How We Print T-shirts

We print our t-shirts through a process called screen printing 

Screen printing is a process where you print a design onto a t-shirt. This process is done by using silkscreens, which are kind of like tiny screen doors with even smaller holes.

The first step ,of course, is always design.

A screen printing design can vary from a single color with just a name to a variety of different colors to form an image. Sometimes customers come to us with a design already made or ask us to come up with one for them after giving us a few details of what they would like.

Once a design is settled on the image is separated into each individual color that makes up the design. These images are printed out onto a transparent film.

The next step is to burn the image into a screen or rather burn everything else other than the image.

You see a screen is coated with an emulsion that is sensitive to light and breaks down from water. We take one of the pieces of film with the image portion on it and tape it down to a light table. A screen is then placed on top of the film and the table is then closed and sealed for a few minutes. During this time light is causing the emulsion to harden on the screen except for the area with the image is because the light cannot penetrate the black ink.  

After the emulsion has hardened you simply have to spray the screen with water to reveal the image.

Now we let the screen dry for a few minutes and after it dry we tape up the screen.

Tapping up the screen is done to avoid accidents. Sometimes emulsion can break down which would cause unwanted ink to get on a t-shirt or other garment.

With the screen tapped up we can finally begin setting up the print.

The corresponding ink color is added to the screen and set up around the machine. One screen, usually the largest part of the image, is chosen to line up on the board to be printed. Once this screen is lined up correctly we add a flood bar and squeegee.

The flood bar pulls ink on top of the image and then the squeegee presses the ink through the screen.

With the first screen lined up and printed we flash dry the image and then line up with other colors to that portion of the image. Several practice prints will take place in order to make sure the image is properly lined up. Once this completed we can start printing.

After a shirt has been printed it needs to be dried.

The shirt is thrown on a conveyer belt that will take it through a dryer that reaches 330°F. The ink is heated at such a high temperature because it needs to be cured to the shirt.

This means that the ink will no longer affected by water and will permanently stay on the shirt.  If a shirt is not dried correctly it can cause the image to wash out when placed in a washing machine. 

There are many different details that go into the screen printing process but this is simply a quick look to see the steps we go through to produce quality products or our customers.