Direct to Garment on Flatbed

[documat]

Has anyone attempted to print to a t-shirt (or other fabrics) on their flatbed? If so, any recommendations for smooth production would be appreciated.

I currently own a Oce 250 GT and have some interest in doing short-term / event-day promotional graphics on t-shirts and possibly other garments. I also have a Gerber M3000 router that I thought would be good to cutout a "template" for the t-shirt fit on and stay in place. Thoughts?

 

[ksc]

Flat Bed or roller table?

 

[FrankenSigns.biz]

The inks would just bleed through the clothing.

 

[Typestries]

it works, on our Gandi printer. It has a vacuum table - we made a platen out of scrap coroplast. I would not use it for a client, but for in house stuff, event promos for friends and family, and goofing around, it does work. Holds up well in the wash, too.

 

[jdigital]

I agree with Rick. It will work depending on the machine. I tried it on our Zund 215+ flatbed before it was demolished and it worked great. The downfall was the colors weren't as vibrant as screen printing but it did hold up

 

[cmpginc]

We printed on a bed sheet for one of our employees on our Mimaki JF-1631. He wanted a large cheap banner for his daughter's coming home from iraq. I took a picture of her in her uniform and photoshopped a decent looking image with a flag in the back and text. It didn't bleed through and actually looked really good! It got a lot of attention from the other parents and troops because it was pretty much the largest cleanest "banner" there. It is not something that'll be washed so not sure how it'll hold up. I intend to try a t-shirt sometime soon and will try and post the results.

 

[econolinesigns]

We have not done any t-shirts but we have printed on poly/cotton blend fabric we have purchased at a local fabric store. We have done banners this way for both our customers and other small sign shops we do work for. We use a Solara Ion and it works great. We keep an iron at the shop and go from the bag to the printer table, just iron before printing.