Heat Press vs. Iron: Which is better?

Heat press vs. iron: Which is better?

Which is better for your t-shirt printing business, the heat press or the ordinary iron? It might be a no-brainer to say that the heat press is better since it is a piece of equipment developed especially for businesses like t-shirt printing.

The household iron, on the other hand, is useful if all you need to do is to press a design onto a t-shirt.

Difference between Heat Press & Iron

The Heat Press

The heat press is a vital piece of equipment for transferring designs or images on fabrics such as t-shirts. To carry out this t-shirt printing technique, you need first to print the image or to draw on a special transfer paper. Afterward, you apply the printed design onto the t-shirt using a heat press.

What makes the heat press printing technique so effective is the combination of pressure and heat that is used to embed the printed image to the fabric. Furthermore, the heat press must be set at the required temperature to ensure that you have sufficient heat to do the job. The timer is also required so you can set the time for the design to be transferred to the t-shirt.

The main advantage of using the heat press for t-shirt printing is its effectiveness with intricate designs. It is quite suitable for intricate designs that have multiple colors. The heat transfer is also long-lasting on the t-shirt.

Using a heat press to transfer prints to t-shirts and other garments is relatively easy to do. The heat press works quite well with complicated designs and usually produces high-quality results; the heat press also allows for full-color outputs.  The main disadvantages are that this method is slower than other t-shirt printing methods. It is also not suitable for fabrics that are heat sensitive.

The iron

Now let us look at the iron:

The household iron can be used to apply a printed design to any t-shirt as long as the design is printed on transfer paper. For best results, the iron must be set on dry and not steam settings. You will also need to heat the iron so that you can press the design on the t-shirt.  Of course, without the kind of temperature settings carried by heat presses, you would have to judge for yourself the heat setting most appropriate for the transfer you want to make.

While the heat press operates with a combination of heat and pressure, the iron uses heat, but you must exert your energy to press the design evenly onto the t-shirt. 

The iron is handy for small heat transfer jobs and is not suitable for large and bulk orders. In a typical t-shirt printing business, the iron is hardly the tool used for producing plenty of high-quality printed t-shirts.

Conclusion

You can see for yourself that a comparison between the heat press and the iron to determine which is better for t-shirt printing seems hardly fair.  The heat press will emerge as the clear favorite for anyone wishing to enter a full-fledged t-shirt printing business. Sure, for smaller tasks the iron may be a convenient choice. While both the heat press and the iron have their strengths, they also have weaknesses. For example, the heat press is a more robust option for large orders of complicated designs but can be a little slow to churn out products.  The iron is a convenient option for smaller jobs that do not require much to accomplish. The quality of its output depends heavily on the skill of the person using it. Ultimately, if you were to choose between the heat press and the iron, it depends on what you want to achieve in your t-shirt printing project.