Applying pretreatment

Pretreatment Video from Ricoh DTG on Vimeo.

Dilute the PowerBright Pretreatment Liquid with a 2:1 ration amount of distilled water, 2 parts pretreatment: 1 part water.

Fill the sprayer reservoir with the mixture. It is very important to use distilled water as city water, well water or filtered water may have mineral content that can affect the performance of the pre-treatment.

Lay down the garment on a flat spray table. Make the garment even and flat.

Apply the pre-treatment mix with the sprayer.

Apply an adequate and even amount to where the material has an even wet sheen.

Remember you only need to apply the pretreatment to the areas that will be printed on.

Going in only one direction use a plastic squeegee to help spread the pre-treatment evenly after spraying. This also flattens any fabric fibers that may have risen due to the application of the wet pre-treatment.

Dry the garment, you can achieve an excellent result by letting the garments air dry or you can use a heat press in the hover position (This means the heat press is not closed but has a 1 to 1/2 inch gap to allow the steam to escape), blow dryer or a heat tunnel.

Do not dry your garments in a tumble dryer. These dryers are full of lint and since the pretreatment is wet and somewhat sticky you will end up with lint stuck to the pre-treatment. Once the garment is dry to the touch you can print on it.

If you plan on storing the garments for later use, be sure that they are completely dry beforehand to prevent mildew. When first attempting the pretreatment process test with a few shirts to determine how much to spray.

Too much pretreatment can leave dark areas on the garments.

Too little pretreatment can make the prints look dull.

The performance of white ink is highly dependent on proper application of pre-treatment.

Ricoh DTG offers Pre-Mixed Pretreatment if you do not wish to dilute your own pretreatment.