LadyVC

I was just wondering if anyone can tell me if i am right or wrong with what some stuff i have learnt so far that i have added below about the T shirt printing business

1. Screen printing is the best process to use for quality however not feasible for small quantites and can only have no more than 4-6 colors?

2. Vinyl Cutting/Heat pressing is quick, good for small quantities and you can add as many colors to your design however quality is bad and print will only last approx 15 washes on shirt.

Cheers
Veena

 

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ino

The vinyl will last much longer than your shirt, it will not lose its colour. However it is more suitable for one to two colours, more layers will make it quite heavy and uncomfortable to wear if on a light t-shirt. Just my opinion.

 

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thanosgb

I agree with ino. They will be heavy and the only way the quality is bad depends on who made before it is cut. I have shirts I made years ago. No problems if you take care of them.

 

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CUSTOM UK

One colour vinyl is quick and easy. Once you start using multiple colours though, not only does the garment become heavier, but the design element becomes a lot more involved. Ideally you want the colours to nestle close to each other but without overlap. That becomes more of a problem when you come to pressing the designs onto the shirt. Each colour needs to be located precisely in relation to the previous colour, which can be very time consuming and extremely tedious if you have a few shirts to do.

Modern garment vinyl is very good and will typically outlive the shirt itself.

 

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LadyVC

many thanks for the info....so if i wanted print good quality t shirts with complex designs and colors, what would be the best equipment to use?.....as im only starting up i want to stay away from DTG as i understand they can be quite expensive

 

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Solmu

Quote: Originally Posted by LadyVC 1. Screen printing is the best process to use for quality

Right.

Quote: Originally Posted by LadyVC however not feasible for small quantites and can only have no more than 4-6 colors?

But wrong on this one. For quantity, it depends on the number of colours in the design, and what you define as "small". Fifteen one colour shirts? No problem. 24 three colour shirts? Probably. 1 shirt? No. Small quantities screenprinting has no problem with, but it's not cost effective to do individual / custom / couple of shirts for the family level quantities.

4-6 colour limit? No. For one thing screenprinting can handle four colour process (CMYK) which is what every other print process uses to achieve full colour results as well (the downside is it's a lot harder to do with screenprinting and consequently costs more).

Even for spot colour, there are very large carousels (12+ colours). Which is something that simply doesn't exist in every other print method (they can't even do one spot colour... unless it's Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black ).

There's a lot of simplistic information about screenprinting out there, but it's actually a lot more flexible than that.

Quote: Originally Posted by LadyVC 2. Vinyl Cutting/Heat pressing is quick, good for small quantities and you can add as many colors to your design however quality is bad and print will only last approx 15 washes on shirt.

That basically describes inkjet transfers, but vinyl is a bit different (as per the other posts).

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MotoskinGraphix

Lewis nailed it.

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denck

I still say screen printing is the way to go- even if its only a couple of shirts.I have customers comming in all the time and asking for 1 or two shirts. Around here the local DTG place charges 30 bucks for 1 shirt. I charge 25 for a single 1 off sample shirt(1 color not 6)-Basically paying for the screen fee. Those are done late in the day when the labor-Power and everything else is payed for-Then normally that 1 shirt buys the guys a beer or two.

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