# Repairing a cracked screen-printed design with wax paper and iron?



## Dromedary (Mar 2, 2012)

Hi there! I bought this reconstructed shirt from Etsy, so it's one of a kind. Unfortunately there's a couple of small scratches on it after owning it for a few months. I took pictures with my webcam (my digital camera ran out of batteries) to show where the _(very minor)_ scratches are at.

I searched this site and Yahoo answers and someone posted _"Hi, 
The OLD kind of iron on's, after they were applied to clothes, if you want to iron them then you would have to place a piece of wax paper between the iron and the fabric so tht you would not reheat the transfer. BUT with the new kind and the kind we use, it has more benefits, like be stretchy, and you can iron RIGHT on the transfer, no wax paper needed. Just don't leave it sitting on the actual decal for too long. But you can definitely go over it with an iron. Make sure you are ALWAYS turning them inside otu when washing and always cold water. I have found with my son's that if you DON'T put them in the dryer, they come out and stay brighter longer, so I hang dry mine."_

I tried to find an answer on this site but found only this and it's from 2007, and don't want to necro-post.

Webcam photos, low-quality unfortunately.

















Also I am pretty sure the shirt's screen-printed. If it isn't, I apologize for the wrong forum!

If this works out, I can use it to fix bigger damages on other shirts.

Thanks in advance!


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## bern (Feb 14, 2007)

I dont think you will be able to repair the print . My understanding is a screen printed shirt will crack if the ink is under cured . If you had a bunch of shirts from a screen printer and you washed one and the print cracked and washed off you would be able to heat cure the other shirts and they would probably be OK . Once it is cracked I am not sure how you could repair it .


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## Dromedary (Mar 2, 2012)

bern said:


> I dont think you will be able to repair the print . My understanding is a screen printed shirt will crack if the ink is under cured . If you had a bunch of shirts from a screen printer and you washed one and the print cracked and washed off you would be able to heat cure the other shirts and they would probably be OK . Once it is cracked I am not sure how you could repair it .


Yeah, I was unsure if it could be repaired myself. Have you ever used wax/freezer paper and irons before, though?


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## bern (Feb 14, 2007)

I have used the oven baking paper and placed that over prints and heat pressed using a commercial heat press .


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## Dromedary (Mar 2, 2012)

bern said:


> I have used the oven baking paper and placed that over prints and heat pressed using a commercial heat press .


I looked it up and found this on YouTube. Is this similar to what you do?


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## bern (Feb 14, 2007)

Instructional Videos - Pro World

This is what I use and what you are looking at in your video is a inkjet transfer being applied . Personally I would just leave the shirt as it is and not risk damaging it .


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## Dromedary (Mar 2, 2012)

bern said:


> Instructional Videos - Pro World
> 
> This is what I use and what you are looking at in your video is a inkjet transfer being applied . Personally I would just leave the shirt as it is and not risk damaging it .


Thank you again! The videos you linked are interesting - maybe I should invest in a heat press someday for future making stuff. :>

Also yeah, I think I should leave it alone and just wash in the sink and let it hang to dry. I think I'll do that with more of my shirts anyway.

If anyone else here has worked with freezer or wax paper in the past, let me know!


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## abstractartifact (May 28, 2018)

If cracking is a result of under-cured ink, is there a method to continue curing the shirt so that it ceases to crack any more than it already has?


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