Making T-shirts

Smuffy

Active member
I wanna make some t-shirts. I got a bunch of blank white ones, and i just wanna make a few for me and my friends, but have them be pretty much identical. whats the easiest way to do this? im pretty much open to any ideas so any ideas are appreciated.
 
My friends got together and decided to make shirts to sell so they made a stencil i think and then spray painted the pattern on shirts and sometimes they painted them on with just shirt paint. Here is a picture of a couple of them its the only one I have so you cant see them great but its an example.

 
nope I suck.

mrsachoyce.jpg
 
You may wanna invest in a speedball screen printing kit. there relatively cheap like 50 bucks with some paint and once you set up your screen then you can use it over and over again...
 
Three options

Option 1: Find a place that isn't a screenprinting buisness that has a press. My work a has press and we barely use it, and you'll probably find most places to be the same. These places basically have a press taking up space, and will probably be happy to let you use it for free or a nominal fee.

Option 2: Use a classroom. Whether you are in college or highschool you'll find alot of schools have a screenprinting occupational program. Sign up and use their shit fo free!

Option 3: Find a screenprinting company. Many of these places will allow you to use their facilities for a fee. If not, they will print designs for you for usually a good price.

If none of those are feasable, search around the internet and you will find numerous websites with detailed instructions on how to make a screen for under $30 at a crafts store. Then you just need to find equipment to set the screen into the emulsion (you can have this done if you can't find the equipment). Any pressure hose will work for spraying the image out. I've used the pressure hose in my work's sink and it works awesome.

Hopefully some of this will work. You would be surprised how much local screen printing buisinesses will help you out. My buddy basically displayed his skills to a shop and they now will let him make his own shit for basically nothing, and will even pay him a percentage to do their shit.

And remember, while alot of people do white ink on a black fabric for their first design, white ink is inherantly thicker than most inks and will be more difficult to work with. Your also have to consider that every extra color you incorporate is a whole new screen. You should try for a mono-color print first and move up from there. Your first few presses will probably have flaws, but in time your skills in hosing out screens and printing ink will increase. Its very intuitive and not really that difficult at all.

Hopefully some of that massive post helped.
 
And if your super DIY you can skip the machine that prints the image in emulsion and do it yourself with special lamps and blowdryers and such. Do a google search and you should find lots of info.
 
Are you looking to actually make tshirts? Like cut and sew them? Or only screenprinting onto premade shirts? I've done quite a bit of both and I can give you some starter info. If you're interested drop me a PM.
 
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