Impressions - September 2020 - 17

DIRECT-TO-GARMENT

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Faster production speeds
Availability of pre-pretreated shirts
The use of conveyor dryers for curing

Where DTG Stands
Pretreatment solution has progressed in recent years from a stiff
and sometimes-yellow chemical on the garment to a thinner,
clearer solution. It's available for dark-colored shirts (requiring a white
underbase), as well as white and light-colored shirts (no white ink).
The purpose of pretreatment is to cause the ink to begin curing
on the shirt's surface before the fabric absorbs it. This is similar to
the way a screen printer prints a white underbase and flashes the
ink before applying the other colors. Pretreatment causes the ink to
"flash" on the garment's surface.
You can pretreat a white or pastel shirt when printing CMYK
inks only, but it's not required. Pretreating these garments will yield
brighter, crisper images and better washability.
Most DTG decorators today regard automatic pretreatment
machines as equally as important as the printer and heat press or
conveyor dryer. Most decorators have forsaken the pump bottle, paint
roller and power sprayer in favor of an automatic pretreatment machine.
Uniformity of application and cleanliness are the primary reasons.
Pretreating shirts via any method that results in inconsistent application on the fabric surface will result in equally inconsistent prints. In
other words, the amount of pretreatment and the consistency across
the entire image area will impact the finished print.
Print heads used in the early days of the DTG process were built
for printing on paper and for a different ink chemistry. This caused
some clogging issues, and still is an issue today with machines that
are manufactured as repurposed paper printers. However, most of
today's machines now feature print heads specifically built for use
with DTG's water-based textile inks.
Ink developments, specifically those concerning white ink, have
improved the reliability of DTG printers. The titanium dioxide used
as a pigment is better suspended in today's white ink, resulting in
fewer solids settling and, therefore, less head clogging.
Faster production times make DTG printing more competitive
with other decoration methods. Using multiple printers to increase
productivity is becoming more common as well. Garments now are
available that arrive at your shop already pretreated. In the not-sodistant past, these shirts didn't print well; today, they print as if you
pretreated the shirt yourself.
Heat presses were, for many years, the norm when curing DTGprinted garments, and most decorators still use them for that
purpose. But conveyor dryers are becoming an increasingly popular
option - especially if you have more than one DTG printer. Once a
decorator adds a fourth or fifth printer, it's also common to upgrade
to a conveyor dryer.

Considerations for Adding DTG
Nearly all garment decorators are living and working in a new
world where consumers want custom products in low quantities,
and they want them now. Even professional buyers are approaching

Hybrid DTG Printing
Combining screen and DTG printing has been a
dream pursuit since the process's early days.
Today, it's becoming more of a reality. One
recent innovation has been the introduction
of printing with plastisol inks on a screenprinting press before applying the DTG print.
In the past, only water-based inks were effective in this hybrid process.
The craft of full-color, photographic images
being printed using screens may be disappearing.
While many screen printers can produce beautiful, photographic images on colored garments,
developments in DTG decorating - combined with
screen printing - may make this technology
obsolete.

Pretreating a dark-colored shirt will
cause the white underbase to begin
curing from the fabric surface and
upward, and keeps the white ink
on top of the garment.

garment decorators and asking for multiple shorter runs instead
of larger-scale production because they don't want to carry large
decorated-apparel inventories; instead, they want decorators to act as
a "warehouse" that carries their goods. For some of these customers,
you will need the ability to produce in an on-demand environment.
Consider the following when evaluating whether to add DTG to
your decoration options:
* Are you leaving money on the table by turning away
shorter-run work?
* Do you want to have an online e-commerce presence?
* Are you working with a less-skilled labor pool since the training is less complex?
People were wary of DTG technology in its early days. But after
seeing the digital method become established and then flourish, many
screen printers began to realize just how many orders they turned
away because of minimums.
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Impressions - September 2020

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