# Screen printing on gloves



## 8-bit ZOMBIE (Jun 18, 2008)

Ok, I am wanting to print on black cotton or synthetic knit gloves. The print covers the whole surface of the glove. (Think skeleton hand gloves) 










The most common black knit gloves you can find are called "Magic Gloves." It's a general term for stretchable synthetic blend knit gloves.

I wanted to try this out myself as I have had success printing on synthetic trucker hats. So I found some of the Magic Gloves and did a test. I simply laid the glove on a sticky pallet and printed on them with a super high off-contact. It works. Not the best print in the world though. I may make a custom hand shaped pallet as I think that would work a lot better.

But, I ran into 2 BIG problems.

I just used plastisol as I don't have any ink for synthetics/nylon. Just wanted to make sure it was possible to even print on them first. But of course the plastisol cracked apart like crazy when the gloves stretch. Never used a stretch additive but maybe using a nylon ink with a stretch additive would work?

And then, as these gloves are 100% synthetic, the heater shrank them like crazy. Would a low temp cure additive help with that at all? Been looking for cotton or cotton blend gloves but they are much harder to find.


Finally, anyone have any experience with printing on gloves that would want to take this job on for me? I pride myself on personally printing all of my merch but I might not have time to perfect the process with these. I've looked around online for companies that decorate gloves (embroidery/printing/heat press) but the wait times are rather long and most of them limit the print area to a tiny space in the middle of the hand. I would need these by early Dec. Probably around 50-100 pair.


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## 8-bit ZOMBIE (Jun 18, 2008)

Here is the kind of cracking I've got going on. Will stretch additive be enough to overcome this?












I've found that if I use a very reduced plastisol with multiple passes, the ink sinks into the fabric and holds up better. Might not even need nylon ink.


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