# Digital printing on tees



## Jinx (Mar 25, 2006)

i've been browsing through some posts and i've got this burning question.

does digital printing produce prints on tees that are soft to the touch? meaning that you totally cannot feel if it is a screenprint or a heat press. 
or are there other techniques to be applied on tees that will give such an effect and feel?
Thanks guys


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## John S (Sep 9, 2006)

Jinx said:


> does digital printing produce prints on tees that are soft to the touch? meaning that you totally cannot feel if it is a screenprint or a heat press.


I've used the Brother DTG and it has a great hand. It only works on light color garments. 

Dye Sub printing also has a soft hand, It must be on light Polyester garments.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

Hi Jinx,
You cannot feel the print (usually) with DTG prints.
We use the DTG Kiosk that can print on all color shirts including White Ink on black shirts. Check out some of my posts to see some examples.

We also have some examples of prints on dark colored shirts here:
threadsafeinc.com/samples.html


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> does digital printing produce prints on tees that are soft to the touch? meaning that you totally cannot feel if it is a screenprint or a heat press.


Screen printing with water based inks will also give you a shirt with a soft (basically zero) hand. Where you can't feel the print on the shirt.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

Rodney,
do you know how well the waterbased Ink used in screenprinting holds up when used on blended fabrics such as 50/50 or materials like Lycra / Nylon?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> do you know how well the waterbased Ink used in screenprinting holds up when used on blended fabrics such as 50/50 or materials like Lycra / Nylon?


I think it does fine on 50/50 shirts, but I'm not sure about lycra or nylon.


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## Jinx (Mar 25, 2006)

so how well does the waterbased ink hold up compared to DTG printing?


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

I know the DTG inks are mostly water-based also, so I would expect they are very similar. Anyone else out there have any expirience with waterbased screen printing?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

TahoeTomahawk said:


> do you know how well the waterbased Ink used in screenprinting holds up when used on blended fabrics such as 50/50 or materials like Lycra / Nylon?


It's intended for use on 100% cotton, and is supposed to require an additive when printing on polyester.

So far polyester print tests I've run have been inconclusive (the ink fades on cheap polyester as expected; I haven't run many washes on better polyester, but so far so good).

I doubt they'd like Lycra / Nylon (5% in a typical women's shirt shouldn't present a problem, but I wouldn't hold my breath on a pair of bike shorts for example - I suspect the results would be terrible).

As a rule of thumb though, waterbased screenprinting inks prefer 100% cotton.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Jinx said:


> so how well does the waterbased ink hold up compared to DTG printing?


In theory they should both hold up fine. Waterbased does; DTG I can't speak for.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

TahoeTomahawk said:


> I know the DTG inks are mostly water-based also, so I would expect they are very similar.


I'm pretty sceptical about that (them being very similar that is, not that DTG is water-based ), but given that I know nothing about ink chemistry I can't really know.

(not being similar is not necessarily a bad thing; waterbased screenprinting ink is flawed in as much as it drys out too rapidly when exposed to air - it would probably clog the print heads)



TahoeTomahawk said:


> Anyone else out there have any expirience with waterbased screen printing?


A little.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

I have some white Lycra shorts and some black and red lycra wicking fabric in 5 yrd rolls. 
I'll try to do 3 prints and see if / how they hold up. I'd guess that if any of them do, it would be the white.


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