. This is called flash drying and it takes about 10 seconds. Note: a flash dryer costs anywhere between $450.00 and $1,000.00. They normally operate on 110 volts unless when you order you specify 220 volts. They were originally created to enable you to print on dark shirts with light colors. This is done by laying a white coat of the image down first then flashing it and then print the color right over it so it will be bright. I.e. you want to print the number ten on a black shirt in bright red. You first print the number ten in white, flash dry it, then print it in red.

The next color I printed was green.

Then I flash dried it (10 seconds) and then lay the last color on which is black.

Each time I put a screen on I had to fill it with ink. This amount of ink would print about 20 t-shirts before I had to refill. One quart will do about 200 one-sided t-shirts.

On the last color you do not need to flash dry. This goes for a t-shirt also. Just take it off carefully making sure you do not let it touch anything. Then place it on the drying board provided on the Amazing Multi-Color Printer.

The curing time is approximately one minute and is done on the drying board located left of the t-shirt platen. The flash dryer is set at 6" away from the drying board which makes it 1" away on the t-shirt platen.

Once the test pellon is dried and everything looks alright, you are ready to print a t-shirt.