1. You want to start with a good idea of what your looking for in your design. Whether you already have a logo or need help creating a funny t shirt design we need to know what color your wanting the design or prints to be as well as the color of the garment you need.
2. We need to get an idea of how many pieces your looking to have done, as well as if your looking for the Name brands , somewhere in the middle or the most affordable.
3. Once you know what you want as far as your design , all around color choices, garment styles , and quantity then we can put together some options and pricing for the type of order your looking to place.
4. Once we have your estimate together and you're ready to move forward with the invoice we will send your invoice for a final approval to verify all the sizing and colors are correct. Once this is paid we will initiate the processing of the art related tasks and getting together the final art approval mock-ups before finalizing the job and garments into production.
5. From the time of payment its typically 1-3 days depending on complexity to get the art approvals prepared.
6. From art approval is the beginning of the turn around time . (The more clear your art needs are the quicker this is.)
7. Falling into production within 10 business days or less and then finished and boxed ready for pickup or shipped.
8. Everyone high fives and on to the next success !

To put it as simply as possible. 

Standard Turn around is within 10 business days. We offer delivered custom t shirts , hats and banners all within a week delivery although based on your order there is a minimal charge if you need one week service as well as delivery.

Otherwise within 10 business days or less your products will be available for pickup.

If there comes a time where you need 1000 shirts next day.
Please feel free to reach out, while you would have to pay to expedite we can make some crazy things happen .

Ah , well let me stop you there. We do not only offer custom shirts, we offer a TON of custom printed products.
On our home page we have a link with two different catalogs.

As far as the types of custom shirts our most common shirts are going to be Jerzees, Gildan , Port & Company, Next Level, Bella Canvas, and American Apparel .

Whether you need shirts that your outdoor crew will wear out next month , or your team of golf buddies wants a premium tee with water based inks .

We do that.

1. 1. The QUANTITY that your ordering is one of the largest factors due to the amount of pre and post work that goes into just getting ready to do 1 shirt. You can think of it like if you were a baker and you had every other person wants a CUSTOM cupcake... it makes sense to make more than just a single cup cake at a time.
   2. The LOCATIONS or more so the amount of locations you want decorated, if you think of doing the front , the back and a sleeve of the shirt.
      That takes a set up and a screen for each location, which means a clean up and break down for each screen as well as stacking re stacking and loading the same shirts over and over.
   3. The COLORS you plan to use play a large factor in your pricing in the sub 100 piece orders. Once you get over that the setup time and break down and clean up is spread across more pieces and becomes much less per piece.
   4. STYLE ultimately the style of the shirt will be huge.
      Some people want the $5 blank shirt and some people want the $10 blank.

Screen Printing starts with a stretched mesh that comes in various sized openings. As in 156 mesh or 156 cross hairs per strand per square inch mesh vs a 305 mesh (305 strands cross per sq inch) would be good for larger area graphics, while the 305 would be better for the higher detail or halftone style graphics.

These Meshes are stretched on a multitude of different screen sizes and shapes some in the 10+ feet but for the most use in apparel a 20" x 24"  and 23" x 31" are common sizes.

Once you have a nice stretched mesh upwards of 25+ 30+ Newtons on a wood or aluminium or better a roller frame then you can coat the mesh with an emulsion.

Emulsion is a light sensitive smooth gooey mud so to say that you use a tool known as a scoop coater. and coat the Shirt side of the mesh first and then the ink side of the mesh . After you have the screen coated you place it in a drying cabinet shirt side down for the emulsion to hang and dry on the screen.

When we have that screen dry we need to get our graphics into the screen!
Thankfully for the light sensitive emulsion this is a breeze! Maybe not the art side but say we are just putting the word LOVE on the shirt.
You type it out have it looking good in your graphics program.

We are going to print using a high density black ink on sheets of water proof film. Make sure your using the coated side of the film or the ink will run.

After your image is printed on the film your going to take the film and line it up on your screen according to where your going to print on the shirt.

The film taped onto the screen in the correct location can now be taken to the Exposure Unit!

At the exposure unit we will lay the screen face down and then close the suction blanket lid odwn over the screen. This is so that between the glass the film and them mesh the air is sucked out leaving no space.
So now you can imagine that looking down past the exposure blanket through the screen , then the film , then the glass, we end up at all these strips of a certain wave length LED . You flip the correct TIME setting according to the mesh count you used and hit go.
The Rumble of the air pump sucking the blanket tight starts and the countdown begins.
As soon as pressure is reached the lights activate like ET returning home and the magic is happending !
The lights are takign the dry emulsion and turnign the screen into a fortress.

The light has not match for the dark film though pressed so snugly against the mesh and glass. No light can refract around the edges leaving your screen edges janky! No the 18 seconds pass and the beep tells you its time.

You take up the lid , pull the film off and you take this baby to the dip tank.

PLOP

*lets get the next screen going* While that ones exposing we pull the other screen from the dip tank and place into our wash out booth.

We pull out the 1600 electric PSI pressure washer and about 18 inches away with pressure , we BLAST it. up and down all around both sides. and then look at it up close. (Conveniently the back light helps us see if anything else might need rinsed away. )

If it looks all good we set it to the side to dry and keep moving.

Once you have a screen dry, you can tape all 4 inside edges with some low tack screen tape.

Take the film and line up the film where you want it to print on your board.
Then you take your screen in the head and align that to your film . Once set lock it in place , add your ink and grab your squeegee your almost there, dont forget a test T!

So you lined up your shirt on the board and pull odwn your screen to print, you want to have used your squeegee to flood the ink or drag your squeegee across the print area to flood the ink into the print. Not with pressure but enough to move your ink .

Now your ready to print and you get the choice to push or pull. This is what determines your fate. So take the plunge here and then look at your results.

After you have successfully screen printed, you need to cure the ink depending on which type of ink your using.

From there you need to use old shirts, rags or my favorite baby wipes to wipe down your squeegee and tools to clean up.
Using some Ink degradent you can wipe up the inks in the screens before taking them to be reclaimed.

Once all the ink out and its time to remove the emulsion you use a two step scrub rinse repeat to remove the emulsion and then the haze left behind.

You now have printed a T shirt and cleaned up your screen

The simplest way to think about it is on a computer when you zoom in on a photo its compiled of pixels.
This would be raster based.

A Vector is going to be how the computer sees the mathematical curves to the design so in shrinking or expanding the design you do not blur edges or lose detail.

Most customers need to get there logo on a vector file to get printing done, and then at some point want embroidery done and then need there digitizing file.

1. 1. First is the industry standard PLASTISOL this is the ink you can feel sitting on top of your shirt, and in some cases with a bad print can be rough or heavy. These type prints are not typically the most appealing for Heavy coverage work . This is the go to ink.
   2. Our favorite yet less appreciated in this region as of yet would be Discharge or water based prints! Water Base is going to be little to no hand and Discharge is literally no hand as its job is to redye specifically cotton fibers the color of the print so they breath so well.
   3. Mainly the star in the sports or performance wear is Silicone Ink printing. This has a feel like the title and can have some amazing coverage on the right products. With the ability to stretch 400% and snap back to its amazing looking print the options are wide !

Artwork Help Page

Oh yeah.

We can even do different colors of garments, just the print would need to stay the same color to avoid color changes or in some cases needing additional screen colors to make up for say a black shirt using the black of shirt in a black white and blue design.
Yet we plan to throw it on red shirts too so now we need to print the black.. More separations , more screens and more setups.

How are we supposed to know?

I am kidding we will do our best here to provide as many resources as possible, be aware though this is your custom order what you decide is what you get.

Please take a look at this page to get an idea of the basic garments and sizing.

Yes we do, we can help set your team up with a fan gear page, or set you up with a simple order form . Depending on the need and order sizes will determine what we need to put together.

You can put in a request here.
Contact Page - Feedback or Questions

So with our current press we are capable of up to 6 colors plus one for our flash unit to flash cure the ink between colors.

Although in putting 6 screens and 6 colors on the press if the artwork and separations are layered correctly you can make a wide range past 6 visible colors.

Its all in the art and setup, but we cab achieve some wonderful prints with this press!