Discuss the various aspects of heat pressed vinyl transfers. Popular and new types of vinyl media, suppliers, vinyl cutters /plotters, press times, quality, how to instructions and more can be found in this heat press sub forum.
Hi guys, you might think I have the wrong forum for this thread, but if you own a vinyl cutter and a heat press I want to show you an easy way to do basic screen printing.
Heres the scenario, you have a bunch of t-shirts, and you have put whatever design on them (vinyl / heat transfer..) but you want to personalise them with your own necktag? Well first use tear-away tees or get a seamstress to remove the label.
My logo was a little bit too complicated for this method so I got a screen printer to make a screen for that, if you have a simple design you can use this method for the whole lot, my issue is I didn't want to have a separate screen for every combination of different sizes to print on the neck tag (and no-one wants vinyl rubbing against the back of their neck and peeling off!)
so this is what worked for me:
Get yourself some transparency paper, like the stuff they use for OHP's (I think screen printers actually use this for exposures)
Load it onto a backing sheet and load it into your vinyl cutter, set to high pressure (on the laserpoint I use 180) and for text I use a font called stencil which works great because stencil is the best look you can achieve with this. type out whatever you want and cut it, the weeding process is a bit different the little bits of plastic need to pop right out, with the right pressure most should have already fallen out, if not a push with the weeder should pop all the bits out and now you have a very basic screen I am interested in other fonts that will work too, in most fonts if you were to cut a "0" you would have an empty circle, but with the stencil font it leaves the middle piece in.
the paper may be a bit too filmsy, so you can make a wooden frame and staple the paper to it or use heavy duty tape.
Now use a squeegee, so a bit of stiff plastic or just buy a proper one, and get yourself some textile ink and dab a bit of ink of the top of the paper, one pass with the squeegee over the design will be plenty, use lots of pressure to keep the ink thin.
leave it to air dry for at least a few minutes, cover it with parchment paper and put into your heat press 250F for 30 seconds, no pressure! so just let the top platen rest on the shirt for 30 seconds then bam its done, leave for 24 hours before washing and its there for good!
Well I am sure some screen printers may have rolled in there grave reading this, but like I say its just for basic stuff and fun to play around with if your a vinyl person like myself.
I used to do stencils on mylar/acetates, and found the font "Freefrm 721 BT" very useful, just as good as the stencil font, the only problem is the calligraphy look.
Just a suggestion, might want to up your heat press temp to around 330 deg F. Most screen printing inks cure above 300 deg. A lot of water based inks will set up under that temp, but in general the print will last longer if it is cured above 300.
thanks for the positive replies guys, after heat curing (the shirt with the XL's on it) I have run it through about 3 wash cycles with no fading or anything, and its strechable and has no hand to it. But thanks for your input Nick I will do it a bit hotter next time, I just randomly chose that initial tempuratre and after it survivded a wash test ok I kept using the same, but I might go hotter then if thats the case.
do your own screen printing! 
