DIY T-Shirt Making

Ok  for today’s post I have a fun little DIY project for you. I learned this few years ago and haven’t thought about it recently. It’s a very cheap and easy method for making graphic T-shirts at home for cheap. They are not the prettiest but they are very punk. They make a great advertising tool for your brand so that everyone that sees it has the brand in their heads.Best of all its super easy and cheap. Over the years I’ve played around with printing my own T-shirts. One method I’ve done that works well is spray paint and stencils. Today is more of a punk silk screening. Stick around and I’ll shot you step by step how you can make your own bootleg Survivalpunk shirt. Don’t worry I wont sue!

Plans Fail, Have Backup’s

This post has actually been sitting in the draft section unfinished since April! I originally tried this with the spray paint method and the old SP logo. Short of the apocalypse everything went wrong. The paint wouldn’t stick, the stencils came out wrong, on one I even spelled Punk wrong (switched the N and the K, sigh…) So I scrapped the project and forgot about it. This time I tried a new method I half based on an Instructable and half I made up. I’m assuming my half was the problem, or my impatience. In either case I tried an impromptu printing method after the first one fell through. I figured the second one would fail as well but am pretty happy with the results and have some improvements for you.

 

Keep it simple Survivalpunk’s

If you look at the instructable link you will see they used stretched nylon for their “silk” screen. I figured a window screen and modge podge would work just as well. Not so much. The holes in the window screen are too big to work. Also it takes too long to dry. For the method I used and that worked I ended up using the window screen but simply for pressure.

 

First we’re going to need something to make a shirt out of. I’m using the Survivalpunk Logo. I’m am linking to it in case you want to make one along with me. My logo in this form is actually terrible to make a stencil out of. Check out this page for a tutorial on making better ones.

To make the survivalpunk shirt were going to need to print out two of the logos. On one just cut out the head on the other cut out the entire logo leaving behind a silhouette. It’s this two part stencil that adds the extra difficulties.

To print the shirt I placed the stencils directly onto the shirt where I wanted them. Next take your screen and carefully place over the stencil and use clamps to hold into place.Squeeze your shirt paint onto the screen and use a plastic scrapper to spread the paint around. I lightly spread it then pressed down hard and even to make sure I was not moving the stencil. Once I had covered the whole stencil and couldn’t see any of the shirt I removed the clamps and pulled off the stencils. Be careful when removing not to get paint outside the stencil.

After I pulled off the stencil I used my heat gun to speed up the drying process. The impatient thing again.

Thoughts and Improvements

I’ll admit I was impressed with how crisp the edges were. The spikes of the hair are pointy and sharp. This was a proof of concept more than a working process. The paper stencils are really only good for one print. If you use acrylic sheets to make your stencils it will be a permanent solution. The the future though I really am working on getting legit T-shirts made for sale so you can all sport Survivalpunk swag. Until then and even after go make your own. Give them to all your family for Christmas. I mean who doesn’t want a Survivalpunk Shirt?

Get out there and start making some shirts. Maybe we can do a shirt swap to spread our designs. Let me know what you think in the comments. If your super lazy and want one of these lemme know we’ll see what we can do.

 

Today’s article brought to you by the great folks over at Survivalgearbags.com home to all your Bug out bag and tactical needs. Help support Survivalpunk by supporting the great folks at Survival Gear bags.