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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: BeerCityInc on March 15, 2013, 04:44:09 PM
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I have a customer that i have to neck tags for. I started out with vinyl ones but they are a paint in the ass with all weeding. So i started screen printing them, faster and easier to say the least but they look terrible. Ive been toying with the idea of plastisol transfers since the quantity is to low to have them outsourced for a reasonable price. What is the best way to do it and make them look good with out ink blowing through the shirt and maybe have a little pop to them. I change the tag color with design because it is a designer shirt that is getting sold at a very high price so i want to offer him the best print possible.
i use a M&R Diamondback
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I have a customer that i have to neck tags for. I started out with vinyl ones but they are a paint in the ass with all weeding. So i started screen printing them, faster and easier to say the least but they look terrible. Ive been toying with the idea of plastisol transfers since the quantity is to low to have them outsourced for a reasonable price. What is the best way to do it and make them look good with out ink blowing through the shirt and maybe have a little pop to them. I change the tag color with design because it is a designer shirt that is getting sold at a very high price so i want to offer him the best print possible.
i use a M&R Diamondback
I don't do alot of them but this is what I do. Mesh 230, 60 duro squeegee (manual) unions grey ink. I only print tags with union grey ink. It works on all colors but sports grey. They look good I have never had ink come through the shirt.
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we direct screen, or do transfers and use a hat cap. that works great, and it allows different sizes, instead of setting up, prinitng, resetting up, printing, etc...
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What sort of quantity per image?
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We print transfers, cut them up and apply with a hat press. They won't bleed through the cloth. Any color your customer wants...
Steve
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We print transfers, cut them up and apply with a hat press. They won't bleed through the cloth. Any color your customer wants...
Steve
Ditto.
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we do sleeve pallets on the gauntlet, can lay 4 sizes side by side on each side of screen so enough for 8 sizes total. usually 160 fine thread mesh, just enough pressure for a nice print and nothing comes thru the shirt. we also only do tags w grey ink, shows nice on all color shirts. did 2200 pcs that way last tuesday. usually between 300 and 2k pcs when we do them.
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Those directly printing these, do you price it as another imprint location? I've found the market won't bear that and you need to break up the cost, i.e., do a transfer print run, have them pay for that and then a flat rate to apply. $0.50 per application on the cap press in this case. This way it's 0.50 per at any qty they order and the cost of the transfer prints is on it's own and not consider with each run. The cost is likely very similar in the end, just another way to voice it.
Direct printing, do you need to turn the shirts inside out to toss on the belt?
I've found that, if an order has private labels, it probably also needs full QC so we're setup to check both seams and panels while the transfer is curing. Helps to double up the duties.
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I'd have to think direct (screen) printing has to be faster than transfers. Padprinting smokes them all though, but has it's own set of challenges and limitations. Set up correctly I'd think runs in excess of 1000/hr would be sustainable by one operator, no dryer, no unbundling shirts from dozen stacks, box to box.
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I did some of these a year ago on the manual press, we charged .50 per and I was printing them so quickly we were making cash. The auto was running at 900 pieces per hour and I was doing at least 350-400 per hour and the belt was full of shirts. White ink through a 150/48 with almost no print pressure, one stroke and on the belt. We could make a decent living directly printing them I think. If we were set up on the auto to do them with a 3-4 pronged pallet it would be even better.
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We print transfers, cut them up and apply with a hat press. They won't bleed through the cloth. Any color your customer wants...
Steve
yea this is what i was thinking, he is really stoked on the color matching tags which i did when i first got him as a customer to help sell the brand. Its an eye catcher and when im in his store the presentations is flawless. Usually i only get about 200 shirts from him but this time its 600 and he wasnt happy about the last run we did. I spoiled him on the color match and now its all he wants. I flip them inside out and load them on the press. Im doing some r and d right now so i post what findings i come up with and what seems to work best. Thanks for the help boys.
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We've printed tens of thousands of these at a time all on the manual. Way faster than a transfer and cheaper. Charge anywhere from .50-1.00 per print. Moneyed to turn the shirt inside out. Only slows you down. Based out gray on 195 mesh. Minimal pressure and go. It is a different technique but very easily doable with a little practice. A good label guy can run almost 500 per hour.
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We print transfers, cut them up and apply with a hat press. They won't bleed through the cloth. Any color your customer wants...
Steve
Ditto.
tritto!
pierre
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for the direct printers, what do you do with the labels? I used to flip them out of the way on the hat press, then discovered I could let them lay on top of the transfer while being pressed with no ill effect. We haven't had to do any really large amounts; I think if we doing them all the time in the thousands, I'd check out alternatives. In the end, I want the print clean with no bleed through.
Steve
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We use tear away tags on relable jobs. If we have to cut out the tag it is an up charge. Screen printing them is very easy. We can print probably 3 to four of them in the time it takes to do a transfer. Another benefit is we do not need to print a transfer to begin with. When you print neck labels you are not going for a perfect opaque print like you do on the outside of the shirt.nyour printing the inside which is a different texture and all you need to do is lay down color. The customers are not looking for a print that matches a Hanes tag less lable. If they are then they are custom ordered. I will snap some pics and post them up.
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i'd like to clarify, we only use transfers on small orders. The majority of our clients that want screened tags are ordering small amounts of tees. If it was a huge run say something like 300 tees per size, then that's something different, but when there are 5 tees per size, transfers make it way easier.
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Its 600 total with different colors needed. I started some R&D last night using squeegee pressure and speed to get it to sit more on top of the garment. Turned out pretty decent, only paint is switching these things in side out. The things we do to make our big customers happy.lol Thanks for all the help
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Do not switch them inside out. Put the image on the screen so it is at the end of the sleeve pallet. Put the collar up where you need it and pull the neck down and under the pallet. Print the label and lay it on the dryer with the label exposed. You will be done in half the time.When it falls in the bin just pull it out and stack as normal. You are doing two unneeded steps. 1. turning it inside out and 2. having to turn it back. 1 person should be able to label all 600 of those through 6 sizes in just over half a day if that. Use 429 C as it is a standard label color that most retail guys use and it will work on the vast majority of colors.
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Do not switch them inside out. Put the image on the screen so it is at the end of the sleeve pallet. Put the collar up where you need it and pull the neck down and under the pallet. Print the label and lay it on the dryer with the label exposed. You will be done in half the time.When it falls in the bin just pull it out and stack as normal. You are doing two unneeded steps. 1. turning it inside out and 2. having to turn it back. 1 person should be able to label all 600 of those through 6 sizes in just over half a day if that. Use 429 C as it is a standard label color that most retail guys use and it will work on the vast majority of colors.
this. ;D
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Consider consulting a pro in t-shirt printing area! That would do some help especially since you want it perfect as it is to be sold at a high price.
huh?
pierre
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Consider consulting a pro in t-shirt printing area! That would do some help especially since you want it perfect as it is to be sold at a high price.
huh?
pierre
We've been caught....lol No pros here.......... ;)
How many neck labels does one have to print to be considered a pro anyways?
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Consider consulting a pro in t-shirt printing area! That would do some help especially since you want it perfect as it is to be sold at a high price.
huh?
pierre
We've been caught....lol No pros here.......... ;)
How many neck labels does one have to print to be considered a pro anyways?
Did I log in to t-shirtforums.com by mistake...
Steve
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Do not switch them inside out. Put the image on the screen so it is at the end of the sleeve pallet. Put the collar up where you need it and pull the neck down and under the pallet. Print the label and lay it on the dryer with the label exposed. You will be done in half the time.When it falls in the bin just pull it out and stack as normal. You are doing two unneeded steps. 1. turning it inside out and 2. having to turn it back. 1 person should be able to label all 600 of those through 6 sizes in just over half a day if that. Use 429 C as it is a standard label color that most retail guys use and it will work on the vast majority of colors.
if you guys want to save all that hassle you can contact Action
they have the pallet for this type of job, you can even print two at the same time
Gabe
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Can someone post a vid/pic or describe you you are throwing onto the belt when using the sleeve platens? I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around how to throw these on the dryer without getting misprints and scorching. The loading and printing part makes perfect sense. I'm guessing you flash these so you can handle the garment.
With turning the Ts inside out and back again, we're coming up the same or better pay per hour printing transfers and applying v. direct printing. There's also setup involved and press and dryer time getting used up going direct whereas our flatstock setup runs in it's own corner and the heat press can go anywhere out of the way. Another +1 for transfers is you can apply them for the same cost to any size order, no press setup once the transfers are printed, just fire up the heat press.
For reference, we charge for the flatstock run of the tags (client just estimates their yearly usage) and then a flat $0.50 per application at any qty. No upcharge for different sizes, we just print it all on 13x19 sheets. Also, most of our PL stuff is done on AA where the tag is left in so we need to deal with that as well.
I saw a label printer that just flashes the living hell out of the tags. Think this is feasible with a thin enough ink deposit, like printing them through a 225 and higher?
I gotta figure this out soon as our order volume for the main line we private label has changed. We were doing 100-500 tag applications at a go (transfers were perfect) and now it's looking more like 1700 at a go (direct printing might be a lot better here).
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I will shoot something. Zoo You do not need to flash. There is no change in dryer speed. Using tranfers is throwing money away on larger jobs. One of my old employees could label so damn fast it was not even funny. We were running 2500-17k labels at a time. All sizes. Two people could hit 2k pieces on one manual with one sleeve pallet easily.
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We used to turn shirts inside out but yesterday we tried it on a sleeve pallet without turning them inside out and I wonder why we did not do that much earlier. So easy, no problem putting them on the belt of the dryer either.
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Didn't want to drum up another thread on tags so I will just add to this one. How do you guys print the inside of a hoodie like a Gildan 18500? I did one and it came out like crapola with all the fur.
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Didn't want to drum up another thread on tags so I will just add to this one. How do you guys print the inside of a hoodie like a Gildan 18500? I did one and it came out like crapola with all the fur.
Transfers!
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I always do transfers, though the highest quantities I am doing are in the 300 range for tags, and that is spread across 5-9 sizes usually. Printing all the transfers for 300 takes only 10 transfers since you can put 30+ on a 13x19 sheet of all the sizes in the proper proportions, and you can cut 10 sheets at once with a sharp guillotine by hand. Printing and cutting is about 10 minutes total. We use cap presses for applying them, and each application is maybe 30 seconds total. I stack and box or fold/bag while the next one is curing on the cap press. You can get in a great rhythm with one person. With a second person and a second heat press (which we have) it goes twice as fast with alternating pressings.
There is definitely a point when direct printing will become more efficient, but it will never look or feel as nice in my opinion. We use 280 mesh for the transfers usually and a decent amount of pressure to get them into the fabric a bit.
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I have 2 customers I do this for. They both place small orders (50 at a time).
I only charge 50 cents each.
I used to turn the shirt inside out. Then flip them around again. The time doing that was ridiculous and I was losing way too much money doing them.
I tried printing transfers and heat pressing them on. The idea was I would end up printing up a ton of them in down time. On a 16x20 heat press, you have to flip the shirts still. Again , I was losing money for the time spent.
I started printing them using sleeve boards. Perfect! No need to flip them and I could go pretty quick. It's still too much work for the lousy $25 extra I make on it. But it's what needs to be done and I make the money on the other side so it comes out ok in the end.
I use Union gray ink. I tint it slightly with some black for grey shirts.
I will only use tear away label tees.
If I end up with large runs, I will invest in either a hat press or a different pallet to swap on my current heat press. This way someone can heat press them on while I'm printing.
I may invest in a (one) 4 up tag pallet and use it on the manual.
All in all, I absolutely hate doing tags.
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I dont print transfers and really have no desire as this customer will only do 50 pieces at a shot normally, basically 10 of each s-2xl. Would ordering transfers be cost effective?
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we just got done doing about 4k shirts with plastisol transfers. pain in the butt, but we charge for it. tried to screen print them, but the majority of the shirts were canvas triblends and even with the lightest pass, you could still see the imprint thru the shirt. the heat pressed transfers seem to sit on top much better. we had 2 part timers pressing all week and banged them out. between the 2, i feel like we were getting 250 pc per hour done.
we make a screen with 12 up all of one size. screen print onto the transfer paper and trim the sheets up from there. we never looked into ordering them, but i feel the only real cost in material is the transfer paper. ink is negligible as there is so little going down on the paper. i think i mixed a quart and it lasted thru all of the shirts.
now on regular cotton shirts, i do feel that you can get away with printing without the imprint showing thru. but those damn triblends were so thin...
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I dont print transfers and really have no desire as this customer will only do 50 pieces at a shot normally, basically 10 of each s-2xl. Would ordering transfers be cost effective?
why not? if they are single color, just print them on a sheet, and run them through your dryer at around 215-230 degrees, then just cut them out and powder them. It's really easy.
If it's a multi color transfer then that's a little different, but it's not much harder
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single color transfers really are easy. I was a little hesitant the first time simply because I didn't know what to expect, but they are so straightforward. Use a high mesh count, print in a single stroke, powder em while wet, dry in your conveyor at 200-230 for 15-20 seconds. cut and press. no real variables.
Multi color you have to preshrink all the paper through your dryer, rack em over night, account for some shrinkage across colors depending on how tight the registration is and how many colors you will be printing, figure out underbasing for glue, etc. The most technical ones I have done were 7 screens and had some butt registration and included areas of 55lpi gradients (no matching colors like you would with sim process, but still tight registration) and used tonal underbasing and a fine clear base for gluing at the end. It took a lot of trial and error to account for the paper shrinkage across the 7 screens and nail the registration, but since that job every transfer job is easy mode...
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You guys can completely remove the powder step by using a ink like Excalibur transfer ink(950 series I believe). It was sooooooooooo nice when we switched to that for printing transfers. Goodbye powder!
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Pad print rocks the inside tag print, you can pick them up used pretty darn cheap. I got a great tip when visiting Dan at Forward.. put a rubber band around the sleeve pallet above the neck, you can then flip the label up and under the rubber band keeping it out of the way when print... it is really smart to not trim the labels off until after the print helps avoid printing the wrong size.
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I got a great tip when visiting Dan at Forward..
Dan and Kevin are great guys! I think Kevin replaced the blood in his veins with ink! Talk about passion, those guys are something!
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Pad print rocks the inside tag print, you can pick them up used pretty darn cheap. I got a great tip when visiting Dan at Forward.. put a rubber band around the sleeve pallet above the neck, you can then flip the label up and under the rubber band keeping it out of the way when print... it is really smart to not trim the labels off until after the print helps avoid printing the wrong size.
Pretty interesting idea.
Thanks for sharing.
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Pad print rocks the inside tag print, you can pick them up used pretty darn cheap. I got a great tip when visiting Dan at Forward.. put a rubber band around the sleeve pallet above the neck, you can then flip the label up and under the rubber band keeping it out of the way when print... it is really smart to not trim the labels off until after the print helps avoid printing the wrong size.
I usually just stick the label to the pallet above the neck. Works the same I would guess. I charge $.75 for removing the tags. I have never removed a tag on a job. I just tell the customer how to do it. I know its not hard to do but I don't want to risk cutting a shirt and having to reprint for one shirt.
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Resurrecting an old thread..
I am screen printing neck tags, and having a hard time finding a way to keep the original tag (which is staying on the shirt) in good condition in the dryer. If I flip it under the shirt it takes on a permanent bend. And of course if I leave it exposed it gets completely destroyed. Is there any way to keep the original tag pristine?
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Resurrecting an old thread..
I am screen printing neck tags, and having a hard time finding a way to keep the original tag (which is staying on the shirt) in good condition in the dryer. If I flip it under the shirt it takes on a permanent bend. And of course if I leave it exposed it gets completely destroyed. Is there any way to keep the original tag pristine?
rubber bands!
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rubber bands!
My issue is not on press, it's in the dryer. I know you are not suggesting that I send rubber bands through the dryer :)
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We pull them off before printing...
Are you printing and leaving the tags?
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That's right.. I need to leave the original tag in place.