QUICK TIP OCTOBER 23, 2015 BY TERRY COMBS

Pretreatment Methods for DTG – Best to Worse If it’s in your budget, buy an automatic pretreat machine. This will give you consistency with this critical step in the process. Be sure to check max pretreat area matches the potential print area of your DTG machine. Also check that the spraying process is completely enclosed. If not, be sure to spray away from your DTG machine.

• Wagner hand-held paint sprayer. This method has served many thousands of DTG operations for many years. It can be messy and takes practice to get a consistent even coating, but on a budget will do the trick. Be sure to spray in another room away from your printer.
• Pretreat coated sheets are an idea that makes sense, but currently it’s expensive, gives you little to no control over the amount of pretreat being applied, and it’s time consuming with cold pressing of the sheet and garment, and then hot pressing.
• The paint roller method was an experiment several years ago to keep from spraying pretreatment into the air with a Wagner sprayer. This method lays down far too much pretreat, is time-consuming, and requires long cleanup and waste of the pretreat solution left in the roller.
• Spraying pretreat from a squeeze spray bottle. It is incredibly difficult to lay down a constant and consistent lay down of pretreat on the shirt using a hand-operated spray bottle.