Using my flat bed to print short run t-shirt's

[csudman]

Anybody tired something like this? I've read people printing with they're flatbed with decent results. I'm thinking about buying one if these.
http://www.livingstonsystems.com/DirecttoGarmentPlatens.html
Thoughts?

 

[the graphics lab]

I've done it before. I made my own platen with a separate border piece that goes over the t shirt and platen to make it flat. It works, the ink is vibrant and doesn't fade. The problem was getting the height consistent to avoid a head strike and making sure to print unidirectional to prevent a double image. You need to provide enough head height so the shirt fibers wouldn't contact the print heads. The other issues is the ink, its probably not rated to be against the skin, though I didn't have any side effects. It smells pretty bad but goes away after a few washes.

 

[johnnysigns]

No one gripes about the lingering stinky UV smell?

 

[10sacer]

Will it work? Yeah.
Will you get sued when one person has a negative skin reaction to the ink? Absolutely.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Will you get sued when one person has a negative skin reaction to the ink? Absolutely.

This is something that you have to be careful with.

What we used to do, when doing appliqué work for baby garments is that we would use a different tack down stitch to hold the appliqué piece, because it would be less irritating to the baby versus appliqué work that would be used on adult garments.

Now, yes that is baby skin and they are more sensitive then adults, but there are some adults that are more sensitive to irritation then others.

I would definitely go with caution.

 

[AlsEU]

One more question must be asked - what about the washing resistance? With textile screen printing inks you may expect certain results, with digital UV inks? If you say clearly, that the print may be washed out in a month or two and customer accept it - it's his choice. But if he doesn't know, what was used for printing?

 

[rdm01]

So you're risking the print heads, possible skin irritation liability, and unknown results? Why not just sub it out to someone with the equipment and be done with it?