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FEBRUARY 2017 images 63
When you’re just starting out
as a screen printer, there are
many different skills you need
to master and one of the
trickiest is not related to the actual print-
ing itself. The question on every newbie
screen printer’s mind is: “How do I get the
shirt straight on the pallet?”
The painful truth is, it just takes prac-
tice. You’ll be better at loading shirts after
you’ve loaded 10 shirts. After 100. After
10,000. Some would even say it takes
loading 10,000 shirts to truly master the
loading technique, but we think that’s a
little extreme. There’s a method to the
madness that is shirt-loading, and with
some simple tips you can master the art
of loading a shirt on the pallet straight and
quickly. Every time.
Choose up or down
First things first, you have to grab the
shirt correctly. Some screen printers like
to grab the T-shirts face up (tag up) and
some like to grab them face down (tag
down). This is entirely up to you, but you
have to know which one you like best. So,
try both, pick one and practise.
Don’t trust the centre crease
Some shirts come from the manufactur-
er with a crease or line down the centre
of the garment, which may lead you to
believe that this line is some kind of be-
nevolent tool left there to guide you into
perfect shirt loading. Wrong. While this
line does run down the centre of the gar-
ment, it’s actually a result of the process
used to make the T-shirt and not a true
centre. Rule of thumb: use it to guide you,
but do not trust it blindly.
going to have an incredibly difficult time
loading and adjusting your shirts properly.
We suggest ditching the spray adhesives
and going with a water-based pallet ad-
hesive. These kinds of adhesive allow you
to apply it once at the beginning of your
print run and get just the right amount of
adhesive, lasting long past just one run of
shirts. Enough adhesive will prevent the
shirts from moving when you smooth them
down with your hands after alignment. Too
much adhesive will stick your shirt down
without pressure and make it unmovable
for the rocking adjustment.
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Master the rocking motion
There may be lots of ways to grab the
shirt, but there’s really only one sure-fire,
fast way to load it on the platen: the rock-
ing motion. To do this, you pick up the
shirt from the bottom, making the fabric
tight between your hands. Then you rock
the shirt forward onto the platen and drop
it with the collar snugly up against the
top of the platen. As you rock your body
back, let your hands slide back with you
and grab the shoulder seams to pull back
and centre your shirt. Using the shoulder
seams is the only way to tell a true centre.
You want the space between the shoulder
seams on both sides to be equal. If it’s not,
then it’s not centred. Master this and you’ll
be rocking shirts on and off effortlessly
with perfect alignment in no time.
Be careful with the adhesive
Adding adhesive to the platen is crucial for
keeping garments from slipping around
when you are screen printing. However,
there’s a distinction between too much and
not enough pallet adhesive. If you’re spray-
ing new adhesive every single time you
reload a shirt, that’s too much and you’re
HOWTO LOADA
SHIRT LIKE A PRO
Perfect your shirt loading skills and technique with these top tips
from Ryonet and Bella+Canvas
Thanks to San Ferdinand, European sales and marketing at Bella+Canvas,
for her kind permission to reprint this article. San notes that Bella+Canvas
garments have a tight knit face and smooth surface, making them ideal
for screen printing. Screen printing guidelines for every fabric the compa-
ny produces can be found in the back of the 2017 catalogue.
More screen printing advice is available on the Ryonet blog
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Loading on an
automatic press
The process of loading a shirt is the
same on an automatic presses as it
is on a manual; however, on an auto
you can also incorporate the use of
the peddle. Pressing the peddle on an
auto pauses the press; you can use
this to give you sufficient time to load
a shirt.
As you begin the rocking forward
motion with the shirt, press your foot
down on the peddle to pause the
press; as you rock back, lift your foot
off the peddle to allow the press to
resume its rotation and bring the next
open platen into the loading position.
Practice makes perfect when it comes to mastering your shirt loading technique
You’ll be
rocking shirts
on and off
effortlessly with
perfect alignment
in no time
KB
TIPS & TECHNIQUES