T-Shirts

[Ldireprophil]

Who is the best T-shirt vendor, preferably DTG, to outsource the occasional request you get for T-shirts?

 

[jochwat]

Not sure if there are any Merchant Members offering this service. If so, I hope they jump on this thread.

If not, I've used sinalite.com for DTG t-shirt requests. Haven't been disappointed other than one shirt (out of dozens) that appears to have faded a bit. Could have been due to an incorrect washing on my end (it was a prototype shirt that I kept). Often they didn't have the correct size or color in the brand I wanted, but other than that, a good DTG source.

 

[VizualVoice]

Do you have a heat press? You can order DTF transfers and do them in house pretty easily. I'm not a fan of DTG for the most part.
I say that as primarily a shirt guy who does screen print, cut HTV, print/cut HTV, and winds up pressing a butt ton of DTF prints. It's my preferred way for anything other than a few or less than a few dozen.

 

[Drip Dry]

Do you have a heat press? You can order DTF transfers and do them in house pretty easily. I'm not a fan of DTG for the most part.
I say that as primarily a shirt guy who does screen print, cut HTV, print/cut HTV, and winds up pressing a butt ton of DTF prints. It's my preferred way for anything other than a few or less than a few dozen.

For those of us who have heat presses but don't have a printer to make the transfers, where do you go for the transfers

 

[VizualVoice]

For those of us who have heat presses but don't have a printer to make the transfers, where do you go for the transfers

I've used a few different services but have settled on custom-transfers.com and so far I've had pretty good results from them with only a few problem transfers out of many hundreds purchased. Off the top of my head, I had 2 that just plain didn't want to adhere to the garment and couldn't figure out why, one that had some random spot of contamination on it that was easily spotted before it got transferred, and one that had extra speckles of adhesive powder still stuck to the carrier (that cleanly lifted off the garment by pressing with a sheet of printer paper).

A lot of folks like Stahls and they're good, just very expensive IMHO. I've also used Versatranz in the past and they were fine but the turnaround time was slightly longer and ordering process left something to be desired.

Unless they majorly screw up or go out of business I have no reason to switch vendors again at this point in time.

Here's a few recent ones. The last 2 were combined with extra bling by also layering cut HTV with them.

 

[ProntoPrint]

For those of us who have heat presses but don't have a printer to make the transfers, where do you go for the transfers

There is an amazing source called SupaColor at www.Supacolor.com and the FULL COLOR prints they produce are amazing,
I found them after watching a couple of Tshirt guys on YouTube...
There is also a great source on the west coast for spot color screen printed transfers that take all of 5 seconds on a heat press... and are very affordable
(PS SupaColor DOES NOT ALLOW GANG RUNS, aka sheets with multiple jobs on them,... so be aware!
also there is www.fmexpressions.com for single color screen printed heat transfers under 20 cents each...

anyway, Hope this helps!

 

[2B]

Do you have a heat press? You can order DTF transfers and do them in house pretty easily. I'm not a fan of DTG for the most part.
I say that as primarily a shirt guy who does screen print, cut HTV, print/cut HTV, and winds up pressing a butt ton of DTF prints. It's my preferred way for anything other than a few or less than a few dozen.

100% agree
we tried DTG, but kept getting failures.

changed to DTF, very pleased, and can imprint onto a MUCH wider range of apparel.
Just last week did backpacks, Carhart jackets, T-Shirts, Hoodies, ETC all with the same design / same order

screen imprint is great for 1 color, but any design with 2+ colors we use DTF for all orders less than 100 QTY
NOTE we have found to get a better texture / feel with DTF to treat like a screen set up with gradients

 

[hybriddesign]

We could help but we’re in Hawai’i so I’d look somewhere else

As others mentioned DTF is a great alternative. A good dtg print(we have a massive and scarily expensive kornit system) will feel better than any dtf but sometimes for small logos dtf actually looks nicer and we combine the two all the time.

Stahls or supacolor are both great but yes pricey. We use stahls as they are dependable and we only use dtf for small prints so the cost isn’t bad at all.

Versatranz isn’t the cheapest but turnaround is amazing and transfer quality is top notch. FM has that great deal on 1 and 2 color transfers but we always end up with a bunch of defective transfers and unless we have someone really experienced who catches them we blow a lot of shirts. If you do their discount deal order at least 5-10% extra.

Keep in mind that EVERYONE is facing shirt availability issues so you’ll see a lot of issues which may seem ridiculous don’t be surprised… if you guys think supply is bad in the sign industry you haven’t seen anything until you spend two hours to fill a 400 piece shirt by ordering from 6-7 warehouses just to get all the sizes only for one box of shirts to show up in a completely different feeling fabric because even though it’s the “Same” shirt it came from a different country…

 

[hybriddesign]

hi, just curious. If you have time could you explain what you meant by this comment below? Are you setting the gradients up as halftone dots so it’s not a solid texture?

NOTE we have found to get a better texture / feel with DTF to treat like a screen set up with gradients

 

[VizualVoice]

We could help but we’re in Hawai’i so I’d look somewhere else

As others mentioned DTF is a great alternative. A good dtg print(we have a massive and scarily expensive kornit system) will feel better than any dtf but sometimes for small logos dtf actually looks nicer and we combine the two all the time.

Stahls or supacolor are both great but yes pricey. We use stahls as they are dependable and we only use dtf for small prints so the cost isn’t bad at all.

Versatranz isn’t the cheapest but turnaround is amazing and transfer quality is top notch. FM has that great deal on 1 and 2 color transfers but we always end up with a bunch of defective transfers and unless we have someone really experienced who catches them we blow a lot of shirts. If you do their discount deal order at least 5-10% extra.

Keep in mind that EVERYONE is facing shirt availability issues so you’ll see a lot of issues which may seem ridiculous don’t be surprised… if you guys think supply is bad in the sign industry you haven’t seen anything until you spend two hours to fill a 400 piece shirt by ordering from 6-7 warehouses just to get all the sizes only for one box of shirts to show up in a completely different feeling fabric because even though it’s the “Same” shirt it came from a different country…

SO much truth here. A couple weeks ago, I checked 4 different wholesalers and NOBODY had athletic gray tees in size large anywhere in the country. It was totally bizarre.

 

[hybriddesign]

oh geez, I saw that last week too and am hoping something changes this week. Have three large orders for NL 3600 Heather grey and have been searching for two weeks. Ordered district perfect weight instead but the color is a weird olive Heather grey… hopefully they restock soon so we can both get our shirts!

 

[Stacey K]

For those of us who have heat presses but don't have a printer to make the transfers, where do you go for the transfers

I use 613Originals (not sure if they are accepting new customers though...) and Transfer Express. If you are just starting out then I would head to the Transfer Express website. It's extremely informative and if you call them, they are great at helping you figure out what you need. I've also used Howards Transfers and they were very good as well!

 

[Stacey K]

SO much truth here. A couple weeks ago, I checked 4 different wholesalers and NOBODY had athletic gray tees in size large anywhere in the country. It was totally bizarre.

It's amazing that some customers STILL do not understand there are shortages in this world. A couple months back I could not find pocket high viz. The customers wife wanted me to give her my vendors so she could look for herself. She then said she found some on Walmart or Amazon and wondered why I hadn't checked. I had to explain to her that I get the shirts at wholesale and if I buy shirts for $10 each then I have to charge her a lot more per shirt. I told her if she wanted to buy them and bring them in she can. Funny - she only brought me 3 shirts out of the 20 we needed to finish up the order. I received the remainder a week later from Sanmar.

 

[VizualVoice]

oh geez, I saw that last week too and am hoping something changes this week. Have three large orders for NL 3600 Heather grey and have been searching for two weeks. Ordered district perfect weight instead but the color is a weird olive Heather grey… hopefully they restock soon so we can both get our shirts!

If you don't have color swatch books and need me to look at something to compare LMK. Happy to do it.
I did eventually find a suitable gray in a different brand. Don't recall what off the top of my head. Had to eat the cost difference but it was minimal.

 

[mfatty500]

We have used Howards since they started in his garage 20 + years ago, never a problem, plus the fact that they are only about 30 minutes away, we pick up from them if needed.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

How do these transfers feel compared to a screen printed shirt? What's the difference between DTF and DTG?

 

[Stacey K]

Notareal there are several varieties of transfers.

The regular screen printed transfers feel slightly thicker than a regular screen printed shirt. They also have another type of thinner ink that is mostly used for a vintage type look and feel. I love these the best but I get mine from 613Originals. I love the thinness of the ink but they aren't as opaque. My friend who owns a screen print shop actually orders a lot of transfers. It's easier for her employees to use them than to train them to screen print LOL

DTF is when you print on film and apply it to a shirt. DTG is when you apply a digital transfer directly to the shirt. The DTF is also available in transfers and has a bit more of a plastic feel but colors and detail is better than screen printing, IMO.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I got 1 shirt from a vendor and it felt like plastic, it would stick to your back. I assumed that was a transfer and it made me skeptical of ever trying it in place of screen printing

 

[jochwat]

Notareal there are several varieties of transfers.

The regular screen printed transfers feel slightly thicker than a regular screen printed shirt. They also have another type of thinner ink that is mostly used for a vintage type look and feel. I love these the best but I get mine from 613Originals. I love the thinness of the ink but they aren't as opaque. My friend who owns a screen print shop actually orders a lot of transfers. It's easier for her employees to use them than to train them to screen print LOL

DTF is when you print on film and apply it to a shirt. DTG is when you apply a digital transfer directly to the shirt. The DTF is also available in transfers and has a bit more of a plastic feel but colors and detail is better than screen printing, IMO.

I like the 613Originals transfers. Got a few test shirts I made when first getting into the process, and they've been worn & washed many times. No damage to the transfers whatsoever. The one / two / three color stuff has been nice, but still not a huge fan of the full color transfers. More testing to be done.

 

[2B]

hi, just curious. If you have time could you explain what you meant by this comment below? Are you setting the gradients up as halftone dots so it’s not a solid texture?

NOTE we have found to get a better texture / feel with DTF to treat like a screen set up with gradients

Exactly,
The more "breaks" the better the texture feel, similar to fine mesh vs a large mesh when doing plastisol inks