Learn How To Screen Print Tee Shirts At Home

When screen printing at home, it is often the rule to improvise with inexpensive solutions for professional grade equipment and tools. This is fine for messing around in the garage for fun and the occasional family band tee shirts. But when you want to step it up to the next level, having the right tools to do the job can be a great asset.

Many people ask me what does it cost to get into screen printing or how much money does it take to start a screen printing business. No matter how you ask it, the answer to that question will depend on your ultimate goals.

Visit the Catspit website and check out the Equipment Sales page to see what I recommend at the very least to start a business manually screen printing shirts. And don’t forget about all the consumables and hand tools or other miscellaneous items you will need to actually print.

I think for the most part, people don’t really understand what goes into screen printing a garment. There is a lot of work that goes into a simple screen print and it can be surprising to people how many different tools or machines are necessary.

But that is where I come in. I enjoy teaching those who wish to learn about textile screen printing. I enjoy screen printing very much and I get great satisfaction from happy customers and successful students. So… If you have any questions, just ask!

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Check out the latest addition to the Catspit website. A new Print Supplies page has been added just below the Equipment Sales page in the navigation menu.

This is where you will find screen printing supplies that I have hand chosen for their performance, price, and ease of use. I have personally used the items that are going to be listed on this page. These items will be chosen with the home printer in mind.

The first items listed are Catspit’s Super Inkjet Film Positives. This is the very same inkjet film I use when I create my film in house. I really like this inkjet film and it is the inspiration for creating this section of the website. It is absolutely the best performing inkjet film I have ever seen or used. It works so well without RIP software that it continues to impress people I show it to.

Please visit the website to learn more about all of the screen printing services offered by Catspit Productions.

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Now that I have been coerced into upgrading my printer to a wide format Epson 1400 inkjet by work demands, I have discovered that Quad Tone Rip or QTR is not well suited for film making. QTR is RIP software designed for printing color or black and white photographs. It will do nothing more than control color and resolution. But it does clean the black up to a nice rich black and improves the image quality quite a bit.

So the new Epson 1400 was a great buy at $195 and I am glad I was able to get that price from PC Connection. I have been doing some research on workarounds for RIP software and I have become aware it may be possible to make decent film without it. This is what I have heard can be done but I have yet to actually try it:

I can purchase all black ink cartridges that will replace the color ones so all print heads will print black. This would be the same black ink conversion kit for the Epson 1400 that works with AccuRIP. Once that is complete and the heads have been purged of all color ink, we would set the printer to open up all the heads and print black. This is done in the application you create the art in by tweaking all of the C, M, Y, K color controls to 100% for each. So you have to create the art as a CMYK rather than a spot color. This supposedly will trick the printer or more specifically force it to print with all heads using all black ink.

In theory this sounds very good. It would seem making all six heads print 100% of their respective colors must produce a more opaque film than what I can achieve now with only one head printing black the best it can. With all six heads printing black, it has to be an improvement. But I do not know for sure and I am not positive I want to convert the printer to all black right now.

The black ink conversion kit costs about $155. Basically I would have to commit to moving to AccuRIP in the future if this didn’t work out because all the heads would have the black ink conversion in them made for AccuRIP. And I would think there is no going back once you flood the color heads with black ink.

For now I think I will continue to outsource the film I need to and keep making what film I can with my system as it is. But I have not given up on this; I just want to wait until I am ready to buy AccuRIP before I start moving in that direction with the black ink conversion kit. That way if the above mentioned technique does not work, I would just move right to AccuRIP and avoid wasting a lot of time and money.

Don’t forget Catspit Productions will be at Arizona Joe’s in Apache Junction tonight from 6pm to about 9:30. Check out yesterday’s blog entry for more information.

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Catspit Productions will  be at Arizona Joe’s in Apache Junction on Thursday night. If you are in the Phoenix area, come on out and visit us. We will be displaying and selling Catspit custom logo wear. Pick up a free sticker or two and enjoy some great live music.

Arizona Joe’s

417 South Winchester Rd
Apache Junction, AZ 85119-5252
(480) 983-6115

Inquiries about commercial screen printing and casual visits are welcomed. For more information, use the Contact Us form on the website.

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I have come to the conclusion that screen printing is a technical process first and foremost. There is a very simple reason I say that. And the reason is one of the things that many screen printing shop owners don’t realize or understand.

Screen printing is very easy. It can be a pleasure and provide great satisfaction in seeing a print job done well. There is only one catch to what I just said. You need to have every aspect of the process functioning near 100%. If you can achieve good working order of every piece of equipment and every chemical process or what we would call prepress activity, then you can work efficiently and easily. And therefore be more productive on the press. The more efficient and easily you can work the more shirts you can print per hour. The more shirts you print per hour…. well you should get the idea.

In fact, if you iron out most of the bugs and kinks in your screen printing process it is possible to teach almost anyone to print well. This can be a great benefit when running a shop because good responsible screen printers are hard to come by. Yes, you may find a really good printer but will he show up? Will he be reliable? The fact is that many shops experience a high turnaround in the printers they employ. One reason for that is that many shops demand a lot from a printer but pay little and do not offer health benefits. The other is, well… a lot of irresponsible people get into screen printing for some reason. Let’s face it, screen printing is one of those businesses that a lot of people get into but not all of them will be successful at it for various reasons. Some printers may just print too slowly. A rare few may show up early but lack the aptitude to screen print. There are people, for some reason, that just can’t do it. And that’s just the way it is too. I’m not sure why but every now and then I run into someone who just never really gets the hang of it.

I can’t stress this enough. If everything is working properly, almost anyone can print. It only takes skill when the process isn’t up to par. Your printer only needs extraordinary skills if your print shop is deficient in function. Many shops could actually double their productivity with a little investment in upgrades and improvements. Even the layout of your shop can affect the production flow negatively.

Screen printing tee shirts is all about numbers. It’s all about volume. Its’ a cut throat industry and there is always someone who is willing to do it for less than you. In my opinion, success depends on the ability to produce high quality product at a very fast rate. That way you can make money even when the profit margin is low. That’s being competitive.

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Yes, I admit it. I am one of those who has Vista. And I have Home Basic at that. But I actually like Vista. It’s just that all the security features and incompatibility issues with certain programs or even drivers is a major problem. To add to that is the fact that Vista is definitely processor intense.

You should make sure that you do not have a virus, malware, spyware, adware or other malicious software goofing up the works. I know I ran every scan imaginable and purchased software in the hopes of finding some clever, devious new infection that I could positively identify as the culprit. But much to my dismay and with extraordinary efforts; I found no such thing.

A common problem with Vista is that eventually over time it seems that it will run slower. Worse than normal for XP or other operating systems. When you Google “Vista running slow” you will find it is blamed on all sorts of things. One thing that is true; if you only have one computer and tend to use it for everything, you can have a lot going on. So eliminating start up items that are unnecessary is always recommended.

But I have found one program that I used to tune up Vista that really seems to have done the trick. Of course my computer doesn’t run as fast as when it was new. But it is running better than it has in a year. And there is a visible and significant difference. What is this almighty program that I speak of? It is a very well known piece of software called CCleaner or “CC Cleaner”. I believe it actually stands for Crap Cleaner.

Crap Cleaner performs a number of maintenance tasks including a registry tune up and dump of temporary  OS files. I know that installing and uninstalling programs can leave a lot of irrelevant files in the registry which can just get in the way of good performance. It even allows you to remove start up items that are unwanted and keep coming back when turned off. It is easy to use and seems to be pretty safe.

Crap cleaner worked well for me and I am very happy now. I think it is worth checking out if you want your Vista Home Basic to run better too. You can also run Vista with the Classic view rather than Aero and it should help as well.

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The size of your heat press is only relevant to the size of the designs that you want to do. If you don’t want to be limited by size, then a larger heat press would be the right choice and it will be able to do a variety of items. A larger unit may be a better investment so as your business grows the heat press will be able to handle the jobs you do.

It is often better to spend a little more now and get a machine that you can grow with. Otherwise you may find yourself reconsidering your decision in a year or two….or maybe next month when someone asks you to do something you can’t with the equipment you bought. So it really depends on your goals.

I use a Cannon IP4300 set at the highest quality photo settings. I recommend flipping the image yourself in your graphic software and then choose the best photo setting like “Photo Paper Premium Quality”.

You can Google screen printing versus heat transfers and see about articles comparing the two if you would like to know what the differences are. But I will tell straight off; if you are looking for high quality, vibrant colors, durability and an easy way to produce quantity, then screenprinting is the way to go.

Heat transfers are better suited for one offs or very small orders that do not make economical sense to screen print.

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Many people make the mistake of thinking they can do professional grade work on a $250, (or less), table top 1 color, 1 station press. Well, you may be able to produce some very good 1 color shirts but that is about all you will be able to do. It will take great creativity and ingenuity to compete with a better equipped printer. Getting into screen printing for profit is not cheap. There is an initial investment that will give you the capability to compete in quality and quantity. If you want to print shirts for your own store or brand, this may not be such a factor. But what kind of printing you want to do will be more important for you when considering purchasing screen printing equipment.

Take a look at the Equipment Sales page on the Catspit website to get an idea of what an initial investment in decent equipment would be. Then take a look at the Print At Home page in the Tips & Advice section and check out the free plans to build a 4 color press as well as the links for print at home instructions and supplies.

Make sure you read the EzineArticles.com articles in the Tips & Advice section too. Those are great introductory articles that talk about getting into screen printing.

Then you have to decide what your actual goals are. Once you figure that out, you will be able to decide how to proceed. You end goals should be the deciding factor in buying equipment. In order to print high quantities with ease, you will need good equipment and the space to work.

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The new video covering screen printing squeegee tips is uploaded to YouTube. This video talks a bit about squeegee materials and how you might want to set up your own squeegee stock for printing in your shop.

The video also touches on wood handles and making your own squeegees for screen printing tee shirts. I also show and display some wood handle and bulk rolls of squeegee. I talk about which type of squeegee and which durometer you should use for printing t shirts.

So check out the latest video from Catspit Productions.

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Hello and welcome to October. Happy fall festivities to everyone.

There will be a new video uploaded Friday October 2nd. This video will be about squeegee tips and some of the ways to set up your squeegees.

Please make sure to visit CatspitProductions on YouTube to watch all the videos about screen printing. Learn how to screen print shirts. See the screenprinting equipment needed to print tee shirts. Read articles about silk screening garments on catspitproductionsllc.com.

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