# DTG On Black



## samuelzr1 (May 10, 2019)

Hi everyone,

I had a design printed on white and black 100% cotton Next Level Tees. My question is, I noticed on the white shirt the design feels decently smooth whereas on black it is not as smooth and feels a bit gritty. 

Can anyone tell me if this seems normal? The print its self looks pretty good and I have washed and dried one of the black shirts 6 times already and it seems tho it is holding up. Just not sure if that texture difference is normal. The guy at the shop said it is normal on black as the texture is the result of pretreatment or something of the sort


----------



## GHEENEE1 (Jan 8, 2007)

Maybe the white under base.


----------



## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Any time you print on a dark garment, you first must lay down a white underbase, else the other colors wouldn't show up. White ink is thick and contains a LOT of pigment (titanium dioxide, just like house primer). Some brands/models of printers lay it down smoother than others. Merch by Amazon uses Kornit printers, and always have a splattery underbase, yet surely sell more DTG T-shirts per day then anyone else.


----------



## BadZebedee (May 6, 2014)

samuelzr1 said:


> The guy at the shop said it is normal on black as the texture is the result of pretreatment or something of the sort


As well as not having a white underbase, the white shirt sounds like it wasn't pretreated so it will feel a lot softer. The pretreat from the black shirt should wash out after the first wash so it should become a bit softer. After that any 'gritty' feel will be down to the white ink base layer.


----------



## samuelzr1 (May 10, 2019)

BadZebedee said:


> As well as not having a white underbase, the white shirt sounds like it wasn't pretreated so it will feel a lot softer. The pretreat from the black shirt should wash out after the first wash so it should become a bit softer. After that any 'gritty' feel will be down to the white ink base layer.



I think it does seem a bit softer. Would you say this is normal? in general tho? i wasnt sure if the guy did a bad job or not

thanks


----------



## samuelzr1 (May 10, 2019)

NoXid said:


> Any time you print on a dark garment, you first must lay down a white underbase, else the other colors wouldn't show up. White ink is thick and contains a LOT of pigment (titanium dioxide, just like house primer). Some brands/models of printers lay it down smoother than others. Merch by Amazon uses Kornit printers, and always have a splattery underbase, yet surely sell more DTG T-shirts per day then anyone else.


So in general this is normal you would say? It is not super gritty just noticeably from the white shirt

thanks


----------



## TmsCustomLondon (Jul 19, 2019)

We had this problem when we precoat too much. We set our pre treater for smooth cotton tees at 100 volume and 90% pressure. The area feels a lot smoother and seems to last im the wash at 40C


----------



## TmsCustomLondon (Jul 19, 2019)

We had this problem when we precoat too much. We set our pre treater for smooth cotton tees at 100 volume and 90% pressure. The area feels a lot smoother and seems to last im the wash at 40C


----------



## AnACustomPrints (Dec 1, 2016)

Might not believe this but it works. We have found when there is gritty feeling on a printed black shirt, increasing the pressure in the curing process solves the problem, nice and smooth. Too little pressure causes the ink to set up without smoothing out, or possibly melding withe pre-treatment. Take a scrap shirt and practice different pressures. Keep Temp around 330F. A lot of people say to use no pressure, but we have found we can wash immediately after printing and there is no fade.


----------

