• First, make sure you have your heat press temp. set to 350*F (177*C)
• You want to use a electrical spray gun for applying the pre-treatment. Over here we use Wagner paint guns. This is the best way to get a constant and even spray on your shirt.
• We found here to be the best results was to press your shirt for about 30 seconds before applying the pre-treatment. This way you press all the fibers flat and get some of the moisture out of the shirt.
• After pressing the shirt apply the pre-treatment by evenly coating the shirt in a back and forth motion starting from the top of the shirt and working towards the bottom. The amount of pre-treatment applied my very from different brands of shirts. The key to the proper amount is you want the shirt damp not dripping wet. It will be more then a fine mist but not so much that the pre-treatment is dripping off the shirt.
• After you are done with the pre-treament, you want to have a small foam roller, anywhere from 4" to 6" long and 1" in diameter. This roller is used to push down any fibers in the shirt and push the pre-treatment into the shirt before pressing. When doing this just roll the shirt in one direction from the top of the shirt to the bottom.
• After that is done you will want to hover the heat press over the shirt for one minute. After that minute is up raise up the heat press and let one of the vapors come off the shirt. After that you want to do a full pressure press for one more minute. Once that is complete you will be ready to print your shirt.
• This may sound like a lot, but the whole process only takes about 3 minutes total.
I noticed after pretreatment you put it under the heat press, would it be possible to pre-pre-treat a whole order and run them thru a dryer prior to printing and accomplish process.
I know the pretreatment seems to be a weak point and a bottle neck during the production.
I have not found that a dryer is a good solution for speeding up the process. Pretreatment as well as the ink function best when pressure is applied to them.
You could use the dryer as the "hover" mode but you still will need to apply the pressure of the heat press to secure the pretreatment/ink in place.
I am not so sure a dryer would work well, as the press actually presses down the fibers which is really important. I would think if you put them through a dryer with out pressure, then you would end up with a rough surface instead of a smooth one.
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I am not so sure a dryer would work well, as the press actually presses down the fibers which is really important. I would think if you put them through a dryer with out pressure, then you would end up with a rough surface instead of a smooth one.
That is why I said you could use it for the first minute of the cycle, but for the second minute where you have to use the pressure of a heat press to lay the fibers down and work the pretreatment into the shirt it would not work.
I seen your post after I posted Alex Apparently we were posting at the same time haha.
That does seem to be along time to take pretreating one shirt. Is there some reason you do such a long dry on the pretreat?
It seems to use much less pretreatment when we do it this way. I can get about 4-5 dozen full sides (16x20) pretreated with one liter this way. (using 6.1oz shirts 100% cotton)
We have a SpeedTreater that is next to our gas conveyor dryer. If we have an order for 72 shirts we put them on the treater push the button and in its done in less than 30 seconds per shirt, lay it on the belt and when it comes out the other end we catch and stack them. We then press the shirts 1 at a time before we print them. We have seen no fiberlation and the washability is great. When we used the Wagner we tried all the tips here from roller to paint brush and have concluded if you spray it right and dry before you print it works the same, its a matter of what works for you. Hope it helps, John
The Dupont pretreatment I have recommends 130*C and to press for just 15seconds. Are your instructions for Dupont pretreatment? Might have to give your instructions a shot as I just recently had a batch of t-shirts with bad white ink washout
The Dupont pretreatment I have recommends 130*C and to press for just 15seconds. Are your instructions for Dupont pretreatment? Might have to give your instructions a shot as I just recently had a batch of t-shirts with bad white ink washout
Yes, the instructions are for Dupont pretreatment. I have tried about 10 different ways of pretreating a shirt but this way seems to work the best for me.
I have almost an unlimited amount of resources to test theories with and I truly believe this is the best way as of yet. The automated treaters seem to work okay, but I like knowing exactly how much I lay down on the shirt.
alex, can you help me here. when i pretreat shirts, it always leaves a light stain over the area that i sprayed (after printing). it does wash out, but people often purchase custom tees for gifts, and i HATE giving our customers tees with a pretreatment stain on them, even if it does wash out. do you experience this stain? is it just inevitable?
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Hi Matty I am not alex but I think I might be able to help
What I do before spraying the pretreat, is use a regular spray bottle set on fine mist, and lightly mist the area you are going to pretreat. Then continue on with your regular pretreating. This has worked wonders for me.
Basic Pretreatment Info 
Apparently we were posting at the same time haha. 
