You use a machine to cut out letters and designs from colored vinyl and heat press them onto the t shirt to transfer the color to it.
Screen printing vs vinyl heat press.
With digital print heat transfer the desired graphic is first digitally printed on special heat transfer paper using a solvent ink.
Then a heat press is utilized to transfer each piece of vinyl onto the material.
You can have your finished t shirt with little or no clean up.
Vinyl printing actually depends on two things and this includes a combination of pressure and heat.
Vinyl printing is all about heat transfer.
A heat press is then used to transfer each vinyl color of the design onto the object being printed.
Vinyl printing depends on a combination of pressure and heat.
Heat transfer printing on the other hand did not start until the 1940s.
Coated fabrics cannot be screen printed.
So for each additional color a new screen will need to be used.
This doesn t make it a faster overall method though as every shirt still requires individual set up which becomes too time consuming beyond the 12 shirt mark.
This type of ink allows the design to be transferred from the paper to the.
Longer turn around time if many colors are used.
Screen printing vs heat transfer.
Now that you have a general ideal of what they offer it is time to learn about the actual difference between screen printing and heat press.
In this method you need actual screens.
Vinyl is well suited for very small runs which we would consider anything from 1 to 12 shirts this is because the set up time is much quicker than that of screen printing.
Heat transfer vs silk screen printing.
A heat press is a machine that presses a design onto a material.
Not the best option if your design consists of several colors.
With that being said let s look at the pros and cons of each of these methods.
The costs involved are minimal and the set up time in very less.
These designs and letters are done on pieces of coloured vinyl.
Vinyl t shirt printing often know as vinyl heat transfer is a process that involves a machine that cuts out designs and letters.
It was invented by a company known as sato but the heat press machine was only invented in the 80s.
Time consuming to set up and clean.
Screen printing produces better quality printings than heat transfer.
Heat transfer printing is very convenient and the level of detail is better than screen print.
For that we re going over the most critical factors explained by craftsinsider blog such as.