[Tshirtwonderland]

I have been pressing shirts for about 2 months now, and things are moving along pretty good. As my shirts are becoming popular I am getting more business, and I'm trying to speed up my process.

What is slowing me down most is measuring and aligning my transfer paper images to be sure they are not crooked or uneven before I press it on the shirt. I am using an 11X15 press and most of my shirts are 2XL and larger. I have to lay my shirts on a table, lay the image on the shirt use a tape measurer to make sure it is even form sleeve to sleeve and then I use tiny stickers to mark the four corners of the image. I then take the shirt over to the press lay down the image in the pre marked spot, remove the stickers and then press. I know this seems tedious, but before I started doing this, many of my shirts were coming out crooked. I admit I am meticulous, but one of the reasons my shirts are getting so much attention is because there are so many poorly made shirts on the streets, people take more notice to the quality of mine. When business starts really booming I can buy a 16X20 press, Maybe then I could just do it by eye ball it.

Does anybody have any suggestions. How do most people keep their images from being pressed crooked.

 

[Fluid]

youll get the hang of it soon. no pun intended
essentially youll be able to just eyeball it.If your spending tons of time measuring each one for placement youll need to charge more. Go to a t-shirt stor and look at a group of shirts with the same design. study them. youll notice lots of mistakes. as long as your pretty darn close you should be good to go. Keep practicing, the more you do the better and faster youll get.

 

[TeeShirtSamurai]

Good question and it's nice to see that you are concerned with quality.

I was worried about this well as I'll be pressing shirts in a few weeks. I had always wondered if people eyeballed it or maybe someone uses a template they made?

The ideal solution would keep the transfer straight on the shirt, minimize prep time per shirt and be relatively simple.

 

[badalou]

here is what I do. lay shirt down on press. Place your transfer down where you thing is the center then fold the collar over the tranfer and make sure the difference on each side of the collar. Then fold collar back and press. On most shirts that I buy there is a pressed line doen the center of the shirt. That is also helpful. Lou

 

[Solmu]

On most shirts that I buy there is a pressed line doen the center of the shirt. That is also helpful.

While the centre line would be useful for lining the shirt up on the press, am I correct in thinking it won't survive pre-pressing for lining the transfer up on the shirt?

 

[badalou]

Yes it will as you do not press the whole shirt only the part that has the transfer or the size of your press. Unless your press covers the shirt, doubtful. But still using the collar drop down to your transfer and making sure it is even on both sides always works for me.