08 Mar Vintage Looking T-Shirt Print with Inside-Out Screen Printing
In this video we’re talking about screen printing the inside of a shirt for a really rad vintage look. And it’s pretty simple, so I just wanted to show the way we get it done here. You can also achieve a variation of this look with a texture applied to the design.
I want to start in the ink area for a specific reason, but I’ll get to that in a second. First, I just want to state the obvious here and say that I don’t know even close to all there is to know about screen printing, so this is not a tutorial. But I do know what’s working for us here so I wanted to share a bit of that and hope it helps someone so let me know if you have any questions down in the comments below. And for those who are already familiar with the process I would really appreciate any of your tips in the comments as well.
Okay, so first things first is ink. There are a quite a few PVC free options for screen printing inks on the market. PVC isn’t that scary yaknow, like if you drink water chances are it sat in a PVC at some point. But a ton of people do have skin sensitivities to it, so whenever a print is going direct on the skin, like these inside out prints, or care labels in the neck, we use a PVC free ink. I’m using this stuff from Excalibur, mostly because this isn’t a very demanding application for ink, it prints well, it’s available locally to me, and that’s pretty much it.
And this is important because I think it’s often overlooked. Some of you might be thinking you don’t “need” it because a customer hasn’t asked for it, or you haven’t had a complaint, but this is not something you want to be reactive about. PVC options are there, so I suggest being proactive instead of waiting for some poor customer of your customer to have a skin problem.
Other than that, the actual printing is pretty straightforward. The PVC free ink is already thinner than regular plastisol, so it goes nicely through a higher mesh count and does a good job coming through the other side of the shirt when a lot of pressure is applied.
So it’s pretty much just choosing a thinner material like these Bella+Canvas Triblend Tees, flipping the shirt inside out, quick roller for a smooth print surface, lots of pressure, sharp squeegee angle, slow print stroke, and then printing and curing like normal. Flip it back the right way and boom, the print looks rad. Your customers will think it’s amazing and really the only thing you’re charging extra for is some shirt flippin’. So it’s an economical choice for clients as far as special effects go.
So that’s it, that’s all, simple as that. Flip the shirt, use the right ink, lots of pressure, looking good. So I appreciate y’all watching and I hope this gets your gears turnin’. Thanks again.