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
Printing on Tri-Blended Apparel
Follow these tips to get vibrant, soft-hand results on tricky fabrics that contain varying amounts of polyester, cotton and rayon.
American Apparel’s unisex Tri-Blend short-sleeve track shirt is constructed from a unique blend of 50% polyester/25% ring-spun combed cotton/25% rayon, featuring a vintage-like drape while offering both comfort and durability.
The ever-changing nature of apparel fashion trends has forced apparel manufacturers to consider new and different fabric constructions to meet changing demands from consumers. Fabrics have diversified, moving away from conventional cotton and cotton/poly fabrics to those that are lighter and feature more stretch, such as tri-blends.
Due to the light fabric weight, it is more important than ever to minimize the ink film of the embellishment in order to maintain a soft hand.
In this Impressions Tech Tips Newsletter, we will look at four of the different fabric configurations, and the different embellishment processes to which they lend themselves. American Apparel introduced its first tri-blend fabric in 2006, with a 50% cotton/25% polyester/25% rayon construction. The general fabric has a tight knit, its weight varies based on the garment style and it exhibits minimal shrinkage.
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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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