You would start by turning your dryer on to let it heat up. Setting up the positive and burning the screen will take a few minutes. Washing out the image will take another few minutes. Need to let the screen dry before you print but you could get the screen on the press and lined up while its drying. With a fan it will only take a few minutes to dry. About a minute or so to place the shirt, print one color and then dry.
Its gonna cost you alot of money in emulsion and cleaning chemicals as well as alot of cleaning and and coating time to do it that way.
Its not worth it.
Print a small run of each design in a few sizes or do plastisol transfers.
Hmm it has to be screen printing as i have already put money aside for everything and want to learn the trade.
Thanks for the quick replies though!!!
Yeh never thought of the cost of emulsion to do it that way...
The only other idea i had was to just buy a TON of screens so that i could just burn them in and keep a screen ready per design. But im hoping to have over 200 designs done which would mean anything between 200 and 1000 screens at one time (depending on how many colours per design)
Now that im writing this im noticing that it sounds a bit insane...
i cant really think of a better method of working as i want to basically just wake up in the morning and do the prints that have been ordered from the day before. But without using a ton of emulsion...
Yeah, doing it for the first time you will be pretty slow, too. Also, you mention screens so you are talking multiple colors. You might nail registration right away or it could take you a long time. Youll also have to flash dry between colors. If everything goes smoothly 30 minutes. If I had to put money on someone without training doing their first shirt and it's multiple colors probably at least an hour.
Perhaps a better question is how much does it cost to coat a screen with emulsion roughly. If i know that then i know how much i need to sell my shirts for.
You can make the plastisol tranfers yourself with the screen printing equipment. You will have to purchase the release paper and the heat press though.
Even if you were to have a screen(s) for each design it is still just to time consuming to do, especially if you have a multicolor design that you would have to register each time you were to print one. That process alone could take you a long time.
If they are your own design, that you plan on having available for a long period of time, I'd probably bite the bullet and print at least a dozen of each whenever you do print one for the first time.
10 minutes to coat the screen with emulsion:
15 minutes to burn the image into the screen
30 minutes to wash the image
30 minutes to set up the screens and register the print
52 minutes to print a three color print onto 24 t-shirts 2 hours and 17 minutes for the entire job
Price for the supplies:
$ .73
Silkscreen costs (Note: A silkscreen costs $20, but they can be used up to 5,000 times depending on your care of them. You can change images as often as you need).
$ 1.50
Emulsion (coating you put on a screen in order to place the image in the silkscreen)
$ .50
Plastic tape
$ 2.70
Ink (Note: it cost $.035 per imprint per color )
$ 44.00
T-shirt cost (wholesale cost are $22.00 per doz. for 100% heavy weight white cotton t-shirt) Click here for sample white t-shirt prices!
$.20
Electricity $ 49.62Total cost for materials
All Hail the Fuzz! Thanks for your help!!!
hmm yeh the emulsion looks kind of expensive per screen especially if i have a few colours.
Not sure whats the best way to operate lol I think cosmic jim might be right and printing a small run of each shirt will be the most cost effective way. However that kind of terrifys me as i wont know what sizes will be more popular.
If you do plastisol transfers you are still doing screen printing and learning that trade. The only issue is the learning curve on getting the tranfers done correctly and the fact that you would have to buy a heat press.
On the upside you wont have to have leftover printed shirts, you will save yourself a TON of time, a TON of money in the long run, And you will get to learn the art of the heat press.
How long does one t-shirt take question 
Re: How long does one t-shirt take question 
