I have been testing Hanes 50/50 t-shirts and hoodies in DTG printers without any type of pretreatment. These are lighter shirts, white, ash, yellow..etc. I thought I would have problems with the DTG. I also called the help line for the Kiosk printer and asked. I was surprised that they said the only issue that might occur is a glossy look to the finish after curing. I thought we were not able to print on 50/50 garments in the DTG? I have also tried to washing the garment and it looks great, no issues.
I have printed 100% poly with no problems. I just have to hit 3 times and cure longer. I won't do them for the same cost of course ad I try and steer my customers away from it if I can help it.
I don't think 50/50 is very good for DTG, IMO. I think if you did a wash test with the exact same image on a 50/50 shirt and a 100% cotton shirt and then washed both together 5 times, you would notice a big difference, side by side. Try it before selling some 50/50 shirts.
I will not print anything less than 80/20 (and that is only for sweatshirts with a full cotton face), because I just have not found them to be high enough quality after many washes compared to 100% cotton.
Be careful when curing hoodies and quarter zips. The plastic in the draw strings will melt with direct contact to the platen. The quarter zips, generally all plastic, are a lost cause if placed in contact with the platen.
50/50's never came out as nice as 100% cotton for us
I have not printed anything other than 55hemp/45 cotton the pictures come brighter and the is no fading issues some of mine are over a year old but the blanks are pricy and I do not pretreat other than blacks
I have a retail store,and I had a lot of shirts printed and by all methods,for some reason (I am not an expert here) silk screening graphics apear to peel off/fade after a little while on hemp mixed garments, but it does not on DGP, I was told by my hemp wholesaler that it is because hemp absorbs the ink better than coton. Keep in mind that most of the silk screening was outsoursed but there were 6 different companies with the same problem. I had a few printed on dgp last year(anajet) as a trial and the graphics look sharp after a year. Could be that the printers did not do things properly as unlikely as it sounds
I will not print anything less than 80/20 (and that is only for sweatshirts with a full cotton face), because I just have not found them to be high enough quality after many washes compared to 100% cotton.
What brand 80/20 are you using or would you suggest? How do you tell if it has the full cotton face? Does anyone sell a 100% cotton sweatshirt?
Thanks
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