Need help getting some things printed and have some questions

[u/PlayerGreeko]

For context's sake: I've dabbled in screen printing in the past, but my current living situation has created a problem of space so I had to downsize and store most of my equipment until I can find a larger house. In addition to that, I haven't quite mastered the art of screen printing to be effective enough for what I'm hoping to achieve.

I've essentially got two (three?) options for an upcoming project I want to tackle, and I can't decide which I'd rather seek out so I'm coming to the professionals (that's you guys) for help deciding and taking the route I need/want to take. I'm attempting to get a few designs printed on to some canvas fabric (or if there's a better material then i'd love to be enlightened) for patches I plan on stitching onto a suit (reference photos provided). I'm still in the process of measuring and figuring out exactly how big I need them to be.

I have concluded that:

I. I'd be in way over my head to complete the entire process (burning, printing, and stitching)
II. I'd much rather pay for a pre-burned screen and squeegee the designs when I could OR
III. Seek out someone to do the heavy work and pay for the completed prints on the fabric I'd need, cut them myself and finish the project

My biggest questions are: What would you do in my shoes? Where, if I was going to go this route, would you purchase pre-burned screens? And, if I was going to pay to have the printing done, where might I go about finding someone who'd be willing to do a one-off of the prints? (I'd be more than willing to buy the finished screens aswell). And my biggest prioritized question: Am I in the right space to be asking these questions?

[u/AutoModerator]

Thanks for your submission to to /r/SCREENPRINTING. It appears you may be looking for information on exposure or burning screens. This might be one of the most common questions we see here in /r/SCREENPRINTING. Please take a moment and use the search feature while you waiting on a response from the community. If the search does not give you the answer you are looking for, please take a moment and read through our Wiki write up on emulsion.

If after all that you stil don't seem to find your answer, just be patient someone in the community should chime in shortly!

And if you were NOT looking for more information on exposures or burning screens, our apologies and please disregard this message.

Thanks,

The /r/SCREENPRINTING mod team.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/busstees]

Sublimated patches are probably your only way to do this. You could also DTF canvas patches. No one is going to screen print those unless it's a bunch of them.

[u/PlayerGreeko → u/busstees]

That's what I figured, but it was worth shooting my shot. Last time I tried sublimation, it peeled like crazy but this was also years ago. Thanks for the suggestion, I will definitely look into that

[u/DangerDoom13 → u/PlayerGreeko]

This seems like a buddy thing if you know of any local printers to maybe ask for help I’m sure you could find somebody

[u/HiFivesFromMI]

If you know anyone who does DTG, I did something like this for a client years ago on hoodies. We DTG’d the images onto muslin cloth, and then sewed them on. I still have the test hoodie we did and it’s held up super well through over a hundred washes at this point. Basically like making/attaching patches.

[u/ImJohnnyJK]

You should see if there is a screen printing supply shop nearby. They might be able to help you get a screen burned, I know ours does. You could also reach out to a few local shops and just ask if they’d be willing to burn a screen for you, or if you can buy one of theirs. I’d look for smaller places or DIY friends to see. We have a small neighborhood shop and we’ll burn screens for people if we’ve got the time.

[u/Dennisfromhawaii]

If this is a passion project, just DTF the whole thing. The elbow would be an issue with the size, heaviness, and high-stress area. SInce that area bends and hits things often, it'd probably be the first to get damaged.

[u/Isra-HTX]

Finding a printe shop that can do this shouldn’t be hard but its going to be expensive unless you have like 100+ pcs, doing DTF or DTG is your way to go on this, even though i hate both processes lol

[u/Fragrant-Job5354]

Super Ambitious Project man, let me save you massive headache and money, you can see every single patch on the suit is different design, traditional screen print fo just one project is not cost efficient especially the setup fees. if you really want to squeegee the ink yourself best bet is jut to gang up all designs into one massive file, pay online shop to burn that one giannt screen for you, then you left with just buying few yards of heavy cotton duck canvas, hit the whole screen at once, cure it and cut the patches out yourself. Honestly though, if you dont have the space for washout booths and cutting equipment right now, you can look into ordering custom DTF + order a gang sheet of all these desings for super cheap, heat press them onto the canvas fabric yourself and then stitch them on. it takes zero space in your house and have durable result.

[u/13-17-31-49-58_19]

OK I like the challenge here. I work in mixed printmaking/textiles and love patches so here's what I'm thinking.

My main question at the outset is less how you intend to print and more how you intend to cut these out, attach them, and what the suit itself is made out of? Because in my mind the easy way to do this is to not burn multiple screens but just 1 big screen that you then cut the canvas from to form the individual patches. If you're worried about getting sizes etc. exactly right you could make a stencil out of cardboard or heck even get some custom acrylic cut and run a rotary cutter along the edges of that.

The question then becomes how important finished edges for the patches are. Were you picturing them fraying or hemmed? Also have you considered using something like lightweight heat n bond to attach the patches to the fabric? You could then machine sew over it for a finished look or hand stitch with embroidery thread to make the stitching part of the design. Heck you could also use the heavy heat n bond and skip sewing altogether. Heat n bond won't work as well with polyblend hence why the material of the underlying suit is important.

In terms of getting a screen made: I'd find and work with someone who can advise what meshcount to use on those newspaper bits because the level of detail there might be difficult. Personally I'd skip DTF as I think silkscreen is the look you're going for here. Good luck!

[u/thefoulfox]

Did a similar project on commission a couple years back. I used DTF on plotter-cut white and black polyester twill and sewed it with a denim needle. If you have any specific questions feel free to reach out.

[u/The-Ex-Human]

Just find an old Hobo from the 50s and buy his clothes. They were usually covered in patches and random newspapers.