Hah, does anyone have a backup of shirt printing 101?

[MyAcademy]

If not, lets get that shit stickied again!

[mmmmmmmmmmbrother]

if there is a huge interest i could do somthing to do with actually printing, with photos and shit. like a brief tutorial, my setup is as ghetto as it gets too.

[n4t1v3]

I have it in PDF form. I'll post it up in a bit. m...brother, I'm interested in that, I can afford ghetto :D

[common1]

Originally Posted by MyAcademy

If not, lets get that shit stickied again!

yo academy here is the first post of it.

FIRST off. everyone wants to have their own clothing company. its not going to happen yo. if you REally want to make shirts, you should not go into photoshop and make a whole bunch of designs without knowing what your doing, post the designs on hypebeast and ask peoples opinion (sorry buddy).

SECOND, if you have a good design in mind, and just want one shirt, that’s stupid. you’ll have to be prepared to spend upwards of 100 for a shirt. even if you have a good design in mind and want 20 shirts done, its still going to be ridiculous. this is of course disregarding the fact that some of you may have money coming out your asses, since i dont. if you dont have a grand to blow on shirts you probably wont sell, then you’ll have to do it the hard way, which also happens to be the right way.

IM only going to say what needs to be said to get everything together. there are good other resources on the net and in your city on technique once you have everything together.




SCREEN PRINTING TSHIRTS:WHAT YOU NEED

FIRST THINGS FIRST- you need a place to rock this shit. your room wont really cut it. garage or basement is money. i made due with a medium sized table and some pipes in the ceiling to hang shirts. if you dont have a space to do this, either wait till summer and get flies in your ink, or keep dreaming.

SCREEN-no way? i think the most common size is 48x24. you can go bigger or smaller i guess, but this size is not too big and not too small. there are wood and metal frames, aluminum being the most common and the cheapest and then best. the thread count will determine how fine the mesh is. i think for paper printing you use 1000-2000, but for cloth 100-200 is the best. i think i bought my screens for around 50-60 CAN each.

SHIRTS-i guess maybe just buy a roll of scrap fabric or something to play around at first. you should be able to find that mad cheap. from there maybe go to hooking up any old tees that friends dont want. wholesale shirts are the next step of course. look for middle men in the tshirt game. these guys buy huge quantities from the shirt companies and re-sell them, still wholesale, but like per box, not per truck. i think i got 3 boxes (S,M,L) with 120 shirts in each box for like 400$CAN, you do that math. its dope too because if you need a G white shirt you just walk to your basement.

INKS-start with water colour, for sure. its cheaper and way easier to work with. and it doesn’t suck that bad. i think the best set up to begin with is white tees and black/blue/red/green ink. you cant really do layers overtop of each other, but for one colour designs, water colour is money. the next step up, way up, is plastisol ink which is what the big boys use. is has to be heat set really fucking hot, and i know for a fact that a paint heat gun, or an oven, doesn’t cut it. i have an OG limited edition shirt with brown marks all over it though, its sick. after its heat set, its soft and bendable like sort of rubbery, just like all the shirts you own.

EMULSION-this is what puts the design on the screen. there is emulsion that you can hand paint on but that’s wack. i use photo emulsion, which you spread on, blagh blaghhttp://www.ehow.com/how_10855_expose-photo-emulsion.html.
you also need emulsion remover.

TOOLS- you need to make up a little stand with screen clamp/hinges (which you can buy at a screen store for like 12$) you need a good squeegee sp.? like a billion clothes hangers masking tape, and seriously like a thousand newspapers.




basically its a lot of fucking work and money. you should have about 500 to barely get started, and 1500 if you want to do a run. you can get around the price and workload though; get a buddy who’s down, split it etc.

actually all i wanted to say is that making a design on your computer is 1% of what it takes.

if there is more interest, maybe we who print can team up and make a sick tutorial with flicks. but for now just let me know what im missing.

[MyAcademy]

Thanks dude, just lookin to get all that content back to get this thing stickied.
And brother, pictures would be nice. Thats a good idea.
Next time I screen something up I'll try to snap some.

[n4t1v3]

Originally Posted by mmmmmbrother

[size=5]FIRST off.[/size] everyone wants to have their own clothing company. its not going to happen yo. if you REally want to make shirts, you should not go into photoshop and make a whole bunch of designs without knowing what your doing, post the designs on hypebeast and ask peoples opinion (sorry buddy).

[size=5]SECOND[/size], if you have a good design in mind, and just want one shirt, that’s stupid. you’ll have to be prepared to spend upwards of 100 for a shirt. even if you have a good design in mind and want 20 shirts done, its still going to be ridiculous. this is of course disregarding the fact that some of you may have money coming out your asses, since i dont. if you dont have a grand to blow on shirts you probably wont sell, then you’ll have to do it the hard way, which also happens to be the right way.

[size=5]IM[/size] only going to say what needs to be said to get everything together. there are good other resources on the net and in your city on technique once you have everything together.




[size=5]SCREEN PRINTING TSHIRTS:WHAT YOU NEED[/size]

[size=5]FIRST THINGS FIRST[/size]- you need a place to rock this shit. your room wont really cut it. garage or basement is money. i made due with a medium sized table and some pipes in the ceiling to hang shirts. if you dont have a space to do this, either wait till summer and get flies in your ink, or keep dreaming.

[size=5]SCREEN[/size]-no way? i think the most common size is 48x24. you can go bigger or smaller i guess, but this size is not too big and not too small. there are wood and metal frames, aluminum being the most common and the cheapest and then best. the thread count will determine how fine the mesh is. i think for paper printing you use 1000-2000, but for cloth 100-200 is the best. i think i bought my screens for around 50-60 CAN each.

[size=5]SHIRTS[/size]-i guess maybe just buy a roll of scrap fabric or something to play around at first. you should be able to find that mad cheap. from there maybe go to hooking up any old tees that friends dont want. wholesale shirts are the next step of course. look for middle men in the tshirt game. these guys buy huge quantities from the shirt companies and re-sell them, still wholesale, but like per box, not per truck. i think i got 3 boxes (S,M,L) with 120 shirts in each box for like 400$CAN, you do that math. its dope too because if you need a G white shirt you just walk to your basement.

[size=5]INKS[/size]-start with water colour, for sure. its cheaper and way easier to work with. and it doesn’t suck that bad. i think the best set up to begin with is white tees and black/blue/red/green ink. you cant really do layers overtop of each other, but for one colour designs, water colour is money. the next step up, way up, is plastisol ink which is what the big boys use. is has to be heat set really fucking hot, and i know for a fact that a paint heat gun, or an oven, doesn’t cut it. i have an OG limited edition shirt with brown marks all over it though, its sick. after its heat set, its soft and bendable like sort of rubbery, just like all the shirts you own.

[size=5]EMULSION[/size]-this is what puts the design on the screen. there is emulsion that you can hand paint on but that’s wack. i use photo emulsion, which you spread on, blagh blaghhttp://www.ehow.com/how_10855_expose...-emulsion.html.
you also need emulsion remover.

[size=5]TOOLS[/size]- you need to make up a little stand with screen clamp/hinges (which you can buy at a screen store for like 12$) you need a good squeegee sp.? like a billion clothes hangers masking tape, and seriously like a thousand newspapers.




basically its a lot of fucking work and money. you should have about 500 to barely get started, and 1500 if you want to do a run. you can get around the price and workload though; get a buddy who’s down, split it etc.

actually all i wanted to say is that making a design on your computer is 1% of what it takes.

if there is more interest, maybe we who print can team up and make a sick tutorial with flicks. but for now just let me know what im missing.

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[n4t1v3]

Originally Posted by MyAcademy

For the record, you don't need to go buying 360 shirts to get yourself started off.
You can get a wholesale account with www.americanapparel.net (if you're persistent) and their "minimum order" (even though they claim not to have one) is something like 12 shirts per box, and itll come out to be way cheaper than $400.

If you're really planning on doing a bunch of designs, you can make your own frames by either buying your own wood and a canvas stretcher, or by hooking up a frame that allows you to re-roll your own fabric. Of course the mesh count on fabric depends on what you're doing the print on. Mesh counts between 100 and 160 get paper done real well, and you have to fuck around with mesh count on shirts. The higher the mesh count, the more detail (and the less paint) that gets pushed through. Lower mesh count = less detail, more paint (better for big bold designs).

A tip for good ink if you're strapped for cash = acrylic ink and textile medium. You CAN buy fabric printing inks, but good luck getting that shit to show up on a dark colored shirt. If you want to do white on black, hook up some acrylic ink (watered down to about the consistency of yogurt), and then mix in some textile medium. You want a medium paint to medium ratio, definitely nowhere near 1:1. Sometimes I do 1:2 paint/medium or even more.

You don't need to do emulsion, you can do freezer paper stencils, or screen filler freehand.

If you're doing emulsion, you're going to need to pick up a scoop-coater. If you're new, I seriously reccomend getting a coater the same size as your screen. Once you get a good steady hand going, you can just use one size for everything. I think there are plans to build your own out of aluminum or PVC pipe on the intrawebs somewhere.

Oh, and it makes things a LOT easier if you have a nice table somewhere like brother said. I had my little brother build me a combo light table/cabinet/ironing table kinda thing. Having your own table is totally croosh. It might be some work, but do it. Light table helps a lot, and you can set one up by just jacking some halogen lights and some plexiglass/glass/windshield/whatever. Lights go under clear surface, and you're set. That'll help with emulsion exposure, and tracing/cutting simple stencils and whatnot. I have a cabinet on my table for letting emulsified screens dry, and for storing old designs. Its cool to have all your old shit laying around in one place, lets you look at your progression. =D

As for setting your ink, its a pain in the balls. Especially if you don't have a flash dryer, and I don't. A good (cheap) way to set your average ink is to let it dry, then hit it with an iron. I cover the dry ink with a thin cloth (a different ripped up t-shirt), iron it for 4 minutes, turn the shirt inside out, then do the same shit. Toss it in the dryer, see if the ink cracks, and then you're set.

This shouldn't be at the bottom, but make sure you degrease your screen and shrink your shirt before you start. Seriously, cause no one wants to wash a new shirt they bought only to have the image all distorted and shit, thats a bummer. As for degreasing your screen, its just something you need to do.

And finally, I know I made a post about it a few weeks ago, but for tag removal, you can get a seam ripper on the cheap from a supply store, and then find someone with a digitizer, hook them up with some nylon material, embroider the tags, cut em, and sew em in.

Aaaaand, thats all I can remember right now, a few years worth of screening knowledge. If I remember anything else, I'll post it up. :wink:

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[n4t1v3]

Originally Posted by yuljo

Here is my tips

Tip 1) Hand screening is easier then you think, get yourself a kit found at most art stores and read the instructions, i cannot stress reading the instructions enough, that's what they're made for.

Tip 2) Do your own research and don't expect people to hand over everything they know so easily, search engines like Google and Vivisimo have tons and tons of information if you look carefully.

Tip 3) Start small. Start with a one colour design and become comfortable with it before even thinking of multi colour and layered prints.

Tip 4) You will make mistakes. Your screens will come out overburned or under burned so I recommend getting photo emulsion remover if it doesn't come in your kit.

Tip 5) Screenprinting doesn't really cost that much especially if you wait for sales and stuff. Check out art stores near colleges/universitys as they have the best deals for everything art related. For the shirts, it can take some searching but if you want wholesale prices you will need a business liscence.

Tip 6) Have fun no matter how hard it gets, if you don't have fun during the process then it will show in your work.

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[n4t1v3]

Originally Posted by DUM

I'm poor so I'm using the Fabric Ink that came with my kit, 'Speedball' I think.

Originally Posted by mmmmmbrother

the speedball ink is water based. its easier to work with andcan be heatset by an iron. plastosol is somthing else based, and you need a flash heater for that.

Originally Posted by yuljo

I use the items from those kits almost exclusively (i make my own screens) but they are really good deals for black ink/emulsion/screen.

Thats the jist of it. If theres any other pertinent info I left out from the thread, please post.

Some people can't get back to HB 1.0 I'm assumming.
I hope all the info gets saved from there and is turned into a guide. Theres a wealth of info on HB1.0 forums.

[hasejun1985]

thanks guys

sticky!!

[goschn]

Originally Posted by mmmmmmmmmmbrother

if there is a huge interest i could do somthing to do with actually printing, with photos and shit. like a brief tutorial, my setup is as ghetto as it gets too.

hell yeah! I think it could help some people ...

[IneedMoney©]

is there any cheaper way i can do this .... cause i have no type of money and the largest amount of money i can possibly get is a 100........... im guessing no

but if any of yall do this holler at me ...... im thinkin of someone want to team up with me to make this stuff ......

[DUM]

You can get a kit for about $50..which has the most basic supplies.

[haZy]

1) use a lamp with a shade turned upside dwn and foil inside as exposure light

2) use a table leg rack (the ones like the exam tables at skool or sumthing) as a support to put your screen and print on (pic below)




3) use hair dryer or heat gun to dry the ink if your doing more than one layer of colours

4) to cure it (set the ink in place) use an iron

P.s. plastisol inks, you will need a proper flash curer/dryer because they only set at high temperature as the post earlier on says

Hope this helps for saving on sum money......

[thelion1856]

where do i buy the heaters or stuff i need to dry pastisol ink? also more info on getting the design on to the emultion screen. thanks