Tee Shirt Printing?

Question

I would like to print mty own tee shirts - I live in an area where this would be an excellent small business to get into. All I am wondering about is I know there are (basically) two easy ways to print onto shirts (, etc)

Method 1: Printing Machines (usually costing between 500 and 1000 dollars)

Method 2: Printing designs from your PC/Printer and ironing on.

Could anyone tell me if Method 2 is durable and lasting? Or, overall which method is best for decent shirts??

Thanks!!

Answer 1

There's another method which i did before and it lasted quite well. It's called silkscreen printing and it can be reused over and over again. The cost for the materials required are relatively quite cheap and easily available. However, there is a flaw. The printing is permanent and it cannot be removed. After printing, dry the paint and iron over. The temperature of the iron must not be too hot or it will distort the paint. my classmates and i did about 37 shirts for our class. Below is a website that explains more. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I used to work as a graphic designer for a screen printing place and its quite an extensive operation. (using iron-ons are not good, they fall off after a few washes, plus you are left with the glue around the edge of the design; the glue-paper to do this is also very expensive)

Screen printing is much more time effective, money saving, and does require more manual labor.
Doing it by hand is rediculous (picking the screen yourself takes way too much time) but doing it by "negative setting" is much better. The start up cost will be very expensive, the chemicals and machinery alone will cost quite a bit.

The person who answered second was wrong about removing the screen printing paint, it is removeable, at any point during the process, but the cleaning chemical must be blasted or rubbed into the fabric.

There is also another form of t-shirt printing is called "CAD cutting" which is what you normally see on sports jerseys, or single color print jobs. Its a thick plastic material that is cut away from its sticky backing, then pressed on very high heat into the shirt. It is just as good as screen printing but costs much less. This is something you could look into.
My business had lots of orders for all the schools sports teams shirts, and the city affiliated teams.

Answer 3

A good silk screened shirt is the most durable and allows the application of good, thick, acrylic fabric inks.

I good silk screen will, often outlast the fabric of the shirt, itself.

Keep in mind that the equipment needed for a shirt printing business will be quite costly. The process is simple, but being able to do multicolored designs, in, even, modest quantities will require several screen frames, carousels and mounting forms for good registration of colors, camera equipment for photostencils, (or a LOT of time and patience to cut stencils by hand) a place to store stencils for customers that will be re-ordering more of the same designs, later, a large floor space shop on which to produce the shirts and store shirt, ink and other inventory.

By the time you figure everything up, this "printing machine," what ever that is, sounds like a good bargain.

Iron on transfers are not a good solution for high quality shirts.

Answer 4

Method 2 is not duable and lasting. Unless money for startup is no object, go with it until you make enough to upgrade for the good equipment.