# Pretreating: Bulk or Not?



## DakotaPrintArt (Dec 20, 2007)

Hey DTG printers! Do you pre-treat all of your shirts ahead of time, or do you pre-treat what you need for the day? We're running into some inconsistencies on how our black shirts are turning out. It seems the freshly pre-treated shirts are turning out much better than the ones that are a week or more older. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated!


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## HuMJohn (Dec 6, 2006)

I would preheat immediately prior to printing. 

Why?

Glad you asked. As the shirt sits around on the shelf, in the cabinet, etc., etc., it absorbs moisture out of the air. If you preheat immediately prior to printing, you dry out or remove the moisture that the shirt accumulates, allowing for a better absorption of the inks.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

Cathy,

It really depends on the run, but generally I pre-treat up to 6, at a time (any more than that and my pre-treat station gets wet and sticky). With a large job, I'll pre-treat half a dozen, start a print, press a few shirts to put on the pre-treat pile. When the shirt is done, I'll put it in the press, start printing the next shirt, and pre-treat a new pressed shirt. When the shirt is cured, I will either press a pre-treated shirt or press fresh shirts, until the shirt that is in the printer done. This gives me a nice work flow for a large dark shirt job, and insures consistancy.

Make sure to shake up your pre-treatment bottles and sprayers, that might help for pre-treating a bunch ahead of time.

The only thing I would advise for pre-treating shirts a day or more ahead of time, is to re-press the shirt before printing.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

The other problem you can run into is the accumulation of lint on the pretreated shirts. You probably already know this but it would be best to store them in a large plastic container of some sort before you print them.

However, I have found it better for us to just do as Michael does and build up a small bank (6 or so) of shirts prior to starting the job and use the "down time" while the shirts are printing / curing to pretreat the shirts. 

You can get into a pretty good workflow / rythem doing this and it doesn't tie up your shirt inventory for other types of jobs if you also do vinyl, screenprinting, etc.


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

I can get my print jobs ready at the start of the day and then pretreat the t-shirts that are required to be pretreated. That way I spray only the areas that need to be pretreated (instead of one whole face of the t-shirt).


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

By the way, John ... the store looks good! You are killing me with those designs!

... gonna force me back into early retirement.


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## adawg2252 (Dec 12, 2007)

I agree with prettymuch everyones statements so far.

What's actually interesting is the longer the shirt sits, the worse it technically gets depending on how it's stored. Not only is the shirt absorbing moisture in the air, but it's evaporating out the pre-treatment. So you're gaining more moisture, but replacing the pre-treatment. That may be why you're having inconsistancies. I noticed this and when I called my supplier that's what they told me can happen, if they aren't "stored properly" which for them was in some container, or a box that can be sealed so that dust and lint doesn't get in,but it's somewhat sealed to protect them from evaporating as fast.

I generally only pretreat before a job so that I only pretreat the area needed for the shirt (saves pretreatment and time). What I keep around for sample printing I pretreat the whole shirt, but I keep them in a sealed bag. Generally 6-12. If a week goes by and I haven't used them all, I just use them in a run, or sometimes will pretreat them again just to make sure they stay "printable".

Good luck!


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

Gunslinger said:


> By the way, John ... the store looks good! You are killing me with those designs!
> 
> ... gonna force me back into early retirement.


Which designs are you referring to?? lol

None of those designs are done by us. The store reflects the retail side of our business mostly. The Sporteez section is designs we've done for retail but they are sports related.

As I mentioined in another post...just started working on that site a few weeks ago and know absutely nothing about any of this....but got me a couple "Dummies" books so now I'm armed and dangerous!!1


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## DakotaPrintArt (Dec 20, 2007)

Thank you all so much for your great advice - this will help a lot! If you're going to Long Beach ISS, stop by and say hi!


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## Wags (Jan 28, 2007)

We tried to pre-treat ahead of time once. While it did work we did see some inconsistencies. One thing as well, there is always the possibility of dust adhering to the treated shirts. I'm sure we all know that no matter how clean you think your work area is there is always dust floating around. Now we will treat only the amount of shirts that we will do for the day and no more.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

treadhead said:


> Which designs are you referring to?? lol
> 
> None of those designs are done by us. The store reflects the retail side of our business mostly. The Sporteez section is designs we've done for retail but they are sports related.
> 
> As I mentioined in another post...just started working on that site a few weeks ago and know absutely nothing about any of this....but got me a couple "Dummies" books so now I'm armed and dangerous!!1


I had just noticed the link. Are you printing those designs, or getting the shirts wholesale? We signed up wholesale for one of the big t-shirt outlets (I wanted famous rock band stuff to stock for the retail side), but haven't ordered, yet ... argh, all my cash is tied up, right now.

John, it looks great, keep it up!


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

DakotaPrintArt said:


> Thank you all so much for your great advice - this will help a lot! If you're going to Long Beach ISS, stop by and say hi!


Will you have a booth, Cathy? My wife, Debz, will definately look for you. She explained to me what y'all have done with embroidery (her department).


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

Gunslinger said:


> I had just noticed the link. Are you printing those designs, or getting the shirts wholesale? We signed up wholesale for one of the big t-shirt outlets (I wanted famous rock band stuff to stock for the retail side), but haven't ordered, yet ... argh, all my cash is tied up, right now.
> 
> John, it looks great, keep it up!


I just changed my signature to include the new website link. 

No..we buy all of the wholesale. The only shirts we have...so far...that we design and sell are the Sporteez shirts


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## Heidi Jansen (Jan 16, 2008)

Depending on the quantity, I pretreat one job at a time. I would say that you could pre-treat one day in advance, but even better one job at a time and if you have a 1000 to print, only pre-treat for the day.
Kind regards


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

Heidi Jansen said:


> ........and if you have a 1000 to print, only pre-treat for the day.
> Kind regards


Yikes!!!

I can't even imagine having to run 1000 shirts across my T Jet 2...especially ones requiring pretreatment!!!  

I'd have to have one of those monsters that cost more than my house to consider DTG for that!!


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

LOL, if someone wants to pay that much for 1000 direct-to-garment prints, I'd be more than happy to oblige. I'd rather do it on one or more blazer pros (or offer better pricing with a Kornit), but my T-Jet 3 would get er done. Lot's of cursing and kickin', but it would get done. The largest run I have done stands at 288 (with an underbase, no less).

John ... I can't find the Sporteez ones? And how did you land a Red Hat account ... the local chapter out here wanted us to modify a design of ours for them (still waiting on their artwork) ... no fair!!!


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## Tagger (Sep 16, 2007)

Sorry if this question is tangentially related. Do you have to empty the pretreatment sprayer each night?


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## Wags (Jan 28, 2007)

No you do not need to empty the spray gun each night. As a matter of fact we have left ours in the gun since we started about 4 months ago and it works fine. Just do a test spray in a waste area first to be sure you are getting the proper spray.


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## Tagger (Sep 16, 2007)

Wags said:


> No you do not need to empty the spray gun each night. As a matter of fact we have left ours in the gun since we started about 4 months ago and it works fine. Just do a test spray in a waste area first to be sure you are getting the proper spray.


Thanks.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

Gunslinger said:


> LOL, if someone wants to pay that much for 1000 direct-to-garment prints, I'd be more than happy to oblige. I'd rather do it on one or more blazer pros (or offer better pricing with a Kornit), but my T-Jet 3 would get er done. Lot's of cursing and kickin', but it would get done. The largest run I have done stands at 288 (with an underbase, no less).
> 
> John ... I can't find the Sporteez ones? And how did you land a Red Hat account ... the local chapter out here wanted us to modify a design of ours for them (still waiting on their artwork) ... no fair!!!


I here you on the kicking and cursing part!! LOL

Although, she's running great right now since the overhaul!! I know I just jinxed myself... 

Anyway, a lady just walked into our mall cart and asked us. These are only stock designs from ProWorld that we had but she gave us their logo (pretty bad resolution) that we recreated and used printed vinyl for the front of the shirts and the stock design on the backs. This was about 1 year ago but haven't heard from them since....so who knows if we will do anymore.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

> John ... I can't find the Sporteez ones?


Look under collegiate......


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

The most I pretreat is maybe a day in advance as it saves me alot of time not having to pretreat in between printing. Usually I only do this with large orders. The small orders I do as I need them.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

sunnydayz said:


> The most I pretreat is maybe a day in advance as it saves me alot of time not having to pretreat in between printing. Usually I only do this with large orders. The small orders I do as I need them.


Yes..we've done this as well. Pre-prepping larger orders.

The largest order we've done is 144 shirts but we are getting ready to do a 288 shirt order next. Fortunately they are on white shirts!! LOL


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

I tried to do that with my first big order, Bobbie ... but, I found myself standing around too much, the next day, so I change over to the work flow method I mentioned earlier. I do recommend to keep your self on the move and better production to get two heat presses, rather than one.

Oh gawd, John ... I didn't see how to get a larger version of the tee pic, by clicking it, with yahoo stores. I was just using the inset. Crapola, now I gotta re-do the pics!

I like the Geaux Tigers print. And I hear ya about the 288 order (congrats, and glad you got the machine fixed) ... the past two large radio jobs needed an underbase, the next one (also 288) has the proof approved on white tees, yayyy!

Is it just me, or is it frustrating to have a potential client come in for a job, and then wait possibly months, before they return to confirm the job (with artwork, payment, etc.)? LOL ... at least, they come back, but we gotta schedule these jobs!

Talk about jinxing ... I had a small job last night, 6 shirts perfect ... even dropped a note off letting folks know I was rockin' ... I come back to finish the rest, banding, misregistration, machine errors ... no supper until I finished at 8:30, last night. From now on, mum's the word!


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

Yea I probably would have been standing around too but I put my husband to work so with him on the heat press and me on the printer we were cranking em out pretty fast  it works great because he is cheap labor hehe.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

sunnydayz said:


> Yea I probably would have been standing around too but I put my husband to work so with him on the heat press and me on the printer we were cranking em out pretty fast  it works great because he is cheap labor hehe.


 
That's what I tell my wife...I'm not interested in a paycheck...just the bennies!!


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