# Help with printing DTG to back of polo shirt



## jjmavrik (Nov 19, 2011)

I have a DTG printer and and trying to print the back of Polo shirts. A familiar issue I'm sure. The buttons create the difficulty. I'm looking for a solution in taking the polo from the heat press for pretreatment, to the printer then to the heat press for ink drying.
I made a platten add on using 3/16 hard board, three layers, one solid, two with a 2"x 6" cutout for the buttons, glued the three layers together with high temp gasket adhesive and placed this inside the shirt. the cutout fit over the buttons and gave me a solid flat surface to accept the print. took the whoe thing from pretreat press to print and back to heat press to set the ink. The first print was perfect, but the hard board is not capable of withstanding the heat and warped.
I made a second set up identical to the first, but found that switching the boards between printer and press created static charge making the shirt fibers stand up which ruined the print.

I need one device that can stay inside the shirt from pretreatment thru printing and back to the press for curing.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

We used mouse pads inserted in the shirt


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## jjmavrik (Nov 19, 2011)

Found a solution, 1/2" MDF board, cut to size, cutout for the buttons, place inside the shirt. I made 4 boards, they curl slightly during curing, so the last one used goes to the bottom of the stack, to cool and flatten out. works great.


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## equipmentzone (Mar 26, 2008)

jjmavrik said:


> Found a solution, 1/2" MDF board, cut to size, cutout for the buttons, place inside the shirt. I made 4 boards, they curl slightly during curing, so the last one used goes to the bottom of the stack, to cool and flatten out. works great.


Try using a heat resistant 1/2" thick nomex felt pad instead of the MDF board. 

RMN-1/2NOM1214 : 1/2" x 12 x 14 White Nomex/Heat Felt : Geo Knight & Co Inc


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