Eliminating overspray before it happens-Help Needed.

[worldofglasscraft]

I wanted to do a themed t-shirt based on the Thrift Shop Song for my grandson.
The t-shirt is a £1 childs school shirt from ASDA(WallMart) I sprayed it with GAC900 to seal it first and heat pressed it with my iron.
I used a stencil and sprayed yellow (G.S' fav colour) it bled so I sprayed it black. Long story short It was a screw up to be thrown away.
The wife gave me a bad time about wasting money throwing my mistakes away. (apparently I see more mistakes than others might see) so I washed it.

Seeing as my lettering is none existent I had the idea of trying to have a go at doing a freehand fill without a stencil.
Medea Textile Black, reduced 50/50 with the extender base, sprayed at 45psi.
I don't think for the first layer I did that bad.

But, l got some overspray around some of the letters as can be seen.
Now I know that I will now have to tidy up the overspray using a 50/50 reduced white
(Medea Textile white is a pig and I recently learned that it is best used reduced like crazy)
I plan to paint a big red heart or something similar on top of the letters to hide some of the mistakes after the white goes down.
I appreciate that I'm a airbrush noob but when I have seen a T-shirt Pro, like the street vendors and the guys on here, you never see them have the same problem and they are probably using 55-65 psi doing a t-shirt in about 8 minutes.
Are there any other basic precautions or tips on overspray reduction that I can use to master my overspray problem and improve my work please?

Thanks for reading
regards
Tony

 

[Mr.Micron]

Spray shields help a lot. Even when doing lettering.
Most time on any lettering I will use some type of spray shield even if it is just my hand.
But the last t-shirt I did I actually treated it more like a canvas painting , I used Wicked colors. reduced down to where I could run at 20 PSI or less at time and than use the heat press here at work to set the paint.
so far it has been washed over 100 times and has not fade on me .

 

[worldofglasscraft]

I didn't think of using any type of sheild Herb, thanks for the idea.
As I said, my lettering is non existant and is something I will need to practice but colour fills could be on anything so I will look at what shields would be appropriate,do you make your own somehow?

 

[Mr.Micron]

I didn't think of using any type of sheild Herb, thanks for the idea.
As I said, my lettering is non existant and is something I will need to practice but colour fills could be on anything so I will look at what shields would be appropriate,do you make your own somehow?

Cereal boxes , mylar , printer paper what ever I can find I can make a shield out of . xacto blade, scissors , ripping it . depending on the effect or edge I need for what I am working on.

 

[Madbrush]

Herb seems to have it covered, but just to add to that, try keeping your stencils or shields tight on the material, also try to keep your airbrush closer to your work, the closer you are, the tighter your spray pattern, therefore the less your over-spray will be, it's a night mare but you will get there.

I actually like the effect you have on the first photo, it looks deliberate and planned, I cant remember where I saw it, but I saw letters similar to this which were distressed and had bullet holes around them, I thought that was cool, although maybe not for a child.

 

[worldofglasscraft]

Thanks Madbrush, that effect was achieved by heat setting with a hair dryer, not hear setting the top coat cos you realise you made a real big mistake and then washing the t-shirt thru the washing machine to try and remove the paint
I'll try getting the brush closer, maybe this year I can stick at practicing but my work space is subject to the weather :-(

 

[wickedartstudio]

I agree with Madbrush, working closer to the shirt will reduce the overspray. Working faster will also reduce the overspray, especially when doing lettering. That's how the pros do it. Freehand lettering takes a lot of practice to master, but speed and fluid movement is what makes it look so good!

 

[worldofglasscraft]

Well, I finished the shirts.
The yellow one was painted, had bleed so I put some t-shirt vinyl over the top to make a drop shadow effect.
The black lettered one, I painted a huge pink heart over it. Got one coat of pink on and that was enough for my 3 year old granddaughter.
They love them, apart from my grandson had me put a dinosaur on the back with Jet Pro Soft Stretch. !!
Here is a picture of the finished result. They are pleased and that's all that matters.