Direct to Garment Printing - I've gone and done it!

[Kaz]

Oh WOW!!! That's really good, I'm sooooooooo jealous

[GoldRapt]

Nice

[Ian M]

John, that is just so amazing.

[Stitch Up]

Thanks guys for the thumbs up. It's always nice to get such support.

It's been a struggle to get to this point, stacks of trashed shirts and no doubt many more to come! There are so many influencing factors and variables i.e. %ages of each colour and white ink and even the humidity of the working environment.

I'm reasonably okay with artwork I develop but I'm still struggling with colours on supplied artwork but, it's here to be mastered and I'm determined to work it through. In addition, these printers need daily maintence to keep them working. Having spent so much on the system and ancillaries, I'm pretty anal about the maintenace and probably spend a lot more time than is really necessary.

We're already picking up work, both retail & wholesale. Pricing is always a struggle to get right. When I was contracting this work out I was happy to pay £7.50 for a black shirt with DTG printing. That was a wholesale price and I'm planning on getting below this.

Cheers

John

[AdamB]

The shirts look brilliant John - very impressive ................ and very jealous! (but hey, in a few months I will hopefully invest in one also - hopingly).

Let me know when you can take work on John, I would love to get some designs done with the DTG for myself and other clients.

[bms]

I would love to get some designs done with the DTG for myself

Me too! I'm out in Singapore later in Sept and the F1 night time race is on whilst I'm over there. Would be great to get something for the race if at all possible...

[Stitch Up]

I'm more than willing to take on work and would only supply a finished item if I thought it was good enough.

I could do a wholesale price for 10 or more shirts. I'll do 'one offs' but can't offer wholesale pricing on these as there's so much involved to produce one shirt

White shirts are easier to do than darks. Dark shirts require pretreatment and longer curing times.

Email me if you have any questions or want to send me artwork.

Cheers

John

[Kaz]

John

Hoe long did it take to print that design, and did you have to wait long between the white and the colour pass?

Kaz
x

[Stitch Up]

That design probably took 1.5 mins for the white ink layer and 1 minute for the colour. I've set the printer to stop in between the white and colour layers so I can ensure the white layer is dry. For this design I probably waited 30 secs or so. BUT, when I get it right, as soon as the white ink has printed the colour layer will print immediately - that's how things were when I was in Munich FESPA using the printer all day long.

Kaz, I'm very much still in learning mode. Although the rip software seems quite simple to start with, there are a lot of adjustments one has to make to get best results. Because these printers are affected by the environment, you have to make many adjustments. Then there's the ICC profiles

[Kaz]

Thanks John

I don't envy you the learning curve that comes with that piece of kit, struggling with what I'm trying to do just now, and you do all that on top of a full time job, I take my hat off to you