Screen Preparation and Reclamation for Apparel Decorators
Screen making is vital to good apparel decorating, since the quality of a screen-print design will be very influenced by, if not dictated by the quality of the screen.
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Screen Printing: Process + Techniques
Ensuring High-quality Screen Printing
Quality control is an essential part of growing any manufacturing business and maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Screen printing has its challenges, but that’s what separates the good from the excellent.
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Manual Screen-Printing Success Part 2: Coverage to Squeegees
In Part 1 of this series, step-by-step techniques were listed for everything from press setup to preparing pallets and applying pallet adhesive. In Part 2, we'll start with emulsion practices and sufficient coverage on screens.
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Manual Screen-Printing Success: Part 1
From the moment I enrolled in my high school printing class as a freshman to the time I printed my first shirt, I’ve been hooked on screen printing.
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Can Emulsion Coverage Indicate Print Quality?
One of the top complaints I have heard in my career is that textile inks, whites in particular, are not opaque enough.
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Prepping Screens for Printing Glitter Ink
Adding glitter to a print design instantly elevates its value and fashion appeal.
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The Nuts & Bolts of Hybrid Printing
As you may have heard by now, hybrid printing is rising in popularity. New screen-printing chemistry is available; decoration on more specialty products is being attempted and achieved; and more new users are adopting this technology into their workflows.
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Add Special Effects With Minimal Work
Does your existing customer want to see something new or special you can do to their logo or design? Or do you want to wow a new client?
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Pros and Cons of Screen Printing With Plastisols
Plastisol inks have been a mainstay of the textile screen-printing industry for the past 40-plus years. Although new technologies are popular in some applications such as high-solids acrylic (HSA), silicones, discharge and new water-based inks, plastisols still are the go-to product for most of the imprinted sportswear market.
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Printing on Tie-Dye
Clothing trends are cyclical; the popularity of certain concepts ebbs and flows all the time. Such is the current situation with tie-dye. People usually have a love-hate relationship with the tackiness of it, but the tie-dye trend currently is on the rise.
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Basics: Wet-on-Wet Screen Printing
There are many reasons why a T-shirt shop should learn how to screen print inks using a wet-on-wet technique.
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Tips for Choosing an ‘Eco-Friendly’ Textile Screen-Printing Ink
Not all inks are created equal. Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz regarding “eco-friendly” inks. Without going into too much detail on the make-up of these screen printing inks, I’d like to give a brief guideline of what to look for when switching to or using “eco-friendly” inks.
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Why Low-Cure Plastisol Screen-Printing Inks Are Necessary
Having the right screen-printing supplies is important for all apparel decorating businesses. One of the best supply items you can have is low cure plastisol inks.
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What is a Reducer?
Reducers reduce the Viscosity or thickness of an ink when you feel the need to make an ink creamier or easier to print.
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Winning the Printing Race: Screen-Printing Maintenance
When a race car driver wins a race and stands at the podium to accept the coveted prize and recognition, he gets the praise, accolades and the headlines.
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Tips for Choosing the Right Conveyor Dryer
Depending on your screen-printing production and business goals, there are a lot of different conveyor dryer options out there. Since a dryer is often one of the largest investments a shop makes, it is important to analyze all of your choices.
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Simulated Process Printing on Kidswear
In the screen-printing business, everyone seems to be battling for the same customers. But what if you could add new business that your competition isn’t getting?
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Printing on Polyester Fabrics
The process for printing on T-shirts has fundamentally remained the same for decades because it mostly was done on 50/50 blended and 100% cotton T-shirts.
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Printing on Heavyweight Fleece
Screen printing on fleece is by no means a new process; fleece is only second to T-shirts among garments in terms of printing popularity. This installment of the Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter will feature printing on the American Apparel® Mason Fleece Drop Shoulder Sweatshirt (style HVF496W).
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Quality Ink Without the Price Tag
Tips for finding high-quality ink at a reasonable price
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Adjusting Dryer Temperature for Winter
Tips for proper curing during the colder months of the year
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Decorating on Tri-Blends
During the past decade, there has been a new revolution in garment-manufacturing technology. Consumer demands have necessitated new fabric and style development using a wide variety of different organic and synthetic fibers.
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Printing on Garment-Dyed Apparel
In this Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, sponsored by Comfort Colors®, we will explore the possibilities available to decorate two kinds of dyed shirts.
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Screen Printing on Long Sleeves
Offering clients the latest in apparel styles and fabrics is key for a successful textile screen-printing company.
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The Best Practices of Screen Printing
Countless small-shop owners, garage-based operations, hometown printers and startup decorators make a living via the manual screen-printing process, as it remains the heart of most garment printing.
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How to Profile Dryer Temperature Output
The dryer preforms a very important job in a screen-printing shop. If it’s not working properly it can result in the ink that cracks, or falls off after a garment is washed.
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Stretchy Puff Printing
Puff is back in style. But instead of the stiff puff prints of yesterday, here is an instructional how-to video on screen printing a stretchy puff design.
Full StoryPrinting on the Ultra Wash Tee
In this installment of the Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, sponsored by American Apparel, we will showcase the ladies’ Ultra Wash tee (style RSA6320).
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Screen-Making Techniques
I wholeheartedly believe that if our industry held one philosophy above all others, scrape rates (misprints) would drastically decrease and profits would subsequently increase.
Halftone Printing on Textiles
Screen printing halftones on textiles is not as daunting of a process as some people make it out to be. However, there are steps that must be followed to ensure success.
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Printing on Nylon Spandex Performancewear
As a departure from the typical step-by-step review of decorating one particular garment, let’s review the challenges and processes for printing on two new garments from American Apparel.
Screen Printing on Fleece
Follow these expert guidelines for producing brilliant fleece prints while avoiding the pitfalls of this lint-producing fabric.
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Using Gellusion for Special-Effects Prints
“Gellusion” is a special-effects printing technique that lends itself well to creating a shiny 3-D effect print on a garment.
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Printing on Suede Fabric
In this installment of the Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, we will review the optimum printing techniques for embellishing the new suede fabric from Next Level Apparel
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Screen Printing on 100% Polyester Mesh
In this Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, we will look at the American Apparel unisex polyester mesh athletic tank (style H458) and T-shirt, and the different means of embellishing these garments.
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Riley Hopkins: Racing Toward a Dream
“Winning has nothing to do with racing. Most days don't have races anyway. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, ever, ever giving up.”
Printing on Baby Rib Knits
Follow the advice in this Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, sponsored by American Apparel, and rib knits will be coming off your presses in no time.
Loading Shirts Onto an Automatic Press
There are many ways to load shirts onto automatic screen printing presses, and much of how an individual operator does this is based on preference or habit.
Printing on Cotton/Spandex Blends
With the expanded gamut of garment configurations entering the market today, screen printers must constantly remain aware of printing techniques and procedures required to print on these specialty fabrics.
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Minimizing Sublimation Dye Migration
In this technical bulletin and video, we‘ll be using the JERZEES NuBlend 50/50 cotton/polyester fleece to demonstrate an effective method of optimizing printing on blended fleece.
How To Print Logos Using High-Density Ink
Broaden your shop’s profit margins and add to your printing arsenal by learning the steps involved in this special-effects printing process.
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Printing on Tri-Blended Apparel
Get vibrant, soft-hand results on tricky fabrics that contain varying amounts of polyester, cotton and rayon.
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Controlling Variables, Part 1
In this installment, we will review the primary variables that require controlling or standardization in order to maximize the desired quality results to maintain your primary client base.
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Mastering Four-Color Process Printing
In this technical newsletter and accompanying video, you’ll learn how to achieve excellent color and tone range on your next true four-color process job (also known as 4CP or process color).
Top 5 Considerations When Printing on Polyester
I frequently get calls from customers asking for advice on how to print on polyester. Although this topic has been covered in previous articles, here are some quick tips:
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Screen Printing on Nylon Bags
This article will review the variables involved with printing on nylon and the correct procedures needed to ensure a winning product each time.
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Simple Sublimation Solutions
As the popularity of poly-performance apparel grows, so does the interest in sublimation, since it’s the ideal choice for decorating anything made of polyester.
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Screen Printing on Fashion French Terry
The popularity of French terry has skyrocketed due to its comfort and adaptability to different apparel silhouettes.
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Perfecting Printing on Poly/Cotton T-Shirts
As the drive for additional styles and fabrics have flooded our industry, the need to perfect the printing on 50/50 blends has become a necessity for every screen printer.
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Top 5 Considerations for Ink Knives and Spatulas
One of the main determining factors in choosing the right knife is the purpose for which it will be used.
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How to Screen Print Stickers
Many screen printers initially focus on printing T-shirts, but you also can think outside the box and print fun items like stickers
Fleece Printing Over Zippers, Seams & Pockets — Sponsored by JERZEES®
With the popularity of allover printing, it's becoming increasingly common to screen print over zippers, seams and pockets, particularly on fleece apparel.
