Screen Print Vs Vinyl Heat Press

However screen printing is perfect for bulk orders 12 or more because you don t need to change the setup from shirt to shirt.

Screen print vs vinyl heat press.

You can either heat press vinyl often colored onto garments or heat press a digital print onto the apparels. That s due to the fact that the set up time is little relative to that of screen printing. Vinyl printing actually depends on two things and this includes a combination of pressure and heat. If the design is complicated then several stencils and several inks are necessary.

A heat press is a machine that presses a design onto a material. 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. Vinyl printing is generally reserved for small runs 1 12 items because it takes less time to set up than screen printing. Screen printing is the process of cutting screens to make a big stencil of a design.

With the vinyl heat transfer process a machine is used to cut out designs and letters in pieces of colored vinyl. A heat press is then used to transfer each vinyl color of the design onto the object being printed. Longer turn around time if many colors are used. Coated fabrics cannot be screen printed.

Time consuming to set up and clean. 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. In this method real screens are required. So for each additional color a new screen will need to be used.

Not the best option if your design consists of several colors. With digital print heat transfer the desired graphic is first digitally printed on special heat transfer paper using a solvent ink. Only one screen can be used per color. However this method is much slower than screen printing as each t shirt needs its own set up.

Ink is then spread over the screen and the ink then only goes onto the garment where you want it to. The heat press uses a combination of heat and heavy pressure to apply the vinyl to garments. Common kinds of heat transfer printing include vinyl heat transfer and digital print heat transfer. Screen printing for example demands the stencils and ink for every design.

Probably the most significant difference between heat press and screen printing is the speed on which they print.