How to print your own t-shirt

 Welcome to Printing Matters

 

Custom T-Shirt Printing

Custom t-shirt printing has long been an attractive idea to make a unique or bespoke item that no-one else has. To create a one off design of your own making really makes that item special, rather than the normal shop bought item.

Create your own t-shirt

Do you want to make one from transfer or go the hole hog and get proper machinery to job the job properly to resell them?

Iron on Transfer paper is by the easiest way to produce a print as you only need a normal ink jet printer and very little knowledge to produce a print. The quality of course will show this and it will not last as long, nor look professional, however can be a good starting block and to test your ideas without spending a lot of money. Packs of paper can be bought from large PC shops or by way of ebay etc. Make sure you buy the correct type of paper for the t-shirt you are going to apply the transfer to. Light paper for light coloured shirts and dark paper....Both of these transfers only need a simple inkjet printer, or you may choose to use a colour laser if you can find laser transfer paper. Once you have printed off your design accordingly to the paper used used, you them apply the print to the shirt with an iron or heat press if you have the use of one. The end result will have a shiny look due to the way the non commercial papers are made and the way they bind themselves to the garment. Using this method is not recommended, but some people just like to have a play and just have a go.

Design your own t-shirt

The design of the print dictates very often on what type of print and equipment you need to get he job done properly.

If wanting to go for a full on professional looking print then you need to spend a considerable amount of money and time!

Screen printing

For this type of print, firstly you need a lot of space as the equipment is very large, especially if you want to be able to print more than 4 colours. You also need other equipment to make the screens, of which you need to make one screen for each colour wanted. Once the screen is made you then squeegee the ink to the garment and then let to dry or use drying equipment to make the job quicker.

Cad Cut Garment Vinyl

This involves a vinyl cutting machine and the necessary software to convert your design into a vector cut line to be able to cut the design out of rolls of garment vinyl's. Once you have cut your vinyl's you then heat press them on with a suitable heat press, let cool, remove the carrier sheet and the shirt is ready to wear. Cad cutting machines can be anywhere from £500 to £10,000 depending on quality, speed and size of machine. The bonus of these machines is that you can cut hundreds of designs in one easy operation, with very little user interaction until the process is finished. Once cut the excess material needs removing, this is called weeding. You then need to separate the designs from each other and align on the garment before heat pressing on.

Direct to Garment Digital Printing

This is a very modern approach and also very expensive and slow. The machine literally prints direct to the garment in the same way an inkjet printer prints to paper. The garment is put on a platen and the inks are squirted on. This takes about 5 minutes to complete, uses a lot of ink and the machines are very expensive. Larger machines can do multiple items at once, but cost considerably more.

Customised t-shirts 

Ok, so now you have some of the information you need. If you still want to go ahead and try it yourself, then go ahead and give it a go. If not, call us and we will be glad to help you put your design on the shirt in a professional manner and save you all the hassle.