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daveym · December 2nd, 2008

As stated in a previous post, i have a number of kids t-shirts to print from between ages 9-12.

I am aligning up the tee square it with the neck/collar to get the centre point. I am placing the design which is just plain text (5cm high/27 cm wide) across the t shirt...however when i do this the text seems off from the sides of the seams of the arms...the gap between the end of logo to seam on one side is more than the other although the text is perfectly central to the collar! when i measure up from the logo to the shoulders the text is also spot on...

i really don't know what im doing wrong if anything. Is it best to work the cetral point out from the distance between the arms or the collar.

Please help as i need this job out the way tomorrow and im nearly pulling my hair out of this!!!

thanks for any help given.

T-BOT · December 2nd, 2008

I would start by checking IF the shirt is straight.

What shirts and fabric type are you using?

T-Shirts for the most part are made of KNIT fabrics. Knit fabrics have stretch, some more than others depending on the knit...like rib knit will stretch more than jersey knit.

What I used to do before printing a shirt, I would lay the shirt down on the press, look at it and see if it looked straight, if it did not I would gently stretch the shirt into place, arm sleeves included.

Mind you that with poor quality shirts, nothing will help them being straight.

Give it a try, once the shirt is straight on the press, then use the tool to line up your graphic.

...Im sure someone with experience with this tool will come along and try to help your urgent need....soon.

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lben · December 2nd, 2008

Did you purchase quality Ts or irregulars? Irregulars are often misshapped and crooked.

I ran into the same problem you did when trying to make a t for my grandson. I finally ended up just eyeballing it because no matter which area I centered it in, it still ended up crooked. Yeah, we had t-shirts from Walmart, so they were most likely seconds anyhow.

I wish one of our inventive members here would come up with t-shirt platens for heat pressers. Maybe I could buy some platens for screen printing and then glue some mousepad material to them. There has to be an easier way to get t-shirts straight and putting them on a platen seems to work just fine for screen printers. But then they have screens with registration marks that line up... Frustrating if nothing else.

wormil · December 2nd, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by lben


	I wish one of our inventive members here would come up with t-shirt platens for heat pressers.

Someone makes a press now, maybe Hix, that allows you to load the shirt just like a screenprinting platen. Seems absurd to me that it took decades for someone to think of this.

Anyway, to the OP, shirts are never perfect and neither are people. Don't obsess. You could always fold the shirt in half and press a centerline as another member here suggests. I use my fingers to measure down from the collar and then eyeball it. I'm always within a 1/4" of center which is good enough.

daveym · December 2nd, 2008

thanks for all the help guys...i havn't had the need to use the tee square it until now so just watched a few tutorials on youtube but the way i see it often being done, is placing the tee square it along the centre of the neck. But the shirts i'm using have really crooked neck lines as they are pretty low budget so it's almost impossible to align along the centre. I ended up using the tee sqaure it and finding the centre of the shirt by using either seam along the arms...this seems to have centred it far better than the neck was doing so i'm happy! I think i will do all future alignments the same way, but if anyone does have better alignment methods when using the tee square it please share them.

wormil · December 3rd, 2008

If the neck is off center and you center the design on the tee shirt it will still look crooked because when someone puts the shirt on, the neck will always be centered on their body. In printing there is often a difference between looking correct and being correct; you want to look correct.

daveym · December 3rd, 2008

yes i understand what you mean...to be honest these really are the lowest budget kids t shirts so the neck is all scuffed and crooked making it so difficutl As stated, i'm using the seams on either side but also using the centre when found to see if this 'roughly' aligns with the neck. I think you can afford to be slightly off anyway. I've checked on a number of sports tops i've bought in the past and none seem to have text totally central to either the neck or the sides and i paid lots of money for these tops so it shows that even some of the top brands don't align logos/designs totally perfectly central to the neck. I didn't even really notice this until really inspecting closely, so i'm sure no one will really notice the alignment of my prints.

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