Canon LP17 For Screen Printing T-Shirts

Screen Printing T-Shirts has been around for many years now but the process hasn't really evolved from the traditional methods of a screen, film and inks to produce your design.

Even these days we use the same tools to screen print; these are the basics as the man power to produce the print is one major element that has improved over the years with the invention of the automatic press. We are so used to manually pulling squeegees across screens, with some printers still using this technique but you can now purchase man made machines which makes this job a lot easier.

M&R, MHM are the two main competitors out there, over the years they have developed some amazing machinery that can print from 8 - 12+ T-Shirts at a time (you won't look like Popeye anymore, more like Homer Simpson when screen printing your t-shirts) all the hard physical work has been taken away and replaced by technology.

Things are changing within the industry of screen printing and there is always something new being launched one of these being 'direct to garment' printers, one day screens will become extinct and computers will control the world.

This brings me to the point of the article which is the Canon LP17 and why you should be using this for producing films.

Screens are made by converting you digital artwork from the computer to a positive film type paper which is then used to expose your screen. There are many methods you can use to produce these, before computers a lot of screen printers produced their films by hand by drawing the designs with a light resistant pen so that it blocks light passing through the film to expose the screens.

You then had the method of 'chemical based' systems which worked like camera film in a photograph lab but these where very expensive, time consuming and not environmentally friendly. A company called 'OYO' then produced a dry based system which was an image setter, this burned the image onto film and until recently this was the method I used. I found with this method there was shrinkage with the films meaning the registration marks didn't align.

With this I decided to trail the net and find out what other printers were using, after many forums and blogs I came across a company called 'Revolution Transfers' which specialise in large format printers. As soon as I mentioned I was a screen printer immediately they recommended the Canon LP17. This amazing printer has to be the best investment I've made to help me run my screen printing company.

It's ink based but compared to the image setter this is a god send, the reg-marks are perfect every time and the clarity in the print is amazing with solid blacks which are great for blocking out the light and achieving clean crisp screens. The inks used are a mixture of pigment & dye based this is how the printer achieves the deep blacks. I use the printer for solid spot design but also full colour simulated process where I'm achieving some amazing half tone detail with photographic images being represented as they appear on paper onto T-Shirts. The bonus about the printer is the fact it still has the CMY meaning when you don't use this for films you can print posters, banners and even you family photos on many types of media.

I though the consumables were going to be expensive but I've found that inks are around £40 each and film is around £80 a roll. The only expensive part is the print head which is about £350 and lasts around2 years, there's also a maintenance tank but this is only £40 and last 3 months.

You can shop around to get better prices on films but I've found the supplier has reasonable prices.

The speed of the Printer is faster than I thought, obviously there's ink that needs to go down on the film but I can produce a A3 solid area in about 3-4 minutes whilst my image setter produced this in 40 seconds, I guess this is a negative point but in my eyes the quality and no reg-mark problems makes up for this.

The software used with the printer is called 'Filmgate' which is RIP software and is the easiest software I've used with a printer. There are some technical setups to begin with but Jan from revolution transfers handles this and offers phone support. Filmgate gives you so much control like dot gain, previews of the films and multiple copies without re-sending the file. There are many more detailed features available but I've found you don't need this for the purpose of the printer.

I can't stress how good this printer is, I've been running it for 3 years now and changed 1 head but I can say this has saved money compared to the image setter where a lot of screens had to be remade due to reg-mark problems. If you need any more details or would like to use a t shirt screen printer in the UK why not visit my website www.screenworks.co.uk.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_O_Porter

Screen Printing Clothing Vs Embroidered Clothing

Screen Printing & Embroidery are mainly used for promotional clothing so choosing the best process to promote your company is a very important decision. They both have their advantages and disadvantages but either choose has a massive impact on potential customers.

The process of screen printing

There are many factors when it comes to screen printing, the artwork, the screens and the machines your t-shirts are printed on. Firstly we have to produce the artwork which is created in Adobe Illustrator and is known as Vector, this is then printed onto film which gets exposed on the light table.

Screens are made up of many types of meshes from a 43 which allows a heavier deposit of ink to a 120 which puts a minimum deposit of ink down for finer detailed designs, emulsion is placed onto these meshes and then the film placed on top. These are both placed under the exposure unit to expose. The film blocks the light allowing the surrounding emulsion to cure whilst the covered area breaks down, the screen is then rinsed and ready for print.

Depending on your design this process can be done 1-12 times to produce screens for an individual job so setting up a job can be very time consuming. The screens are spun automatically around the machine in sequence whilst the squeegee pulls the ink across the screen depositing the ink onto the shirt. All colours are put down wet on wet unless we have dark shirts where a flash cure unit is used to dry the base before proceeding to the next colour. Once all the colours are completed the shirt is then taken off and placed through the dryer and there you have it a printed t-shirt.

The process of embroidery

Embroidery consists of two processes firstly you need your design digitised using embroidery software (Wilcom) this coverts the artwork into a format the machines can recognise and replicate the design into stitches onto your garments, Once completed this can be loaded into an embroidery machine (SWF) ready for sewing.

The time for processing the design can take 10 minutes to run; most manufactures machines have eight heads which enables multiple production runs.

The machine has a start point so wherever the designer has located this depends on how the image was created, most images are produced in layers and work backwards depending on the garment type. Each element is stitched with its specified colour which is taken from the industries standard (Madeira) threads with a maximum of 12 colours per head.

Whilst we have discussed the processes we haven't spoken about the advantages and disadvantages of screen printing and embroidery.

The major advantage between them both is speed, whilst screen printing has alot of stages to produce the screen once complete the process is minimal with some companies producing around 20,000 t-shirts a day. Embroideries downfall is the digitising, most designs are small but when you have an intricate design this can take hours to digitise and when complete only a maximum of 8 designs can be produced at one time.

Last ability is a major issue as screen printing is the choice when comparing with digital transfers but when it comes to embroidery this wins hands down. Screen Printing is produced by using inks so after time and many washes the inks start to deteriorate, this is alot slower than transfers but faster than embroidery threads losing their colour. Embroidery is the perfect choice for corporate wear as these can be washed at high temperatures and multiple times.

Cost effectiveness is the most important issue for most people as applying these techniques to clothing isn't cheap. The majority of the cost comes down to the design, if you have a small left breast 1 colour design this will be roughly the same cost, if you look at the other end of the scale and the design is large with multiple colours, screens become very expensive and programmes can have thousands of stitches. These two basically level out but setups on Print can cost 240 pounds and embroidery programmes around 120 pounds.

My personal opinion on this topic is that screen printing achieves more effectiveness for promotional clothing when trying to sell a product and embroidery suits corporate clothing but overall the both have their advantages and disadvantages.

If you would like to some more information on these two types of processes why not visit Screenworks they offer very competitive prices and offer many other services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_O_Porter