# Printing on both sides of the t-shirt with DTG



## elTostador (Oct 9, 2007)

Our market loves both chest and back printing. I can say, that easily 60-70% of the personalized t-shirts we sell are this way (currently with vinyl)

From our point of view is a drawback (since you really make money on the t-shirt, not so on the printings), and double printing means double work for almost the same profit. But what can you do about that 

My question is regarding how this is best handled in DTG. Do you pretreat both sides and then print, let's say, chest, cure it, and then go for the back?

Or first pretreat and print chest, then pretreat and cure back?

I say that because if the pretreatment is so picky with curing times and so on, what's the "safest" way to do it, based in your experience?

Thanks!


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## FatKat Printz (Dec 26, 2008)

We like to do all the back or front which ever is a larger print area.. then we go back and do the opposite side.


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## Don-ColDesi (Oct 18, 2006)

The safest way to do this is to pre-treat the smaller side first, then print and cure. Then, pretreat the larger side it is best to lay down a piece of teflon on the press when before pressing the second pre-treat - you can also "split the shirt" so that only one one side of the is actually getting pressed. Then print and cure, using the same "split and cure" as above.

The reasoning for printing the smaller side first is that, heaven forbid, you have a bad print, you catch it on the small side instead of the larger side, thus wasting less ink and time.


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## elTostador (Oct 9, 2007)

Don-SWF East said:


> Then, pretreat the larger side it is best to lay down a piece of teflon on the press when before pressing the second pre-treat


Hmm... why? Also when curing the second image?



Don-SWF East said:


> - you can also "split the shirt" so that only one one side of the is actually getting pressed.


Unfortunately, our spring presses don't allow to split the shirt, there is no space below.


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## Don-ColDesi (Oct 18, 2006)

The teflon on the bottom is to keep the shirt from sticking to the bottom pad of the press, also, when you press the garment moisture is released and will tend to go down and out, if the opposite side of the shirt is pre-treated and not printed and cured yet, the moisture can cause the pre-treatment on the opposite side to rehydrate - potentially allowing for pinholes to develope in the the pre-treat - resulting in a bad white ink layer.

No comments on the run-on sentence, please


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## elTostador (Oct 9, 2007)

Good point!


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