Do any of you screen print tshirts?

I'm thinking about cutting out the middle man with with new band and making our t shirts DIY. Tell me all about it: equipment, money spent, room needed, etc etc. Thanks in advance.

Shirts are $12 if you order 20, I think? Not bad. Quality is excellent. I ordered them for the choral department at the high school when I was on the board.

But the problem is you can buy blank t's for 2 bucks a pop. So if I can do this myself, I stand to save a good amount of money.

Shirts are $12 if you order 20, I think? Not bad. Quality is excellent. I ordered them for the choral department at the high school when I was on the board.

If you're dedicated and don't mind making a mess, then go for it. You'd probably spend more on time and resources doing it yourself, especially if you do more than one color.

It's not hard, but it is messy and a lot of work.

Cleaning the screens is the worst part, IMO. And it's very easy to make mistakes.

There should be tons of information about silk-screening on the internet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_8IMx0uMo&feature=related I hope this helps you on your noble venture, plus it is another artistic avenue for you.

I owned a screen printing business for several years. Did traditional color separations and four color process (where the color is made by pixel combination). I had an eight color wheel and a huge dryer. The ink I used was called plastisol and gives you the thicker image surface. The screen frames were very heavy and allowed for high tension on the silk, something that's critical for color separation. That whole set-up used about 500 square feet. By myself I could run between 30 to 60 shirts an hour depending on the design.

The key is whether you plan on to two or more color separations. This is where high tension screens and a wheel come into play as each separation has to align precisely. If you are going to just do single color, you could get away with a makeshift press and frame, but it still has to maintain a consistent distance for the platen so your squeegee strokes will be uniform on the substrate (t-shirt).

The other factor is drying. If you use plastisol, you will have to heat it. You could get away with using a "spot dryer", but it would be time consuming and your ink volume (design) would have to be fairly minimal. Plus, a decent spot dryer would set you back some serious coin. I never used water based ink, but that might be an avenue that could facilitate a kitchen oven, but I'm not sure.

Rough estimate to set yourself up would be $1,000 to $2,500 depending on what you made yourself, what kind or ink you used and so forth. Plus bear in mind that it's a pretty messy process even when you're set up correctly. Doing it guerrilla style is going to make it more so.

So, long story short (too late:) ), to get a really professional looking product that will represent your band in the best light, I would highly recommend leaving it to a pro shop, You'll get a far superior product and be happier in the long run.

Good luck and post the designs when you come up with them.

The shirts have the union bug on them. It makes an important statement to buy union products.

:)