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How Do We Screen Print T-Shirts?

Screen printed T-shirts are a popular way to advertise for businesses, make team sport uniforms, celebrate a birthday or holiday, and many other uses. Screen printing can be done on just about any type of t-shirt and it is a great way to express something you want to say on a t-shirt. Custom t-shirts have become a popular thing to order and they’re quite affordable as well.

The first thing you do in the screen printing process is pick a style, brand and color of a t-shirt you want screen printed. This can represent a team color, favorite color or just what works best with the color scheme of the print.

Next you are going to get your artwork to our t-shirt screen printing shop usually via email, website or walk it in to the company. They are going to have a graphic designer analyze the artwork and make it ready to be processed by the screen printer by printing the artwork on something called vellums. Vellums are a transparent and thin paper.

The vellums are sorted into color layers. Each color is printed separately and the vellums are sorted by the order in which the colors must be printed. The vellums are then applied to the screen. The proper screen must be chosen. Finer screens are used for finer details.

Once the vellum has been attached to the screen, it is exposed to UV light for three to five minutes to ensure that it holds. Then the screen is washed and dried using a power washer and forced air.

The areas that should not let ink through are taped and sealed. The first thing a screen printer does once the screen is ready is to do a test print. A test print involves printing a shirt by hand. The screen printer is going to layout the shirt completely flat, layer the screen with ink, and press it on the shirt. The shirt is spot dried under heat and run through a curing process to make sure that the print does not wash off, crack, or peel.

For printing the final products, the screen is run through the same process with an automatic, computerized printing machine. The only difference here is that the shirt is dried using UV light instead of heat.

Ordering custom t-shirts is a great way to get fun, interesting designs on your apparel, build team unity and spread your message. Contact us for a free price quote from our friendly staff!