What's better, screen printing or heat pressing shirts?

Screen Printing if it is done well has normally a longer lifetime.
In my opinion...I only sell Screen Printing for most Construction Companies.

Heat press does not sustain in time well.

But There is also a lot of Artsy stuff you can do with heat press.
I Saw great stuff by siser.
I want to do that too for the general public.

But i would say it is better to work in big numbers...2 dozens or more. Screen Printing.

 

Actually, I have just the opposite opinion, I find that heat transfers last longer than screen printing....if it is done properly. Like anything I suppose, if it isn't done right then it will not last. However, to answer your question, one isn't really better than the other necessarily but instead there is a time when one is more appropriate that the other. For full color, low volume then it's heat transfers...for minimal colors with high volume then it's screen printing. There are many other factors too but those are the main considerations.

 

There are a ton of factors that go into that. Number of colors, quantities and amount of detail in the art. We offer DTG printing in house. It is great for short runs or high color counts. We also have a Digital Heat FX system for printing full color transfers for short runs that cant print DTG. There are still a ton of jobs that are better and cheaper to send to screen printing though.

 

I sell Specialty Materials brand of heat transfer and a lot of my customers who make jerseys will screen print the team logo but use the heat transfer for the numbers and names.

 

for short run and especially with multi color design - HTV Heat Transfer Vinyl

For large run (25+) screen printing is better.

if you print the design on HTV, the life will be short.
layered HTV has about the same life as screen printed

 

Whats layered htv? I have roland bn20 and hotronix heat press 16 20 auto open with siser colorprint pu. Im planning to print on souviner shirts and sell it to local gift shops. Will this be ideal setup?

 

...and about the texture of a vinyl sofa.

 

Layered HTV, for us, means that instead of printing the design onto white HTV, you take/use several colors and piece the design together layer by layer until the design is completed.

here is a good example of what is ment

 

True, and if it is a large area (more than just text) it will feel like you are wearing a heating pad on your skin.
air CANNOT go through HTV

 

Thanks a lot! Wow! Thats a lot of work! But the video is very informtive. Thanks again!

 

Heat transferred stuff I find horrible to wear- clammy and unbreathable.
Much stuff I've been given was not pressed on well either.

 

I don't know if you considered this before.
But one we used to do it here we found a silk screening place that we could order hot split plastisol from.
We would do the design and send them the artwork black on clear.
We could also gang the sheet. Which is we could have the same design or different design multiple times on the size that they would print. and cut them up and separated them.

And it was treated just like a regular heat press design. It had a soft feel like it was silk screened.
Also we could order Puff inks or glitter they had quite a few options.

You might want to check that out for large quantities.

 

I order Silk Screen Transfers. Its plastisol (or other inks) screen printed onto a carrier sheet, that you then heat press onto your garment. You can order gang sheets, which makes short runs more economical. Its also great because you can order a dozen or so extra transfers to hold on to, because if your clients are like mine, they love to ask for two more shirts after the order is complete.

And in my own experience, my works shirts that I made with HTV (solid colors and printed on Sihl inkjet material) have lasted way longer than any of the silk screen shirts I've sent out. I don't have any work shirts made with silk screen transfers to compare. But i'd guess the quality of the install would effect the longevity.

I order transfers from FMExpressions and ACE transfer Co.

 

www.transferexpress.com has a very informative web site that will answer many of your questions.

 

Gary, what material do you recommend?

 

The Siser Stretch vinyl is very soft and less plastic-y but it doesn't weed as well. I use quite a few plastisol transfers for larger jobs. I think the general rule of thumb is anything under 12-15 is HTV, over that is screen printed (or plastisol transfers) A couple times when I started I did 100 shirts with HTV - there is NO SENSE in ever doing that again. Way too much time weeding even for a simple design such as the ones I had. Way cheaper and quicker to use transfers. It's seriously just foolish to do a great quantity in HTV.

 

I have tried many different materials over the years and what I like to use now as an all-around good material is Express Print from Stahls. I also use their Magic Mask transfer tape for the best result and easiest application. There are a lot of different materials such as special material for light or dark garments, softer feel or heavier feel, stretch ability, sport clothing, etc. There is always a balance between feel and ease of use, I find material which gives you the softest feel is usually thinner and trickier to apply and definitely can be much more difficult to weed. The Express Print has a soft feel, weeds easily and applies well to almost all materials. You can use any transfer tape but I prefer just using their Magic Tape as I never have a problem with it.

 

We operate an Epson F2000 DTG and also use Heat Transfer. For larger volumes we can provide screen printing. They all have their ins and outs; I don't prefer the DTG, but most of the time its always a customers preference on the look of the graphic. I like heat transfer on heavier fabrics like heavy hoodies, DTG on lite cotton t's, and screen printing is good for work related shirts and graphic t's if doesn't require many colors.