Large press

[socialgiraffe]

I assume you mean heat press that you can not find, if so I think Sunfly in China sell a reasonably priced one. Other members may know of suppliers in this country though.

[WorthDoingRight]

I worded it wron. It should be aslo descent print are possible on small printers too.

Thanks for clearing that up you had me worried for a minute lol

[COMA]

Full print they are called i think. And yes. You print on large format printer that prints on paper that is on roll. Then just press it to your shirt on big heat press.
But decent prints are possible with only small format printers. All you need is some imagination and thinking out of the box

Uhm...maybe i'm a bit in lack of imagination when you have to cover an area of 60X50cm with a continous graphic. Let's imagine we have a pictoure of a dog that must cover all the tshirt , how can I sublimate it without a large printer and a big heat press? can you help me out?

[GoldRapt]

Hi,
I have always see printed tshirts, polo, etc. so I was wandering how one can achieve this. I may need to print graphics with a plotter ( with sublimation inks in) that are larger than the t-shirt and then press into a BIG heat press?
I hope is all clear

You have a screen print machine, why don't you print oversize with that?

[COMA]

it's just a matter of costs and time. when a customer "want a tshirt with a picture of his baby that covers all the shirt", just 1 tshirt i have to decide if i need to sublimate it ( 10 min. maybe ) or to take the graphic, do all the separations, registrations on the press, etc. for a single tshirt is not worth the job, plus, how much the customer have to pay for it?
best solution is a DTG print or the sublimation, no?

[bms]

it's just a matter of costs and time. when a customer "want a tshirt with a picture of his baby that covers all the shirt", just 1 tshirt i have to decide if i need to sublimate it ( 10 min. maybe ) or to take the graphic, do all the separations, registrations on the press, etc. for a single tshirt is not worth the job, plus, how much the customer have to pay for it?
best solution is a DTG print or the sublimation, no?

I think you'll probably eventually decide that if a customer wants "a tshirt with a picture that covers all the shirt" then you'll quickly learn to say that isn't possible, or you'll be charging such very high price at which point the customer will say "no thanks". How many times have you seen a t-shirt printed with the picture of a baby that covers the whole of the shirt - probably never and why do you think that's the case?

[GoldRapt]

DTG sounds interesting and I know that john at StichUp is a big guy in that field, but one of those machines cost £10k or something so maybe a one colour monochrome of that baby might work.

[jennywren]

So the steps are : print, press and sew?
for me the tricky part to afford is to press the print.

For me it would be the sewing lol

[COMA]

For me it would be the sewing lol

I did not even consider sewing by myself

[COMA]

I think you'll probably eventually decide that if a customer wants "a tshirt with a picture that covers all the shirt" then you'll quickly learn to say that isn't possible, or you'll be charging such very high price at which point the customer will say "no thanks". How many times have you seen a t-shirt printed with the picture of a baby that covers the whole of the shirt - probably never and why do you think that's the case?

Well, This morning a lady asked me to do exactly that, for the first birthday of the child. As you suggested, I explained to the lady that the costs would be very high with my current equipment, even if the end result would be of good quality, so she opted for the classic t-shirt with teddy bears and text...