Dressing/Threading a Garment on a Heat Press

Dressing a garment on a heat press will help to remove any interference with pockets, buttons & zippers.

There are times in your t shirt printing business when heat pressing transfers that the garment doesn’t lay perfectly flat on the heat press such as a hoodie. Or you may come across that you need to apply a transfer on one side of the garment but there is a seam on the other side that is causing you not to have a flat surface such as a pocket t-shirt. There is a simple solution for this and it is called dressing or threading.

To dress or thread the garment means to put the bottom platen between the shirt or hooded sweatshirt so that just one layer of fabric is on the press instead of laying the garment down flat. This is just like putting a t-shirt on a mannequin only pretend the body is the bottom platen. Most likely the shirt will be on the heat press with the neck close to you.

The reason to slip the garment around the platen is to remove the interference of pockets, buttons, zippers, etc. Some common times to thread the garment is when heat printing screen printed transfers on the back of hoodies, polos, and pocket t-shirts.