How to print your own t-shirt ?

[AznKhmerBoi]

I've never done it before, but i would like to print my own tshirt.

What do i need?

thanks.

[Hazerd]

Sounds expensive and cheap at the same time...

[AznKhmerBoi]

^ lol dont they sell some sort of tranfers paper at walmart which you print the image and just iron it on the tshirt?

Im not sure the quality of it so any suggestion on that process?

[PixelPunk]

Many different ways of going about doing this. I actually produce my own t-shirts as well as various hoodies. You can silkscreen onto the apparel, the print will feel lighter however it's extremely messy and could get costly. I, personally, use heat transfers. I design what I need, send it off to someone for printing, they send me the design in a plastisol transfer-form and I in turn press the design on to a shirt or hoodie using a heat press. It's quite addicting. If I may, here's a pic of one of my shirts as an example of what a heat transferred design looks like on a shirt.

[Hazerd]

^ lol dont they sell some sort of tranfers paper at walmart which you print the image and just iron it on the tshirt?

Im not sure the quality of it so any suggestion on that process?

Yeah you can buy that at any brick and mortar store in the stationary/office supplies, but i just dont think it would turn out very professional, it's more like for people who want to put a picture of their grandkids on their shirt lol.

[AznKhmerBoi]

@PixelPunk
that turned out very niced, but i dont think i have the time and money to do that process .

[AznKhmerBoi]

Have you done it before? If so can you give me a brief run down on what i need to buy for this operation?

Yeah you can buy that at any brick and mortar store in the stationary/office supplies, but i just dont think it would turn out very professional, it's more like for people who want to put a picture of their grandkids on their shirt lol.

[PixelPunk]

@PixelPunk
that turned out very niced, but i dont think i have the time and money to do that process .

Do you have the patience to silkscreen a shirt? Thats one reason I moved on to do heat transfers. For silkscreening you'll need a mesh screen, emulsion which you will in turn burn your image on to with a high-watt light. After burning you image into the screen you will then need to immediately wash out your screen with a high pressured stream of water, in order to clear out the area that the image was burned on. (when you burn the image into the screen, the area where your image was won't completely solidify and will wash out with water). After washing it out you will then need to dry the screen. You can then move on to printing your shirt by pouring a small amount of ink on the screen and running it over the design with a squeegee. As I said, it can get costly and quite messy. The entire process for me, from start to finish, has taken me roughly an hour IF DONE CORRECTLY. On bad days, it has taken me up to 3.

[PixelPunk]

I don't want to deter you from something you want to do, I'm just hoping to give you a realistic sense of what you're up against. If you're just making one shirt and one design, I might suggest just going through a company to get it printed for you, like Zazzle or something.

[Hobie-wan]

Indeed, silkscreening is a long involved process if only doing 1 or a handful of shirts, especially if you want more than one color. Iron-ons don't last as long, but it is much easier. Years ago some friends and I made shirts for a friend's birthday. We had the images printed at (then) Kinko's and ironed them on.