screen printing > Tips and Tricks to Share (Please don't ask questions here)

How to load a shirt fast, and accuratly.

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Prōdigium:
I have been asked so many times "how do you load a shirt correctly?" and the simple answer is it just takes lots of practice and a few tricks. This is one of those things that you can try to explain, but really whats needed is a few pictures and then it all falls into place. Now I can load shirts on an automatic at a comfortable pace of over 650 an hour all day long and not kill myself. I will also load virtually every shirt correctly as well. Fast is one thing, but fast and correct is another. I can go faster, but really see very little point in doing so as print quality and accuracy will usually suffer.

So here is my little tutorial about how I load shirts.

First understand that how you stack your shirts prior to printing them is key to how fast you can load, and how well you get the shirt to load strait. So when you stack your shirts try to make the stack neat and give them a shake to loosen them, up some. When you unfold  a dozen of them just give them a side to side twist shake a few times. This will make grabbing them faster and easier, plus they wont tend to stick together and fall on the floor. Some people find that stacking them upside down is more productive, however I have never been able to use that technique.

Then, grab your shirt by the folded corners when you pick it up and stretch it apart, like this picture shows here.



The shirt will hang down from your hands, after some time and experience you will "feel" the shirt hang in your hands correctly. This "feel" is how the shirt feels, like its twisting or uneven when you have it stretched open like in the picture. It takes some time to get down, but after some time it will come to you.

Next you are going to load it all the way on the pallet until the shoulders seams slightly overlap the top of the pallets edge. At this point you will be able to see if one side is farther on then the other side and if the shirt is really crooked then you will feel it pull to one side when you load it.



If the shirt is correctly loaded on center it will "feel" straight, if its not you will feel it pull to the side that's on too far. You can make a slight tug to the other side to slightly fix this before dropping the shirt on the pallet. Once you have done this you can then grab the shoulder seams and pull the shirt back to the print position.

Now I always set up a press so that the shirt will always load the the same spot for your regular sized shirts. Some adjustments will be made for larger or smaller shirts. However I find that using the same load position will increase your speeds and accuracy as you get used to using the same print position. So pull the shirt back like so. A handy guide to where to place your design in reference to your  shirts can also be found on this forum (click here)



As your pulling the shirt back you will again feel it pull to one side if the shirt is crooked. Try to grab the seams by the same distance apart on both sides, I use the edge of the pallet when I can depending on the shirt. The farther apart you grab the more likely you are to get it loaded correctly. finish pulling the shirt back to this point here. I like the collars seam to hang off the edge right to the seam. If your pallet has a neck line you will have to find a comfortable position that works for you, I personally hate those type of pallets and in the past have actually flipped the pallet on backwards or cut them off to get a rectangle shaped (Automatic Style Pallet). There is a reason why automatics don't use them, they get in the way.



Once you have pulled the shirt back to the printing position you can then use the sleeves to check quickly the shirt simply by pulling the shirt up some to visually check for how it looks. Don't pull it up to far, just enough so you can see the sides of the shirt and the pallets edges. I like to grab the part where the sleeve and the shirt body are sewn together.



Now it should be loaded on correctly, if not just pull it back on real fast to the shoulders seam and try again. If you think you have it loaded well then just make one more quick check by using your hands as a measuring device. You can learn to use this trick so fast you will forget that you are doing it after awhile.

Its real simple and very effective. All you do is place your hands on the side of the pallet so each of your palms is the same distance apart. Then with your fingers reach down and "feel" the distance down from the side of the pallet to the sleeves seams. You will instantly notice if one side is farther down then the other as one finger will touch the sleeve and the other wont. This is a dead giveaway that the the shirt is off center. If so, well just repeat the steps above until you get it right. Practice makes perfect. But also remember that some shirts are just sewn poorly so remember this when you cant get it no matter how hard you try. This is very true of your low cost 50/50 shirts.



Now as I said in the beginning of this tutorial, this takes time to get fast and efficient. It may appear that there are so many steps that you cant really go very fast.

Believe me when I say it looks like more work than it really is and with practice you will be cranking them out.  ;)

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