Custom T-shirt Screen Printing Method

Custom T-shirt screen printing is affordable. The advantages of the screen printing presses are that they can print on substances of any thickness, shape and size. Another advantage of screen printed t-shirts are, when worn, they‘re walking bill boards.

When you wear a name brand logo T-shirt like:

• Adidas
  
• Dockers
  
• Nike
  
• Tommy Hilfiger
  
• and Old Navy, et

you’re displaying a product of commercial screen printing. What better form of advertising do you want?

Today, screen printing inks are printed on a multitude of materials from manufactured china ware, glass, decals, metals, signage, timber, plastics, paper and promotional items to fashion fabrics. Custom T-shirts are no exception.

T-shirt Screen Printing Inks

A wider range of inks and dyes are available for use in screen printing. Here are three basic type of ink used in the T-shirt screen printing industry:

First, there is Permaset water-based fabric printing colors, an industry favorite. It has a vibrant, lightfast, flexible finish. Permaset fabric ink is permanent, and hand or machine washable. It does not fade, crack or peel.

Textile ink is the second type. It is water-based and cures at room temperature. Printed T-shirts are water resistance and ready to wash in 24 hours. Textile ink is ideal for cotton or cotton/polyester blend and other manmade fabrics.

A third ink is called a Plastisol. To cure this ink, printed T-shirts must be heat at 290º – 330º F or (143º -166º C). It can be printed wet-on-wet colors or heated to cure color between prints. Plastisol ink is suited for cotton, cotton/polyester blends, linen, rayon, polyester and other unnatural fibers, with the exception of nylon.

Silk Screen or Fabric Mesh

A fine silk screen or fabric mesh is stretched over a wooden or aluminum frame. Since there are many mesh alternatives, different mesh sizes are used for different applications in the T-shirt screen printing process.

Preparing the Image on the Printing Screen

To prepare a silk screen for printing, it is coated with a photo emulsion. A reverse image is burn into the emulsion by exposing the prepared screen to light.  Negative and positive inking areas are created. The positive areas will allow the ink to pass through the mesh spaces and onto the printed T-shirt. The negative areas are blocked to stop the ink flow.

Producing a Silk Screen Print

A silk screen is made for each color to be printed. As a rule of thumb, two and three colors make the best logo design or printed impact.

To create a screen print, a rubber squeegee is used to spread ink evenly across the screen. In a forward and backward stroke, the ink passes through the open screen mesh and adheres to the T-shirt. The ink on the t-shirt is then dried (heated) to create a permanent image.

A four-color silk screen print requires four screens. The screens are placed on a rotary press that allows precise alignment for four color prints.

Silk screens are durable and are re-used after cleaning.

The industry increasing demand for custom t-shirt printing has resulted in the development of automated screen presses, which require minimum human interference.

Remember to order custom T-shirt screen printing in bulk, the more you order, the cheaper they get.

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