02/03/2010 by admin.

Spring is almost upon us, so that means it will soon be the Marathon season! Lots of people and companies from all over the country will be entering themselves into various marathons that are held all over the UK.

The individual or company concerned usually does the marathon for a good cause and that usually means sponsorship, which in turn raises the much needed money for the charity.

The person or team that is taking part on the day has spent the cold winter months training for the big event, rapped up to the eyeballs to keep warm. Now the Spring weather has arrived and temperatures have risen, thoughts turn to the need for a decent running vest.

Unless you are quite sporty or involved in sport through your kids, you may not be aware of the new generation of dry fitting sports wear that is now available. The good old fashioned cotton vest when caught in a shower or just soaked thought with perspiration, starts to hang of you like an old rag, looking terrible and feeling awful. Modern materials have made it possible for the garment to get rid of any moisture and not loose its shape. This sportswear is usually made from some form of Polyester. Gamegear specialize in this type of garment and produce the Cooltex Running Vest.

Gamegear Cooltex Running Vest has a moisture management finish. It has contrasting side panels with flatlock stitching. It is finished with a contrast white V lower hem. The running shirt is made from 100% Polyester and has twin needle stitching in the armholes. The front hem is straight and the back hem is curved.

It comes in White/ Navy and White Grey.

One of the problems with this great new material is that you can not print it using DTG printing, which would give you great versatility of designs that you could use for decoration. This is because the ink used by DTG can not penetrate the material, so it sits on the top of the fabric. When you wash the shirt it comes off!

I can not recommend embroidery either. The stitching goes through the light weight structure of the shirt and gives a rough finish on the inside, which will cause chaffing and discomfort.

Vinyl transfer does a very good job on this type of fabric but is limited in the types of design it can handle.

Posted in Vinyl Transfer, Dry-fit, Running vest, DTG printing, DTG | No Comments »

12/02/2010 by admin.

A new revolutionary DTG or Direct to Garment printer has just hit the market place, from Yes Ltd.  It is really special because it claims to be able to print the white ink at the same time as the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. If this is true it will mean it will cut production time in half!

Up until now, if you were printing on dark or indeed black t-shirts, it was necessary to print a white layer first. This is partially for any white areas of the design, but  also so the lighter colours woulds show up. If you printed a light blue or yellow onto a black t-shirt, they would not show up. If you put a opaque layer of white onto the t-shirt first and then print the light colour onto that, you get a nice bright end result.

This meant the old process needed to do one pass under the printer head to receive the white layer, allow the white ink to dry, and then print again using the other colours. As you can imagine this takes rather a long time.

At this point in time it all sounds a bit implausible to me. At the end of the month there is the Printwear & Promotion Exhibition being held at the Birmingham NEC. Yes have got a stand and should be demonstrating the new process. I will go, observe and report back.

Posted in Yes Ltd, Printwear & Promotion, DTG printing, DTG | No Comments »

09/02/2010 by admin.

There is a lot of talk lately on internet forums about building you own Direct to Garment printers. The theory has promise but the reality will be a disaster.

Yes the basic principle is the same. Both spray either ink or dye at the the surface to be printed. In some cases, both machines use the same printer head, but that is were the similarity ends.

It is slightly more realistic if you want to print onto light or preferably white t-shirts. This is because there will be no need to put a white layer onto the garment first. If you do want to print images with lighter colours or white onto darker t-shirts then the real problems begin.

The white pigment used to print onto black or darker t-shirts is much thicker than the printer head was designed to cope with. Therefore there is a great tendency for clots and eventually permanently unblockable printers heads that will have to be replaced. The is not a cheap repair. The head alone without fitting charges will cost around about £200 to replace! This problem can re-occur very often, which will wipe out any profit on the work. On top of that the job will be delayed while you repair the printer which will probably make the job late and upset your customer.

Then there is the problem of ripping software, I am not going to bore you with the technicalities of it, but needless to say you will have to have it and it is not cheap. Add to that you will have no maintenance or technical backup and I would say you are onto a looser.

If you are thinking of printing t-shirts with DTG technology, get onto the t-shirt printing forums, read what the customers of the different companies are saying and choose the one with the happiest customers.

Posted in T-shirt, DTG printing, DTG | No Comments »

29/01/2010 by admin.

A massive part of the process of t shirt printing is the actual t-shirt. There are many different t-shirts to choose from, for many different requirements.

As far as printing is concerned the major concern is the type of material that is used to manufacture the t-shirt. Most t-shirts are made from 100% cotton, others are made from all sorts of man make fibers.

Some processes like DTG can not print onto man made fibers such as polyester because it would not absorb the dye. Most DTG printers will cope with a 60% cotton to 40% man made fibre mixture but I would not recommend going as low as 50% -50% cotton to polyester mixes. It will look ok when you first get the t-shirt but will soon start to fade and washout.

Posted in Cotton, T-shirt, DTG printing | No Comments »