12-04-2002, 03:46 AM
Ronin,
As someone who prints shirts for a living, take my advice and be careful doing this. All heat-on transfers you make will only work on white tees. The color from any other type of tee shirt will bleed though and you won't be able to see your image, or the color will be way off. This really rings true with a design that has white in it, since your printer does not print in white.
There are ways to put transfers on color shirts, but you can't really find them in a staples. Also, even, hard pressure works the best, so if you try this don't use a wobbly ironing board as the surface you put the shirt on. The usual heat for this process is 375degrees at 16 seconds of hard pressure.
If you can find a place near you that does this try taking it to them. Any screen printer, or sporting goods store that sells custom jerseys for whole teams has the press to do this. It basically is like a giant iron. The difference between that and the one at your house is that they can get a more accurate temperature reading from it and press on the whole design at once, ensuring heavy, even pressure. This will prevent any inconsistencies in color associated with uneven heating or pressure.
Usually if they are cool, they will let you bring the transfer in and charge you like $10 for the cost of the shirt and applying it to the shirt. Just remember to mirror the image from left to right before you print it, or any text you have will come out backwards.
As someone who prints shirts for a living, take my advice and be careful doing this. All heat-on transfers you make will only work on white tees. The color from any other type of tee shirt will bleed though and you won't be able to see your image, or the color will be way off. This really rings true with a design that has white in it, since your printer does not print in white.
There are ways to put transfers on color shirts, but you can't really find them in a staples. Also, even, hard pressure works the best, so if you try this don't use a wobbly ironing board as the surface you put the shirt on. The usual heat for this process is 375degrees at 16 seconds of hard pressure.
If you can find a place near you that does this try taking it to them. Any screen printer, or sporting goods store that sells custom jerseys for whole teams has the press to do this. It basically is like a giant iron. The difference between that and the one at your house is that they can get a more accurate temperature reading from it and press on the whole design at once, ensuring heavy, even pressure. This will prevent any inconsistencies in color associated with uneven heating or pressure.
Usually if they are cool, they will let you bring the transfer in and charge you like $10 for the cost of the shirt and applying it to the shirt. Just remember to mirror the image from left to right before you print it, or any text you have will come out backwards.