I want to get the basics for doing a few t-shirts for myself is there a good starter kit
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
Go to any good art supply store and get a screen, squeegie and some ink. Might have to find a silkscreen supply place. They also have the film that you use their lacquer thinner to adhere the film into the screen, after you cut out your image. The silk screen lac thin is somehow better and hotter? They do make waterbased inks and probably have water based films?
It is easy and messy. Getting the registration for the shirts is a bit tricky, but some cardboard from an old shipping box will do. Just cut it out to fit inside the Tshirt and away you go, making a really big mess!
You can also have any artwork photo set in a screen if you wanna get complicated. You just provide them with good high contrast black & white imagery of each color and they hand you back the screen ready to use. Registration on T shirts by hand is kinda tricky, but can be done. It is all pretty simple and did I mention, MESSY! Ho,Ho,Ho!
Posted by Bruce Brickman (Member # 8180) on :
John, go to this site and type in screen printing t-shirts. www.instructables.com Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
Check out t-biznetwork.com/
Posted by Teddy Carlsen (Member # 13012) on :
Have been looking at the links mentioned, when you get the silk screen material remember to mention that it's for t-shirt printing.
It comes in different thread counts, as i recall it's 80-90(per cm or something metric ) for fabric. Coarse fabric = coarse screen.
When printing on t shirts, the screen touches the fabric, printing stickers and hard surfaces, there should be a small gap between the screen and substrate(and 100-120 thread count).
TeddyC
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
You could go to Signcraft magazine wesbite & get the 'How to Print T-shirts for Fun & Profit' book, for starters...
I'm not sure I'd put too much faith in the cheap 'starter' kits though. I have a feeling they're designed to NOT impress you with their quality.
Posted by Blake Koehn (Member # 5984) on :
How did you know I wanted to do this too? Just for personal use. We were just talking about this in the past week or so. To jazz up work shirts/sweatshirts for fun.
This link shows using your vinyl cutter for silk screening -
On a small basis, I think this is the way to go - you don't have to use emulsion and burn screens, wait for them to dry... . I've seen YouTube videos both ways - placing the vinyl on the top and running the squeegee right on the vinyl, and placing the vinyl on the bottom (reversed) - I don't know how many prints you would get, but for short runs (5 or 6) I would think it would be fine. Google more videos using vinyl.
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
There's also the Yudu home screenprinting kit.
Posted by Teddy Carlsen (Member # 13012) on :
Comment to the video:
Get an squeegee wide enough to cover the whole design.
Don't go over it several times, it's better loading up the screen when it's lifted from the shirt, start with ink on the far side, pull down and back up.
Then lay down the screen, and pull down from the top down towards your self(doe's this make sense?). This gives you more control, and you will be able to do it more evenly.
Going over it several times, you risk getting an unsharp edge, or worse the ink can splatter past the print area, ruining the print/t shirt.
Fabric is a little more forgiving than hard surfaces, but you are taking a chance going over it more than once.
Teddy
Posted by Lori Wilcox (Member # 8042) on :
This weblink shows how to use Yudu using emulsion versus vinyl - watch both videos to see the difference. The first one is quite humorous.
The main issue would be curing the ink correctly. We use plastisol ink and we have a tunnel dryer to cure the ink on the garment. They make water based inks as well that might work for a home made setup.
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) for fabric. Coarse fabric = coarse screen.