How to Screen Print T-Shirts

Screen Printing is an amazing technology. You can print intense, bright ink on just about anything with it. Of course it's great for printing T-Shirts. With a trip to the art supply and hardware stores, you can set up to print in short order. You can also source screen printing supplies on the web, or from wholesale screen printing suppliers. Here is as link to one other online supplier.

Let's assume you've already created a design that exists as a digital file. You mighta used Photoshop or even word, but it's done, right? For first timers, it is best to start with a design for printing in just one color of ink.

Get some clear vellum paper and print out your design on it. Use a laser printer for best results. The print is a film positive, used to put the image on a screen. The print must be opaque to make a screen. If it's not opaque, draw on the back with a black marker or brush and ink.

Buy a ready made screen print frame, stretched with synthetic mesh fabric. You can stretch your own screen fabric if you prefer. Choose a mesh count that is versatile. For general T-Shirt printing, start with a 110 - 180 mesh. Anything in that range should do. T-Shirt printers use mesh counts from 80 to 350, but a mesh of about 150 is the most versatile.
Clean the screen print frame with soapy water and rinse completely. Let it dry overnight.

Purchase some photo emulsion that can be used with water based ink. The emulsion must be sensitized before use. Mix the sensitiser as per the instructions that come with it. Do this in the dark!

Coat both sides of the screen with the emulsion. Use a stiff piece of illustration board or a squeegee. You can also buy a metal screen coating tool, a trough that you pour emulsion in, then coat the screen with. Go for an opaque, thin layer of emulsion. Remove any excess drippy emulsion with a stroke or two on each side. Put the screen in a dark place, face down. Let it dry overnight.



Check out the image above, how to burn a screen. You will use the film positive to put the image on a screen. This step must be done in a darkened room, with running warm water available. Cut a piece of foam rubber to fit inside your screen print frame. Place the piece of foam rubber on a flat surface. Place the screen print frame face down over the foam. Put the film positive face down and centered on the back of the screen. A piece of heavy glass goes on top of the film, frame and foam. Quarter inch glass is great for this as it holds the film positive in close contact with the screen print frame.
Hang a halide light about 15 - 18 inches over the film positive. Turn it on for about five to eight minutes. Exposure time depends on your emulsion. Check the instructions that came with the it for recommendations on exposure time. Often some trial and error is necessary.
If your design washes out, increase your exposure time. If it clogs up, decrease your exposure time.

Turn the light off and develop the image on the screen with a spray of warm water. Spray both sides of the screen until the image area is completely developed. Blot both sides of the screen with newsprint and let it dry in a well lit or sunny area.

Once the screen is dry, put packing tape or masking tape along the inside edges of the screen. Taping it out like this will stop ink from leaking at the side. Also inspect the screen for pinholes. You can block unwanted holes with tape or screen block.

If you have a T-Shirt press, put the screen in the print head and tighten, centering the image on the shirt board.

If you don't, it's not problem. I started running T-Shirts on a kitchen table. Just put a piece of newspaper in side each T-Shirt prior to printing to avoid the ink splooging out to the back of the shirt.

Lay the shirt flat on a table. Put the screen print frame over it. Put a bit of screen printing ink in the end of the frame opposite you. Use one hand to pull the squeegee towards yourself and the other to firmly hold the screen down. Lift the screen to check results. Once the print looks really good, print multiples.

I recommend that beginners use water based screen print ink for ease of use. The leading brands are Speedball and Versatex. Union Aerotex is a top brand of commercial waterbased ink, available from Midwest Sign (the first supplier link above).

Have fun and be patient!

Steve Lafler
Manx Media Custom Screen Printing

Make Your Own Custom T-Shirts

I am in the custom T-Shirt printing business, it's true. Maybe you'd think it's bad business for me to tell people how to make their own decorated shirts! But the fact it, with my minimum order at 50 shirts, there is plenty of reason to let people know what their options are.
If you need to put a design on just a few T-Shirts, I recommend using the tried and true ink jet transfer technique. Really, for short run full color, it's the only way to go.
Start by sourcing a few T-Shirts at relatively low cost at your local big box retailer. I'd stick to white or light T-Shirts as the transfer will look best on it. If you can't find blank T's at a good price, zip me an email and I'll set you up with blanks for a reasonable price.


You can do ink jet transfers on dark shirts too, just be sure to trim away the white margins from the ink jet paper before ironing.

You will need one piece of transfer paper for each shirt. You can buy ink jet T-Shirt transfer paper at most office supply stores, or you can order it online from Avery.
Of course you will need a design! Use a graphics or word processing program to set up a design. You can use typography, illustration, photos, and color in your design. Try to create something that will read well from a few feet away.
The design must be flipped horizontally to it's mirror image, then printed on the transfer paper. You can do this in Photoshop from the image pull down menu, and I understand you can do it in Microsoft Word also. I don't use Word, so you'll have to look in the help menu for tips on flipping the design. Or, just export the design as a PDF file and flip it in Photoshop!
Once you've printed your transfer paper, you are ready to print. Set an iron on cotton/high heat. Place each T-Shirt on a flat surface and place the printed transfer paper face down over it with the print in the desired position. Iron the back of the design firmly in a circular motion for three or four minutes to transfer the image to the shirt.
When washing, turn the shirt inside out and wash in cold water. The print will last longer if you do this. It will not last as long as a screen print, but still you get a great looking printed T-Shirt for a very low price.
Of course, when you decide you want a top flight screen printer to do your run of 50 shirts or more, I hope you will email me for a quote on the job!

Full Color T-Shirt Decorating

Manx Media is able to offer our customers two great options for decorating T Shirts with full color graphics.

Screen Printing
Traditional screen printing continues to be the best way to produce full color images on T Shirts when you need a large quantity of shirts. Our minimum order for full color (4-6 colors in your design) screen printed shirts is 72 pieces.
In terms of the brillance of color and the durability of the print, there is no technology better than screen printing to decorate garments.
Depending on the nature of your design, we can use spot color, index color, simulated process color, or index color to recreate your graphic on a shirt. We use a Photoshop plug-in program created just for the apparel decorator to generate the best possible version of your graphics for T Shirts.
As it is necessary to produce a film positive and screen for each color in your design, the economies of scale kick in nicely at the six dozen quantity.

Digital Imaging
The revolutionary good news in the shirt biz is that transfers are back. These are not your dad's transfers--the cheesy muscle car design that washed off before you could even break it in. With improvements in ink and transfer technology, todays digital transfers look vibrant and are washfast.
For full color apparel decorating on quantities less than six dozen, transfers are a great option. Working from your digital image, we create transfers that are heat pressed onto shirts. You get a great full color shirt that is easy on the budget.
At present, this technology works best on white or light colored garments.
If your design requires one, two or three colors, screen printing is still the way to go even with smaller quantities.

Questions? Send Steve an email at steve.lafler@gmail.com with your apparel decorating question.

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