About Custom Screenprinting on Shirts and Apparel
  • Custom Screenprinting is a method for copying an image to a surface that has been in use since the Ancient Egyptians.
  • Modern Screenprinting was based on techniques that the Japanese and Chinese perfected.
  • Apparel printing as we know it today did not start until the late 1970's and early 1980's with the development of plastisol.
  • Plastisol is a ink made of plastic particles that becomes a solid when heated to the appropriate temperature. It is available in a wide variety of brilliant colors and shares many of the same attractive features as acrylic paints used by artists. For this reason it is very popular for Custom Screenprinting
  • Water based screenprinting is also in use by some, but the majority of printers use plastisol for it's reliability, ease of use, and flexibility. We do offer this service for a small additional charge. Water based screenprinting requires special equipment to properly dry the ink onto the shirt.
  • Plastisol doesn't actually get absorbed into the shirt. Rather, it wraps around the fibers and adheres to the shirt. Much the way glue might if you poured it onto a shirt. This is why it can stay flexible for years.
  • Because the ink is a coating rather then a dye it's almost impervious to everyday wear and tear. However, it should never be dry cleaned as the dry cleaning will damage the plastic molecules and cause the ink bond to fail. This shows up over time as cracking and occassionally as flaking.
  • To illustrate the point about not sending your custom printed shirt to the cleaners.... we use dry cleaning solvent to remove ink when we accidentally get a thumbprint on a shirt.
  • Because the custom shirt printing process involves a stencil, it's best suited to production of many shirts. Other processes such as heat transfers are great for doing small runs of shirts.
  • It's also best not to change colors of ink, so if you can pick shirt colors that can use the same colors of ink your results will be best. When you combine different colored shirts it is sometimes necessary to change colors. There is a $10 ink change fee for us to stop the press and change the ink color. This makes up for the time it takes to do the ink change.
  • Also, when designing your print it's best to use simple, bold layouts. If you look at the shirts you probably own, and the shirts that are popular in stores, you may see that they use simple, bold layouts. When you look at great custom shirt designs you will invariably see that the best shirts are the simplest. Complicated prints can be done and often look great, however the design process is alot more comprehensive when using specialty screenprinting inks.

How Custom Screenprinting is done Step-By-Step

Step 1: Screen Cleaning

Yes, some would say it's a little odd.... but really a good print starts with a clean screen that is free of defects. It's important to remove all the oils and to make sure no residue from a previous job is on the screen. To do this we use a specially designed sink with a backlit panel that lets us see every detail in the screen. An employee carefully checks the screen to make sure it meets are demanding quality standards.

Step 2: Choosing the right screen. Each screen has different mesh on it. As a general rule the lower the mesh count the more ink it will pass and the lower resolution it supports. Conversely, you can print higher resolution designs with a higher mesh count screen. In any event some inks require a coarse mesh, such as glitter ink. Likewise, full color or 4 color process requires a high thread count mesh 305 screen. We call it silkscreen but the screen is a really a specially engineered polyester that is far stronger then silk. Custom screenPrinting Step 2 Choosing the right screen
Step 3: Preparing the screen for imaging. In order to image the screen we coat it with emulsion. Emulsion is a special plastic that is sensitive to UV light and soluble in water. UV light hardens the plastic and water will wash away the unhardened plastic. This process minimizes the use of chemicals while creating a high-quality stencil that can do many thousands of shirts. The emulsion goes on alot like paint. However it must dry completely before it can be imaged. We climate control our darkroom 24 hours a day 7 days a week to ensure the proper humidity and temperature. Custom Printing Step 4 Coating screens
Step 4: Film alignment. In order to produce a high quality printed shirt we have to be able to control where the print lands on the garment. We do this by tightly controlling how the screens are made. At right is a picture of our light table that we use to align films before the screens are made. This allows us to make a higher quality screen and thus a higher quality print. We utilize a patented system made by M&R called TriLoc. It helps produce some of the most accurate prints in the world with our state of the art M&R Presses. If you look closely you can see many lines that indicate where a print should be placed for a specific type of garment. tri-loc pre-alignment for custom shirts
Step 5: Expose the screen. Again we use the best equipment on the market to make a screen. In this photo you can see our Metal Halide exposure unit that makes crisp, clean screens. It uses a metal halid bulb because it emits alot of UV light in a controlled output. The exposure unit uses a special device called a light integrator to "measure" the UV light. The light integrator is the yellow box towards the back of the glass. You can also see a portion of our Tri-Loc system taped down with special tape. The Tri-Loc system aligns the film image with the screen in a controlled manner that produces the best quality screen possible. It ensures that the screen is square, aligned properly, and in the right spot for where we want the print on the custom printed t-shirt. screenrpitning essentials: A Good exposure unit for your screens.
Step 6: Develop the screen. Our screens use a special plastic that washes out with water. This reduces our impact on the environment and produces a high quality screen. Here you can see an elaborate design in our custom designed washout booth. This is one of 4 washout booths that we use to washout, cleanup, and maintain screens. Each one is backlit with soft white light so that we can see every detail.
Step 7: Screen Pre-Press Preparation: At this point the screen is made and ready to go to press. But first we have to do another quality check. We have to make sure no excess ink gets through the screen and onto the shirt. To do this we use common masking tape to blockout the edges of the screen and any pinholes that might have formed. A pinhole is a very small hole caused by dust or sometimes by a bubble. The screens are then arranged by job number so that they can be quickly and efficienly located for your custom printed shirts.
Step 8: State of the Art Automatic Press: We use only the best equipment in the world in order to make the best shirts possible. M&R is a true industrial innovator when it comes to screenprinting. This machine can produce up to 900 shirts per hour with a print on them. Each one will be identical to the first. A machine like this can cost over $48,000 by the time you count the cost, accessories, shipping, and installation. We run two of these machines and this one is a 2005 model. It features an advanced computer control panel that is critical to ensuring a great print every time. M&R is proudly made in the Chicago, Illinois area. We think it's important to buy and use American made equipment when possible.
Step 9: Of course no custom printed shirt would exist without a ink. We keep a wide range of colors in stock and ready to use on any given order. In addition we can make custom pantone matches for special colors in client logos. One of the really nice things about plastisol ink is that it doesn't dry and it isn't readily flammable. As a result we can safely store it without a lid and we don't have to worry about fire, explosion, or vapor/chemical hazards to our employees. We also can print water-based inks on specialty items such as towels. Water based ink is absorbed into the garment and can be difficult to work with.
Step 10: When the custom shirts are done, we send them through a conveyor dryer. Our conveyor dryer is one of the biggest with a 60" wide belt. It can handle over 1000 shirts per hour. It uses economical and safe Natural Gas as a heat source. This helps us to produce an excellent product while keeping costs down. It is also one way we do our part by not wasting precious energy resources. A Natural Gas dryer like ours costs approximately 50 cents per hour to run. By comparison a Electric dryer costs as much as $2/hr to run and is always a fire hazard because shirts are exposed to the elements. Electric dryers cannot handle water based inks and frequently burn or scorch shirts. Gas Dryers rarely scorch anything and the flame is kept in a computer controlled chamber where it is monitored over 200 times per second. The dryer heats the ink to an even 315 degrees F. At this point the ink becomes a durable, safe solid just like any other plastic. Using Natural Gas reduces our energy consumption and is one way we do our part to have a lower impact on the environment.
Step 11: Ink and Screen Cleanup: And then it starts all over. An employee will carefully remove the ink and return it to it's container. The screen will be recycled with a process called reclaim. The reclaim process is designed to be efficient and environmentally safe. We use a chemical process that is approved for use in California because California has higher water quality and chemical standards. The chemical process uses salt and efficient orange based ink degradents. This quickly and efficiently removes the ink and unbinds the plastic emulsion. The end result is the screen in step 1 that is ready to be reused again. While the process is labor intensive it allows us to significantly lower the cost of using a screen and to invest in higher quality Aluminum frames that are welded with thick tubular aluminum for ridgidity and a great print.
I hope you have enjoyed our explanation of the screenprinting process. You can also check out the webcam on our mainpage to see the M&R presses in action. Everyone here at Texas Shirt Company takes great pride in the work that we do. Screenprinting is a manufacturing process and we prove every day that manufacturing can do well in the USA and still treat it's employees fairly.